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General Outlook.... VCU is a B team...No post season play showing at this time.. ..The Bills meanwhile continue to cling to a C but are still locked in the PIG pen. They need a win to hold onto their grade and climb out of the sty. Game Preview....This is not the same VCU team that you are use to seeing. One of their starters (Jackson) was injured in the last game and is questionable for tonight's game. The computer is estimating that if he doesn't play you can knock off 6 pts from the spread (making it close to even) and 3 rebs. Jackson also led the team in steals. The other factor here is they don't have a lot of depth. If Jackson is missing, it will be a patchwork lineup. In the last game , VCU managed to eke out a 6 pt win against a La Salle team that is worse than SLU. If we have a decent game tonight, we could take this one Let's take a look at this game's report card.... Report Card.... The card is neutral...3 up and 3 down...2 up on Def and 1 up on Off and 2 down on Off and 1 up on Def. .................SLU............VCU................SLU..........................VCU ...........................OFF..........................................DEF............. PPG..........C-..................D+..................D.-...........................B FG%.........C....................C+...................D............................A- 3P%.........A.....................C+..................C-..........................B+ FT%.........C+....................A..................................................... Reb..........D.....................C.....................D...........................A- OFF Rebs = total rebs...DEF Rebs = opp reb UP...............Off....Reb.......Def....FG%...3P% Down.........Off......PPG...3P%.......Def...Reb Top 100 In The Nation SLU Min /gm...Jimerson ...31st...up VCU FG%...Lawal...2nd (71.6) Blks...Fermin...39th FT% ...Shulga...64th Injury /Illness report and misc The Bills.... None VCU... Jackson...Jan 19...Back...Questionable Keys to the Game.......VCU turns the ball over (Grade D) we need to pressure them....Don't foul Shulga...he is their FT guy WWN2D2W...Target slash...48/39/74....Hold VCU to 70pts....Beat VCU on TOs by 2.... Rebs....even.....Hold the top 3 scores to 31 ....FTM...even..... Bottom line....Instead of following sheep...let's shear one.

Sounds pretty much like hell. The more this becomes reality, the less I will watch/care/support.

IF Jimerson returns next year, he should be SLU's all time leading scorer.*** However, I believe it is unlikely he returns as I doubt he would return if Ford is not the coach. ***I understand that his 6 seasons do not compare to every other player's 4 seasons of eligibility, but impressive nonetheless.

More Thames, more Parker.

Hopefully they won't make the wide-open threes we allow them to shoot.

We’re #215 in NET, VCU is #98, and we’re playing on VCU’s home court. But none of that matters because I refuse to be anything but wildly optimistic on game days before the game! Go Billikens!!

Willie the refs called everything on the billikens and the same act committed by Dayton was overlooked. Big brad and dalger had a lot of under the basket fouls that didn't get called but Holmes sure got those same calls.

In the article it said he had a significant local relationship. Don't underestimate the power of a woman.

Speaking of road splits, I'll we watching the Foul Shot Attempts on this away game. In the George Mason and Dayton away games, the Bills has a total of 18 FTA, and the opponents 63 FTA. Do the math, that is 3.5X for the home teams. For the year, SLU has 366 FTA and all opponents 355 FTA. Call it even. We've had 9 games at home and 8 not at home. Dayton doesn't foul much, only 12.9 per game. George Mason fouls 16.2 per game. The Bills are at 17.9 fouls per game. So yes, expect the home team to get the favorable whistles in those two contests, but not 3.5X. ( Fouls and FTA aren’t the same but they should correlate somewhat .) VCU averages 16.8 fouls per game. So should we expect an even number if FTA? No, the home team usually prevails. No problem with that. I'll accept a 2X. 3.5X is beyond fishy.

Gibson Jimerson Home: 43.8 FG% 44.0 3P% 20.4 PPG Away: 34.7 FG% 29.3 3P% 12.0 PPG Terrence Hargrove Home: 52.1 FG% 52.8 3P% 15.2 PPG Away: 47.3 FG% 20.0 3P% 9.9 PPG It's hard to win on the road when the splits for your leaders are that drastic. Something has to change.

All goes back to the Rickma CBI appearance with WR and KM. Both teams went to that best-of-3 series; next year VCU goes to the Final Four, SLU goes to "The Situation" I hate VCU.

