billiken_roy

heinrich was not a better defender than kenny brown. he was a good defender, but he never shut down the likes of marvin stone, jason maxiell, chris massie or robert jackson night after night like kenny did last year.

cardinals wont win a world series as long as larussa is the manager. and ditto for quenville coaching the blues to a final. imo, the billikens have a better chance of success than both of them.

i hope you are correct david. however, other than brad telling us he wants to recruit better players, we dont have any other reason to believe that husak and fericks are improvements over our last two inside players.

why? they are all nearly 7 foot tall just like chris. fericks and husak are relatively wide bodied in the 250+ lb range just like chris. and they are all relatively unrecruited or heralded like chris was. they also sound like from the press clippings we have seen more the style of chris heinrich plodding play than the swift acrobatic style of hakim warrick of syracuse. i continue to expect the next set of chris heinrich's. but if one of the threee turn into hakim, i will be thrilled.

i havent preached "gloom and doom". i have preached wait and see. big difference. think about this. last year our incoming players were not replacing any key components of the team. they were filling in gaps and replacing players that already had glaring weaknesses and really didnt factor as greatly in our success as our departing players did this year. my gosh, we returned the entire starting lineup. this year we have a boat load of players that will see the billiken at the savvis center for the first time and those newcomers are replacing our best two players from last year plus a couple of key long time role players. if at least one of the incoming players was a reputed star in the making i might be a little more anxious. but the fact is that every single one of the players that will come in were not even "the featured attraction" at their last place of play. now i realize that doesnt mean they wont be a hit as a billiken. we all know we have been hearing the "wait till you see reggie" song for a number of months now. but you all have to admit the folks in philadelphia didnt really cry when he left their fair city. as to david's talk with coach brad. i have heard the same speech a number of times with coach brad. and i for one love the theory of a skilled basketball player over an athlete. i have no doubt that brad is indeed chasing recruits with that theory in mind and i ham sold that eventually brad will get the job done. but let's not lose sight of the fact that his desire and the truth of his results could end up being different. especially considering his relatively new appearance in the trenches as the head coach of the billikens. i am sure that lorenzo wanted chuck hayes more than ross varner. he wanted jamal sampson instead of kenny brown. he wanted travis deiner instead of randy pulley. etc. but sometimes that doesnt work out. and just the fact that we have a new coach doesnt mean we got the right guys with every recruit. look, you all know i want the billikens to succeed as much as anyone, but i am with taj on this HUGE incoming relatively unknown class that is coming in to replace a lot of parts of the puzzle. they have to show me first. heck it might just take a couple of practices to convince me. god knows i sure want to say "that's a winner" as soon as there is an inkling of possibility. but the fact that from all indications it appears none of the spring signings were our real first choices and none of the spring signings come with banner headlines, big stat lines, or competition jealously, makes me apprehensive. i continue to say, "i'll wait and see".

congratulations, you have just created a 2004 version of the old mid-western cities conference that the billikens were once a part of.

taj, i dont dispute a single word you are saying. my point is that i am not optimistic that next year will surpass last year record wise..........yet. i want to see our unknown chris heinrich impersonators play first.

if cincy stays, no way dayton or xaiver will come. cincy demanded that dayton and xaiver be left out in the original setup of conference usa. why would cincy relent now? i would bet that cincy will stand pat on that demand.

bigmac said, "Whoever thinks this upcoming season won't be as good as the last...Very premature and very short sighted" that statement can work the other way as well. to assume it will be better without seeing what we really have especially since all of our new players are relatively unknowns, is just as pre-mature and unrealistic. i havent said the team will be worse. all i have said is i want to see who really will replace our two best players from last year, marque perry and kenny brown. by dec 1 i will be happy to stick my neck out one way or the other, but i am not impressed with our inside players press releases at this point. i say they sound like a bunch of heinrich's to me. i hope i am so wrong.

i dont understand why conference usa cant be salvaged if the likes of cincy and louisville and east carolina or even memphis leave. unless the catholic league truly comes to be with the basketball schools from the big east and a-10, imo the best second alternative is to take the rest of c-usa and add the likes of dayton, creighton, and xaiver to replace cincy and louisville and the third team. imo, if the domino game actually starts to happen, my bets are on the big east and conference usa joining forces to make a football and a basketball conference. no need to start picking up the middle of the road teams from the horizon or the ohio valley yet. from what i understand, right now the acc is deadlocked again on the approval process and nothing is going to happen.

