billiken_roy

each of us have probably said this a million times on this board over the years, but Taj, Bay Area Billiken and I became hardcore Billiken fans during the dark days of Ron Ekker. as John Winger (Bill Murray) says in "Stripes", "There's something wrong with us, something very, very wrong with us."

dennis the next time i watch mi$$ouri will be in person in the first of a 2 - 1 series. i.e. 2 at chaifetz one on a neutral floor. only way we should agree to play them. we have nothing to gain playing them.

Mi$$ouri still has a team? i just assumed since their best player from last year came to the billikens the tiger$ folded.

i want to see young hughes and young thames playing 10+ minutes wednesday.

no i am saying get the frickin ball over the half line. do it as fast as possible get out in front of the traps. if we got a lead with under 4 minutes to go, the defense is going to be pressing full court. dont waste the time methodically bringing it down. go. then if we do get past the first trap, we will have an advantage. it is up to the point guard who hopefully has the ball to decide then to go or not. but quit with the walking it down the court.

i not saying i disagree with that. i am saying what led up to the shots? it's how it got across the halfline and who made the decision to go. a lot of teams play fast. but only good teams can control the break. that's what i want the billikens to be. i believe they have the talent and personnel to do that. we do it to build up these leads. and then we change it up and pizz away the leads.

out of context. what happened from the change of possession to the shot's taken? how fast did we go from the rebound to the frontcourt before the shot was taken? for example we know parker didnt take it across the halfline. i want the ball in collins hands until the across the halfline. now if he throws a baseball pass to a streaking player that is fine with me. but collins in the waning minutes of the game should have the ball, gets it across the halfline at full speed, then he makes the decision to go not jimerson or parker.

it just occurred to me that my opinion of "playing fast" isnt the same as say big bill fan. big bill fan considers getting in the half court offense but then shooting an open three as playing fast. i want us to get it down the floor asap and if there is an advantage go to the basket. not casually get down the floor, and then setting up the half court and start the action. i want to push it, try to beat the opponent to the front court and then let the guards decide if we have the advantage to go to the basket or then pull it out. we do not do this and we definitely didnt do it down the stretch vs memphis. you guys keep telling us that we have the best point guard in the nation and i concur he is very good. he can accurately decide if we have the advantage. but he doesnt seem to do that at the end. he stops and sets up the half court offense. and more times than not it is he who then takes the shot.

what? my memory was the end of the memphis game was complete turmoil. (this said, the memphis game was very enjoyable to watch. might not be saying this if we had ended up losing instead of hanging on by a thread) we blew a big lead. are you sure you are watching the same games?

big bill fan, if we had a track record of consistently using the clock i would agree, we dont. imo, we havent since rickma's team graduated actually.

if it was a loss to Paul Quinn college then that might be crippling mentally. but a last 2 minute loss to the #13 team in the country while it stings to know they missed a hell of an opportunity to not only get some national mention and notice as well as earning post season points, it still is a "good" loss (if there is such a thing and hopefully Ford can use it to demonstrate how close they are and use it as motivation to build on. besides recruiting, imo Ford is an excellent motivator. so he now has a good tool to use.

but they didnt look to get out and run either. i.e. get a rebound and go. instead they would get the defensive rebound and instead of getting it across the half line and seeing if there was a quick opportunity, they let everyone clear out and then casually brought it down.

The player that should be getting more positive talk after today is pickett. I was a big "show me" guy concerning javon when he first became a billiken this year. Thus far he's been very good. He probably did more than anyone else to keep us in the game today. He's been a great asset to the Billiken's so far.

One things for sure Perkins from 2 years ago isn't on this team yet. Our expectations include that Perkins not what we've been watching this year. Not his fault. He's just not recovered yet. But even with a substandard Perkins we had a lead that only needed made free throws to win. Just no excuse for it considering our team free throws this season.

Free Throws. Ugh