billiken_roy

he shot 9-18 last night and scored 26 points i believe. but you are correct he has been in a 2 week shooting slump. still he is close to 20 ppg and is one of the top rebounding guards in the league. he isnt kobe, but he is better than the average player. having a big time inside player would certainly help. but since arenas and shackhouse have been injured, and his support on the inside consists of high school all-stars that never went to college (kwame brown) and third players at syracuse (etan thomas) and over the hill finese inside players (laettner) i am not sure what you would expect him to do? i am doubting that kobe or jordan in his prime would have succeeded with that support.

imo the demise of basketball at any level can be traced to one aspect.....not calling fouls. make the game the ballet it is supposed to be instead of some kind of hybred form of rugby and basketball would again become the sport that the world could identify with. the problem more so with the nba is that it has taken the roughhouse trend to the extreme and made the likes of a 6'9" good with no skills that can basically only dunk, push and grab the star instead of a player like travis diener. ...........sorry one of my favorite rants.

very classy post. thank you for your visit. please visit here anytime. i agree the winner of the inside game tonite will be the difference maker. i feel scoring wise, bryant and diener can offset each other. but the inconsistent and far reaches of the output's of frericks and merritt sure could tell the story.

he was best compared to perry as a freshman before the injury. he had that kind of speed and quickness.

other than espn highlights, like you, i only follow hughes. if laurie switches his basketball expense account from paying tigers to nets, i wouldnt pay to see it except when larry came to town.

the game was exciting as can be. althoff won by 4 but it was close the whole game. i was disappointed that lisch and dentman did not guard each other though. tried to keep track in my head. seemed like kevin had over 30 and dentman over 20. they are a show as both had a couple of oohs and ahhs plays. illinois state has a steal in dentman imo.

i called in to frank's regular "nobody asked me but" segment. my call consisted of "nobody asked me, but if frank is not the channel 5 sports director then i am out as a channel 5 viewer." click. as to frank being bitter, he has not commented one bit on the air. if he wanted that job though, which i heard he did, he should have been the selection. it is obvious from his work on both tv and radio he is one hard working guy that does nothing but quality reporting with enthusiasm. i am betting he got caught in the middle of station politics. not fair to frank.

biles would have been quite a player by the time he was a senior. it is a shame he didnt do the job in the classroom to reach that potential. you are correct he too was a very very good defender.

i never said that carlos was a better defender than josh. that said, penny hardaway was a far better player than dwayne wade was and carlos did well against penny.

with the right breaks we could/should be 12-0. georgia tech was ours for 35 minutes and arizona was there for the taking. those two could have been huge for this team.

besides jeffers and josh, i would add carlos mccauley and john redden on the great defenders list. i recall penny hardaway stating mccauley was the toughest defender he played against in college.

brehms, thought i would let you know that i was at the jillikens game last sunday with my 7th grade daughter. your brother walks by us to talk to an apparent other slu student sitting there watching. my daughter wanted reggie to sign an autograph for her and when reggie was about to leave, we asked him. he willingly signed, and spent a minute or two conversing with us as well about the team and the game from the night before. he is a class act you can definitely be very proud of. he sure made my daughter's day.

why does "redshirt" have to be associated with project? i would consider ian a project. now maybe i could see him being labeled less of a project than bryce. ian appears closer to being a contributor anyway. but still i think of a project player as one who has some tool or tool that makes his future development expectations to be geometrically higher. i.e. coach brad keeps saying that ian will be vlade divac. does anyone else think that is the case right now? i sure dont. but i do see great hands and he glides around under the basket and is looking for his teamates when he gets the ball, so i can see where that might develop.

kleiza is flat out the best player on the tiger team. my guess is if $nyder used him correctly, they would have won a couple more games and klieza would be headed for the nba next year. he had to cost the boys some cash. i didnt even know they had walmarts in lithuania.

taj, from afar with no tv coverage to speak of and only boxscores to judge, there is no way to evaluate chris sloan accurately. you judged it the way you saw it from the stats in front of you. cant blame you a bit.

good point gister.

the way i heard it today from a channel 5 insider is that frank really got screwed over.

i didnt go read the article, but i assume he is now some sort of walking billboard or something. doesnt surprise me. the only honorable thing about knight is that most of his players seemed to always be true student athletes. otherwise, imo the guy has always been a jerk. he was selling that sweater in the 80's already with the shoe brand on the chest. and he was the first coach i remember getting a big "shoe deal" as i believe he was a converse man in the 70's. as butch noted, his antics off the court long ago lost any respect he deserved. hitting policemen, throwing vases at defenseless secretaries, undo mental anguish on his players, shooting his hunting partners, the guy is something all right.

besides coaching at mccluer, he is also a top coach with the nationally acclaimed st louis eagles aau program.