taj, while i wont cry if we get a couple more locals, i really couldnt care less if the players play for desmet and vashon or if they come from greece. i just want the best players we can get.

bigmac, my point is that those that are extremely optimistic about our upcoming season are obviously expecting big production from our inside players and i feel that none of them have done anything in their past to warrant that expectation. i totally agree that izik hasnt had a lot of games under his belt, but that is just another example of a player we are hoping turns out well but we dont have a lot to base that hope on.

thicks is right. all it takes is one or two extraordinary players with a good set of role players. marquette is proof of that. heck, if hughes sticks around, can you imagine how much better the 2000 billikens might have been? one of the neat things of college basketball is how quickly a program can regenerate.

no, i havent found it yet. i think i will either have to order it or buy it off of the internet.

bart you are trying to reason with a person that apparently thinks there is no difference between putting $1 in a pot for a friendly ncaa pool and investing thousands of dollars in a big time gambling pool ala slick nueheisel.

i wasnt there, but my understanding is that brad made sure that belleville althoff played ALL of their games on the main court and that a slu coach was always at those games. the supposed competition besides slu is kansas, illinois, oklahoma and surprisingly siu. kevin will stay close to home.

as much as i would love for this to be good information, (two reasons, one for chris and billikens, and second selfishly for myself since 2 years ago i said that braun had nba potential and after that chris sure seemed to have regressed) i have to tell all of you about george rodecker. a few years back while i was serving as an assistant monitor at cbs sportsline chat room, we had george online with us as our "expert" during the draft. i have never chatted with a more uninformed and out of touch sportscaster in all my life. he was totally clueless as we would discuss the players as they were picked. one pick in particular that was an eye opening discussion was when the trail blazers picked eric barkley, the extremely athletic and talented point guard coming out early from st john's. while eric has not performed much in his stint in the nba, at the time, he was a well known college player. george didnt even know who he was. now my question is how did he get chris' name period. he admittedly doesnt watch much college basketball and for some reason, i doubt chris is earning tryouts galore to get the scouts all worked up. this is totally weird. maybe chris has an agent in an effort to get latched up overseas and this agent has the contacts to get george to throw him a bone and put chris' name on this list.

for being at best average athletically, he consistently outplayed some of the best players in the conference game in and game out. to beat players down the floor consistently like kenny did showed he had speed imo. i think kenny's problem is he didnt know how to play basketball. that sounds like an amazing statement considering he was a senior in college last year, but my observations sure saw a lot of flawed technique in his footwork, catching the ball and positioning. i understand kenny was an overweight football player in high school. probably played basketball for something to do and wasnt taught how to play the typical high school coach is a past guard himself and is clueless in teaching post moves. being kenny was primarily a football player, he probably didnt hit the summer camps or play summer ball where he might have learned something. next, he headed to juco where there are about 6 actual basketball teachers in the whole juco world that can show a player how to actually play the game. heck, he probably learned more about basketball last year playing for brad than he did in the rest of his life combined. kenny has athleticism and heart. what he lacked was basketball skills that went undeveloped.

imo what kenny brown did last year defensively was as much to do with our success last year as the offensive herorics of marque. kenny defensively was spectacular. secondly, consider the fact that normally he had a sg/sf playing next to him to be his inside assistant makes it even more amazing. the guy was a flat out stud last year doing his job in every aspect EXCEPT scoring. as to our three incoming bigs, i dont know how anyone can be excited about anything about them except the fact they are big. they were relatively not recruited by top programs, they did not have off the chart statistics, they played in competition that doesnt normally produce top players. right now my expectations are those of heinrich. that said, i have said on a number of occassions that heinrich would have been far more effective in soderberg's style of play. i think we loaded up the inside with role players. maybe, the greek kid can turn into something, but i will be shocked if the others do. however, few of the "difference maker" foreign players are interested in going to college. most that are top notch players head straight to the pros. if the greek matches izik that would be great. that said, you have to admit that izik while we all recognize his potential, hasnt tore down the house yet either. i just think we should have gotten at least one player of the three that was a sure thing impact player. maybe one of them will rise to the occasion, but right now i dont expect any of the three to average double figures in scoring or rebounding.