Short Answer: On a scale of 1 to 10, how big of a loss is it for SLU? My answer is 10. ……………………. Long answer: Chris was heavily involved in all aspects with SLU’s program. He was essentially a Co-Head Coach at SLU. Some of his strengths and some of Katie’s strengths were complimentary with one another. More specifically, Chris was SLU’s lead recruiter locally, regionally, nationally. Thankfully SLU has strong classes for 2024 and 2025 filled. (Hopefully all 2025 players keep their commitments. That’s important. It’s a great class.) SLU does still have a Spring semester transfer target. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that some of the 40 (it ends up 75-100) or so early targets for 2026 are going to now look at Chris’ new school and elsewhere in addition to SLU. That’s how it works. Katie is also heavily involved with recruiting and does some of her own recruiting, but nowhere near what Chris does with recruiting. She targets a smaller number of specific players and she helps close what Chris finds. Recruiting requires a lot of time and relentless energy. Chris has also been a big part of building SLU’s unique culture on and off of the field. He has endless ideas and he implements them with unfailing positive energy. Training, game tactics, player development, set pieces, in game adjustments, are also part of it. ………………. The good news is Katie found and hired Chris Allen. And he wasn’t an established college soccer coach at the time. She’s mentored him in many ways. However, SLU isn’t searching for a several year rebuild either at this time. So the new assistant has to be able to close recruits quickly this Summer at a high level in order for SLU to be continue to be successful at a high level. Otherwise there will be a few year drop off level and rebuild. And if another less proven assistant coach is hired for budgetary reasons, Katie will have to keep hitting home runs every so many years with these assistant hires. Katie deserves plenty of credit for Chris’ development. That’s another plus for the next hire. But many of his personality/temperaments/skill sets are unique to Chris. He makes learning the boring or difficult things enjoyable for his players and students. …………… I knew 6 weeks ago that Chris was approached by a search firm for the Marquette position. Marquette waited 2 months after its season ended to make a change, in part because they thought they had a chance with Chris. I was hoping that SLU would have done everything possible to keep him. And that would have been enough. (Santa Clara for example has a 17 year top assistant for example. Assistant coach turnover depends on the school. Some have more than others.) ………………. Marquette has not been a big budget Women’s Soccer school. Their Men and Women’s hoops teams get the most money by a lot. But after that Men and Women’s lacrosse and even golf seem more prioritized there than soccer. Some there have said they want to make a new and bigger commitment to soccer. This shows they are off to a good start with that. ……………… Nate Lie left Xavier for Kansas in part because the level of commitment between the two places is apples to oranges. It’s also why Marquette was seen as perhaps more appealing than Xavier. They had past success there, where Xavier’s success was essentially only during Lie’s time there. Lie was able to bring his top assistant and recruiter with him to Kansas. He then hired a well regarded established 2nd assistant and made both associate head coaches. The 2nd assistant had worked at LSU, Michigan, and with U.S. Soccer. Lie’s 3rd (young) assistant was someone he initially found. An analytics expert who last season coached against SLU while at Penn State. And to top it off, Lie just hired a very popular (nationally) director of operations who was a smaller college coach. He’s even more popular with peers than Allen as a person nationally. That’s 4 good hires. Lie never would have been able to do that at Xavier. Not even close. ……………… Another example this cycle was Ken Masuhr leaving Vanderbilt for Miami Fl. He was a 9 year assistant at Vandy and he was with the same HC for 4 years prior to that at UPenn. So, 13 years, two schools with the same HC. And he thought Miami FL was the move for him. He also is a dynamic recruiter. And like Chris, he is good at finding players before other people do. That will be important at SLU. …………….. At minimum SLU needs Shields plus one elite level national recruiter. Two of those at a school like SLU is less likely. One plus Katie would be good enough. Two preferred. Cal is very good technically, and with player development. That’s his niche. He’s also learning the college assistant game. So he would be good in that role. Jenna works with keepers and she isn’t heavily involved with recruiting. ………………… And remember it takes time to build relationships at new places on the recruiting trail. So a new assistant will have to do that. But they need to have established relationships elsewhere too that they can bring with them. Otherwise again, there will be at least a temporary drop off. ……………. It’s interesting because Marquette just announced this week that they are building a new Men’s basketball practice facility. Their current one (Al McGuire Center) opened in 2004 at 120,000 square feet. The new building will be an addition/expansion to their 2019 built, 46,000 square foot athlete and human performance building, across the street. ………………. Previously the soccer teams there played at Valley Fields just South of their campus, which has a grass soccer stadium, and 2 additional full length turf fields adjacent to it.. It also includes an onsite locker room building. And a few years back they added a seasonal dome cover for those fields. $6 million. They can now train year round regardless of weather. The school is also hnder construction with an 80,000 square feet $80 million wellness and rec facility across the street from their soccer facilities. Their soccer teams have worked out at “Marquette Gym” which was built in 1922. It was where the basketball team practiced until 2004. They are based out of Marquette Gym but they also use the 2019 building sometimes too. But moving forward, Marquette will be playing its soccer games at a brand new 8,000 capacity soccer stadium just East of their campus. They will share the new facility with Milwaukee’s new USL professional soccer team. (Their basketball team shares Fiserv forum with the Bucks, and it has their own separate space. And that works for them) https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/iron-district-state-grant ……………….. Chris is starting immediately at Marquette. They are way behind. His family will join him in June. Some may have mistakenly thought that Chris was permanently entrenched in St. Louis, and at SLU. He’s from St. Louis. He has lots of family locally. He’s been back high school and college soccer for 17 years. He’s had some opportunities. Chris is very deserving of the opportunity. Loyal, smart, hard working, unassuming, liked by everyone. I wish SLU would have been able to find a way to keep him at SLU. I’ll be rooting for Chris. …………………. With their coaching change, Xavier lost transfers to Arkansas, Auburn, Texas A&M, and they may lose a few more. They also lost a few 2025 verbal commits with their coaching change. They do return and add some good ones too. But Georgetown is the team to beat in the Big East. And in a few years, perhaps Marquette will be as well. Chris has a lot of strong relationships with certain geographies and clubs. And he will be eventually competing with SLU for players. …………….. As for SLU, the clock doesn’t stop. No time for pity parties. Next big recruiting event is Dallas in February. Florida in March. Seattle in June. Richmond in July. Regional Super Cup starts this weekend. Winter sports season is still here. (That’s when you attend the second sport of your recruiting target) Recruiting never stops. The good news is Chris left at a good time, during the offseason, with plenty of time to find a replacement. And SLU has full classes for 2024, 2025, and a few good transfers. …………….. So it will be a very important hire for SLU. There’s no reason why SLU can’t make a strong replacement hire. But it isn’t a given either. Change is tough for some people. But change also brings new opportunities as well. …………….

