billiken_roy

while i think kevin can hold his own with top players, (his game last week vs livingston proved that) i think that honestly there are a lot of kevin lisch's out there. i would fight anyone that says he isnt as good as the top 100 player, but i would stay quiet if someone said he isnt a top 25 player.

actually, romar remained in the picture for lee, miles, sampson, diener and hayes until the very end. all very highly ranked players. slu could get those players if they tried.

the biggest reason is i dont think brad will even try to chase the top billing star players. unlike romar, brad seems focused on finding the best talent more on a 4 year projection. hansborough might be just good enough by next year to be a one and done type player. again, from what i have read, missouri is currently not the leader for his services. i believe out of loyalty to his dad, missouri is still in the running, but i am betting on florida, duke, unc or arizona being the finalists.

kevin actually used to play aau/select ball in grade school and ran up against tyler then. all the parents of the kids that played with kevin have told me that kevin was always the best player in the tourney's except for when he ran up against tyler. they know each other. wont say they are friends, but they know each other.

hansborough is big big time. duke, north carolina, florida, or arizona big time. no chance he is coming here imo. i personally dont think missouri will get him either. even with dad being an alum. i would be shocked beyond belief for hansborough to come to st louis.

while i am a friend of shorty, imo blumberg and woodward are both better basketball coaches. and probably the dewort kid that coaches he freshman as well. still shorty is better than the days of henning and murkey imo. if they want a real coach, they should figure out how to get my brother who coached the st joes team last year up to the high school level. he played for mckendree in the 80's and knows he game inside and out. however, he isnt a teacher, so that always presents a problem. the truth is, the best high school coaches arent teachers normally. too bad. i didnt know the moddrell girl didnt play basketball until you told me the other nite. just assumed she did since the whole family is basketball nuts. but the way this volleyball takes over the girls it doesnt surprise me. the people that run volleyball dont want those girls doing anything but volleyball. two year's ago, althoff's star volleyball player, sara thomas, didnt play basketball because her select volleyball coach told her not to. last year she came back to the basketball team as well, but even then, she missed basketball practices to go to volleyball if a conflict came up. of course she like moddrell is a volleyball all-american and has a free ride lined up because of volleyball, so i guess it is hard to argue with it. if you played with whitey, you probably played legion with bud wirth as well? i went to high school with his son mike. mike might have been the most fundamentally sound athlete i ever played with. you could have made instructional videos with him in basketball and baseball on mechanics and such he did everthing right. bud was my first real baseball coach when i was a kid. i have never encountered a baseball situation that bud didnt teach me the right thing first. too be honest, bud is as responsible for the great run of baseball that new athens had in the late 70's and early 8o's as anyone. i understand bud wasnt a bad pitcher in his day. what position did you play on that team? i have heard whitey go on and on about the great games new athens and belleville had in those days.

nice game against belmont. most final four teams lose to the horse race schools. you want to talk about getting a good laugh? the best money can buy! $nyder is showing real coaching skills thus far with his team of professionals.

i believe that currently there are 3 big 12 teams with sub 40 rpi's. 40 is basically the all but in dividing line. everything above that is sheer politics or winning the conference automatic spot to get in imo.

steve, i tried to edit my own addy to put in my new e-mail address and i get an error message that says my password has illegal characters and i must try again. i tried 3x with the same results.

i have seen dustin a few times. he is only 6'4" maybe 6'5" tall and is the center/power forward for civic memorial hs. bethalto. he scores mostly on short jumpers and put backs. pretty agile, but not the speed of chris sloan. he is a true tweener without an outside game. being only a sophomore, he could grow or get better to play the wing, but right now he is a power forward at best and a short one at that. he does a fantastic job though given his size. i will say that shaw was similar at that age.

all my pleasure bigal! i wish we would have had more time to talk. i love talking about the good ole days. i bet you know smokey bruss who used to play legion ball for the belleville hilgards when you played with whitey. did you know smoke's son-in-law, scotty oltman is now the head coach at mascoutah? i am good friends with smoke's nephews. with my contacts at freeburg, i follow their sports teams pretty close. last year i helped my brother a few times practice with his grade school team. he is a basketball coach at st joes in freeburg. they have a few really nice freshman coming up at freeburg. the young jansen and moddrell kids are going to be nice players, but of course michael adamson is already very good. the kid is fearless and might be the best freshman on the east side right now. do you remember his dad playing for new athens in the 60's? he is his dad all over again. definitely not afraid to look to score!