i'm not sure we were watching the same kenny brown. he got out on the break and finished with slams more than any center the billikens have had since bonner. and he has had the athleticism to not only slam home rebounds consistently but to also stay up with the likes of the best centers in the league. he was a far better athlete than you are giving him credit for.

the only statements i dont necessarily believe in YET, is first the quality of clarke, morris and bryant. and the one i definitely dont buy into yet is the ability of fericks and the other two bigs being anything but big. i do not believe they will be the athlete that kenny brown was. again, i am envisioning a gaggle of chris heinrichs. i hope i am dead wrong.

jj, my point was that one would think a team that only lost one player and had the record it did in hughes season would be far better than what it was the next. i personally believed that baniak would pick up the offensive slack and become the man and whatever love and cranford would contribute would be gravy. i was not expecting love to be anything of a "go to" guy. of course the following season, justin showed the world he was indeed that man. but i would have thought that team would have been better than what it turned out to be. thus, the realization as to the value of larry hughes. i am in no way saying marque is the equal of larry hughes, but he was huge to his team. btw folks, i got an e-mail from chris monter today about marque. he said he will not get drafted. he was an average point guard and had a below average shot. for those who dont know, chris monter is the foremost authority on the nba draft in all the land. he routinely year in and year out almost predicts the draft to a man. normally missing only one or two selections in the first round at the most. 3 years ago he predicted every pick correctly.

i would agree with you. my problem is that i have doubts the 3 bigs that we brought in are better or even as good as kenny brown. to me they seem like poor man's chris heinrich from what we have read so far. i hope i am totally wrong, but i have zero excitement about our inside recruits.

i used to also be a big beleiver in the overall talent of the entire team concept. then we had the larry hughes team. all we lost was hughes, plus cranford and love came in, i thought for sure the team would be at least as good. we sucked. horrible team. i.e. the importance of the leaders/go to guy. while kenny wasnt an offensive juggernaut by any means, he was no doubt the hands down best interior defender in the conference . and marque had one of those magical seasons that will become legendary. the kid is the walking definition of ice water. the only weakness he had offensively was an average at best outside shot, if he could shoot he would be a fricking lottery pick. marque will not be replaced easily.

i am one of the lucky ones in belleville that got hit hard from the storm. still no power, spent the entire day yesterday cleaning up trees and limbs in my yard, had to find a generator to run my sump pump and fridge and freezer, living like a damn pioneer. it sucks. anyway, i came back to the office today to try to get some rest. slu72, in actuallity, price and wiley have very little connection. wiley's younger (and now deceased) brother milt, was married for a short time to xavier's mother. xavier has a different father, and from what i hear, dad calls the shots. joe wiley is not close to the family is my understanding. price, while a fabulous athlete, is not even close to the best basketball player at his position in the st louis area. i would take liddell, lisch, jones, murkey and from what i have heard about meyer, meyer, all before price. i have NEVER seen price win a battle against any of the above players in a game and i have seen a number of games. again, price has big time athleticism, but the other kids have proven time and time again they are better basketball players. if he thinks kevin kellerman was a controlling coach, wait till he plays awhile for purdue! i am of the opinion that the only sure starter for next year is sloan. the rest will go to those that work the hardest this summer. each player brings something different to the table that brad could capitalize on. i personally never for a second believed that mckinney was going anywhere much less slu. too many wal-mart perks to walk away from. predicting records for next year is pretty baseless at this point. i am claiming rights to waffle in early december after seeing the team practice. but i personally do not think we will be as good as last year. kenny brown and marque will be too difficult to replace. i agree completely that the overall roster will be stronger and more balanced, however i am having trouble seeing a replacement for marque and kenny. at least at their level of play. slu72, i have not had a chance to look for decals, however my daughter is at the jilliken summer camp in a couple of weeks and i will try to find something then. i am not confident of finding anything. the school doesnt have a billiken marketing bone in their body.