This is the type of thing that happens to successful programs, associate and assistant coaches get considered for and hired for head coaching opportunities. Huge loss for us, but we need to move on. I’m curious to see what happens to the staff, both of the remaining assistants are only 1 year into their current jobs. I would expect a more experienced assistant to be brought on, but I will trust Katie Shield’s judgement without question.

Seems like we are descending into madness here. Do we really want unlimited transfers? Rules are all terrible until there are none. Quick aside - are there different rules for basketball than football? Seems like football players go wherever they want, whenever they want, no questions asked.

Gordon calling T Ford and asking for a second chance.

I am. For whatever reason most posters on the board are vastly overrating our defense. It is attrocious.

Small blimp

I am not getting in this argument but I will say I don’t think I yelled at my TV once during the game and that is unusual.

Well that was what 2 years ago? Ford acts up on a routine basis. Blaming the refs for a loss is the most embarrassing thing. Refs aren't going to even out the free throw discrepancy just because that's "fair". One team had an NBA level big the other team has a bunch of mid major bigs who, as we've seen, have a habit of fouling. You don't like the other team shooting free throws... stop fouling. The end. Also, take the time you spend crying to the refs and coach your team.

grant is worse than ford. let's not forget, grant went across the ford and was ready to go in the stands and fight jett. so if you are correct with the above, why would grant's players get all the calls if the refs were tired of ford antics?

The return of STLHoopsInsider???

If true perhaps the refs are tired of the coach's antics like getting on the floor and distracting a 3 PT shooter or flying off the handle. Maybe in year 28 he'll learn how to work the refs.

6 or 7 more foul shot attempts is one thing. Double that is not. It was a horribly reffed game from that standpoint alone and the difference in the game. "Call it on both ends!"

You know some people are saying that Box and Won is slowing down in old age, but this just proves he still has his fastball.

Hang it in the rafters

To win: Defend your dad on social media Rebound

2024 recruiting is really heating up. Staff putting in minutes and minutes of work. This guy played for Tenn-Chatt Mocs last year averaging 4 and 1 in 11 minutes a game. He is from Houston, all that time recruiting TX may pay off.