there is a reason the conference is rated 8th. yes, kansas and the other big dogs will have nice ratings, but the bottom dwellers must really be bad for the conference to be rated where it is. so missouri's rpi may rise when they get to play oklahoma for example, but then they have to play baylor or texas a&m and that sends it back down. no, the conference rpi wont rise playing each other.

i never even thought about comparing him to diener simply because of his 6'6" or 6'7" size. on defense he is under the basket. as "soft" as he is for an inside player, he is stronger right now than what diener was as a college senior. he is a very good shooter. another reason to come to the belleville east tourney as o'fallon is also at that tourney.

how will the conference rpi rating go up if they only play themselves the rest of the season aj? it looks to me as though the big 12 is at best a 4 bid conference this season. tough break since ku, texas and oklahoma are almost assuredly taking three of them. $nyder better step it up as he has to beat out scum sutton, booby, and colorado for that 4th spot now and all four teams appear to be pretty even. oh woe is the tigers journey. strange since it is the best team money can buy.

what you are not grasping aj is that most of the rpi ratings are made by january. it is near to impossible for the conference rpi to rise after that.

sarcasm at it's best. i am loving the FACT that missouri is sucking, the big 12 is sucking and more to come.

dont forget that at dayton he apparently told the dayton broadcast team that most billiken fans would have rather seen the billikens join the mvc instead of the a-10.

great to see you here earl. dont stay away long! you are damn right reggie is pretty good! earl, where do you compare reggie with past billikens? i say he is even better than erwin and if was physically stronger, i would say he is almost justin. your thoughts?

a legit 6'6". not the quickest feet. plays a little soft for now. obviously wants to be a wing not a power forward. is a very good shooter though. he is not afraid to step up and take the shot. right now i am saying he is headed for no better than mvc. but because of his size, that could change with a good offseason of hard work. he is worth keeping an eye on. always helps he is a coaches son.

that was last year when the big 12 was the number one rpi rated conference. this year the big 12 is 8th. want to be if the big 12 remains 8th and conference usa remains 6th that the results will be reversed this year?

cheeseman, we are talking about juniors.

i would guess the first foul was called by brad to insure we had 6 fouls. that way if k state made another shot, we could then foul when needed to stop the clock and make them shoot free throws. i agree he did not want the 7th and then was forced to foul the third time since we were then down to 31 seconds left.

i agree with nark. if that kstate team was well coached, they could really become a nice team imo. but i thought the guy made some dumb moves personell wise. i thought we were really in trouble when i saw at halftime we had shot only 1 free throw. their zone was very effective, but actually, they stayed in it too long. they should have at least matched up with reggie early in the second half as it became obvious that he was dangerous. that ended up being the game difference maker is that reggie just shot out of his cold spell. man he can shoot. i watched villanova last night vs kansas, and i was thinking how stupid they were to let him get away.

aj, middle of the pack doesnt change conference to conference. it is fair to assume approx the top is the upper 1/3, the middle the middle 1/3 and the bottom the bottom 1/3. 4th and 5th place finishers would not be "middle of the pack". btw, aj, currently conference usa is the higher rated conference so better be careful with your conference slamming. right now the big 12 is only the 8th ranked conference and in all likelihood, it isnt going to change much the rest of the way with the pre-conference games all but over across the country. big 12 is looking like at best a 4 bid maybe a 3 bid conference and conference usa is the 5 or 6 bid conference this year. sorry bud. mizzery better step it up to get to third place. that might be tough. i hope they dont finish "middle of the pack".

first, what were the words and the meaning behind the "hey baby". thought it was something about driving but couldnt catch it all. second, i came in late to the member singing "vehicle" so i missed the setup/intro. what's the deal? that guy can sing! he was great. nice change up. let him sing every game. you guys remain the best pep band in all the land!