erwin not irwin.

david, i thought your post in the string pretty much put them in their place and ended the discussion. good post.

for those of you interested in watching kevin lisch against the best competition, tonite at belleville althoff, althoff will play carbondale. carbondale has illinois state signee, justin dentman as their lead guard. dentman is a fantastic player. probably one of the top 10 players in the two state area. it will be a great matchup. next friday, i believe centralia comes to town with matt shaw. centralia has a good supporting staff with mr shaw and that too will be a game kevin will have to play well for the crusaders to win. starting january 20 is the belleville east tourney. at that tourney will be both althoff and belleville west. somewhere during the brackets, i am sure they will meet. althoff is the only team that has given belleville west a game this year. their game went down to the last second and kevin i believe scored 36 in that one. west has division one athletes galore with seniors jb jones (the most underated player in the area), xaiver price (purdue signee), sean mcpeak (a beast that supposedly is going to illinois to anchor their future football team lines), and one of the top area juniors arthur sargent. carbondale and centralia will also play in the tourney. so most games will have at least one nice player playing.

maybe that poster is either that martin guy that is the b.s. aau coach that hates slu or blake ahearn's dad.

taj said, "My mid-term grades: RB .... much, much better than expected. JFisher .... yeoman-type, all-around work and production, team MVP. Sloan .... in a funk. Frericks .... good for limited amounts of time. Drejaj .... too streaky at too many times. Varner .... c'mon graduation. Izik .... now hoping the second 1 and a half years are five times better than the first one and a half years. JJ .... veiled promise. DC .... don't know, too early to tell. Ian and Bryce .... projects." overall i think you are fair mr taj. here is my thoughts player by player. reggie bryant..actually about what i expected. what is the surprise is he drives to the basket better than i expected. imo he is better than claggett. josh fisher..the walking advertisement of why a player should stay for 4 years and redshirt if possible. josh IS the team mvp. and IS a very good point guard. nothing flashy, but does his job. it is nice to not have to worry about a player. chris sloan...taj says in a funk, i disagree. i see the consumate team player that just does what has to be done to win games. a gamer, a winner. willing to do whatever job needs to be done to win. some games he takes the big shot, other games, he sees that a reggie or a frericks is scoring at will, he sets the screens makes the extra pass to capitalize on that moment of heat. he is the guy on the team that will become a head coach. or at least should be. we would not have won some of these games without chris sloan. if he scores 19 great. if he scores 3 but does all the other things every game, great as well. i will take it and run. missouri would kill for 2 chris sloans right now imo. tom frericks....this is the man that has exceeded expectations the most for me. and he has shown stretches where he can be as good as any inside player in c-usa. tom needs to decide to step up and put the team on his shoulders and go. that doesnt mean i want him to average 20 points a game, if he does great. but to see him manhandle the middle, control the boards and beginning to play kb like defense is what will make frericks the most important. still, his hands and athleticism are a huge improvement over any inside player that the billikens have trotted out on the floor since mr bonner was here. izik ohannon...he has not exceeded any expectations. in fact he is the most disappointing. however, he continues to surprise and show flashes that give us hope. his breakaway dunk and his grab of the errant shot with an over the head backwards flip in basket weds nite were big time plays. now he is starting to play defense. izik, like frericks, makes this team. when the two of them are playing well, the billikens play well. drejaj...how anyone cannot like anthony is beyond me. he is so loaded with confidence and energy. gotta believe that spills over to his teamates. his defense is fabulous, and he goes on sprees where he looks like a very good shooter and has single handedly kept us in a few games. we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that he is a sophomore. i think anthony has a lot of great moments ahead of him and i am sure glad he is a billiken. so far this year, other than his free throws, i have no complaints about drejaj. i would say he is playing as expected. ross varner...ross is ross. no surprises either way. he does what he can and any negativity towards ross is just not fair. we should be thrilled he is there trying to set an example for the younger guys. the shame is that they havent stepped up and taken his minutes. ross is playing as expected imo. justin johnson...frustrating. you can see he is a talent. but he sits. justin, just do in practice whatever ross does. underachieving. darren clarke....see justin johnson. ian and bryce....projects that anyone can see they could become future difference makers. let's just all keep in mind that their abilities to affect the games this season will be limited.

right now siu is at 50 and creighton is under 30. no other team is close. unless siu basically wins out, if you get two bids, it will be because creighton blew the conference tourney. even the shockers are at 97. they wont go down to 40 or lower even if they could beat creighton a game. i agree the conference has a problem getting good games with top teams. i am sure the mvc teams do not intentionally schedule the weak schedules that they do. but that is one of the main reasons we didnt want to go to the mvc. at least the big conference teams will play the a-10 schools. btw, right now st joes is the top rpi school in the country.