billiken_roy

because bryant is more experienced and was higher acclaimed out of high school. i would be thrilled if clarke turns out to be bryant's equal or better.

imo, drew accomplished more as a billiken than troy robertson ever did. so i dont see how that muddies the memory of robertson.

cheeseman, imo weber was already a presense in st louis. now he has a higher quality product to sell (illini over the saluki's) thus, i believe weber now becomes a bigger thorn in our side than he already was if we are chasing the same recruit.

thanks thicks! the fact is, without question, anyone with an eye for athletic ability of any degree can/could see that jason edwin was completely superior athletically to drew. i dont think drew will even argue that point. yet the facts also will bear out that their statistics are pretty comparable. they shouldnt have been. that has been the just of my argument from day one.

no doubt young mr harrington has some athleticism (probably a better athlete than kevin lisch now) and he has a frame that lets one believe he could grow some more, but he is no where near the basketball player kevin is, i dont care how good crean's crystal ball is, i dont believe he is recruiting keyon harrington right now because he believes keyon will be the next duane wade. he is recruiting kenon to get as close to lisch as possible.

got this off of dave telep's recruiting site, "the insidershoops". dave writes, "We’ve seen Ft. Sooy No Limit center Mick Yelovich at a number of places this spring. And, each time the Mount Zion (IL) High standout makes us think of the same guy: Arvydas Sabonis. Yelovich checks in at 6-10 and 265. He’s not the swiftest runner or best athlete. But, he’s skilled and smart. Yelovich can face and knock down 10-footers. He’s not out there trying to bang home 3s, he makes the shot he’s capable of making. And more importantly, he passes the ball like Sabonis. Someone is going to get a helluva mid-major center. On June 4th, Yelovich visited Ball State unofficially. He’s hearing from most of the Missouri Valley schools. Bradley, Illinois State, UNC-Wilmington, Southern Illinois, Drake, St. Louis and Auburn have been in touch."

there is only 1 greek player. my point is that we are losing 2 inside players in sloan and varner. granted sloan will play some wing and varner will hardly play, but still the roster is losing 2 inside players so it only makes sense we sign at least 1 to replace those 2 departing. especially since 2 of the 3 inside players we are bringing in next year have been labeled "projects" in husak and the greek, plus we have yet to see what justin johnson will actually do in a game.

this is not directed at aj, but rather at all those that want to wait maybe until next spring to possibly get liddell. a couple of seasons ago, romar's billikens was on the final list for travis diener, david lee, jamal sampson, chuck hayes, dominic ingersol, and jamal williams. all top 25 players. the billikens ended up being the second choice on diener, hayes, sampson and williams. and the only thing i heard after that was "why in the world did romar wait so long to go get different players. by the time we were left at the altar, all the good players were gone." but now everyone wants to wait? and in reality it is a double wait. academics and school choice. it might be different if tommie had declared already he wanted to go to school at slu, but he hasnt even said that. if he wont commit, i say take the next choice.

bernie shilling for weber is disappointing. especially since slu has invited kevin's high school team to the billiken team camp and althoff is indeed planning on coming. why no mention of that bernie? keep in mind it is only an invite. kevin was strongly pursued to play for the eagles this summer and kevin said no preferring to work on his game on his own and play for his high school team in summer workouts. as far as i know, kevin hasnt agreed to attend the illini camp yet. btw, i understand that marquette is now sending letters now to kevin's backcourt mate, kenon harrington. i guess crean figured recruiting buds (wade and blankson) worked before, maybe it will work again. kenon has potential, but he is no where in kevin's class as of yet, plus i am not sure they are that great of friends. i dont think that it will work this time tommie.

coach soderberg has said on a number of ocassions that he will take a basketball player over a superior athlete anytime. he wants guards and wings that can shoot, dribble and pass. and it is obvious a player wont play if they wont play defense.

ace if you truly believe that, then apparently you have never been in a team sport situation whereby there was an extremely talented player on the team that typically "didnt come to play" night in and night out. if you had, you would know the team chemistry problems that the half hearted effort will create for a team even though his less than all out effort might be better than johnny tryhard. as stated about a million times now, no argument from me that edwin was a super talent. imo, he had nba potential talent. but it was a waste and a team divider scenario. if you ever went to a practice and saw the extra running and conditioning the team had to do because of jason, maybe you would understand my perspective more.

actually rich, i thought drew looked less out of place last year with coach soderberg's offense than he did with coach romar's. and i believe that spoon's offense resembled soderberg's far more than romar's. i.e. spoon had the right role picked out for drew. as i said though, that plan was not going to work for romar's ucla offense. romar's plan required athletic wings to succeed imo. the motion offense succeeded because perry drew the defense and thus left open looks for sloan and diener and drejaj. as the year went on, the offense and the other players kept getting better and better as they learned what could be accomplished.

someone explain prop 48, dont they either have to pass the ACT or have the necessary gpa to at least enroll but sit like wade did? if they bomb both, i dont think they can come. am i right on that?

i disagree on the "grimes or no one" angle. i believe there must be someone else. however, if it is true they turned matt yelovich away that would tend to prove the theory. yelovich is also highly regarded and has size to boot and apparently was interested in slu. still, imo there are other prospects that we just dont know about. maybe juco (taj gray) or prep school kids. maybe dennard abraham will continue to take the test, i.e. travon bryant, and still come. who knows, but with varner and sloan both leaving next year, one would think that we would want at least one inside player to take a spot on the roster that they were filling now.

if there is a 50-50 chance that liddell wont make it academically, i would pass. as much as i hate to say that, i'd take the sure thing.

or maybe we are saddled with evan, mcclain and polk with disabling injuries that will never be what they once were too. i dont know how many times i might role the dice on the injury thing. we might be better off chasing humphrey or cameron murkey or somebody else.

rich, i hope every player we have is an overachiever that always plays all out. i think you again are talking about a player that is less than idea god given talent that is labeled an overachiever. you really dont mean to say you would take jason edwin types all the time do you?

ahhh, tseugnekillib giving an indirect compliment to the lovely anita i see. i will pass that on! :-)

i dont know what spoon was thinking obviously, but i am guessing he saw drew developing into a stand up shooter that could knock down the open three as larry hughes, justin love or maurice jeffers drew double teams on drives to the basket. the fault was that hughes didnt stick around and love and jeffers were never sufficiently replaced putting role player drew into a position of being expected to be more than a role player. imo, as weak as you may see drew, and while i cant argue with the stats, in fact, drew probably over achieved.

hey jj, take it from me who has had the pleasure of shaking billiken law's fiancee's hand. the man that doesnt give her a second look is borderline dead! she is a very attractive young lady with a delightful personality. i just wonder how billiken law pulled that off? ;-)

guys, i just dont see what is accomplished by ripping drew. he got as much out of his talents as what seemed possible to me. for all we know, drew will end up as a high school coach somewhere and it sure wouldnt help if billiken fandom has alienated him.

nil, nadda, zilch all apparently mean 1.4 per game or 45 for the season? true not much to brag about, but once again, the anti-drews come out with incorrect information.

actually espn had a 2 part segment on bat corking yesterday. first they had buck showalter show how to do it. i was shaking my head on that. every kid in america has a drill out today. second they had some kind of physics genius on to discuss the effects. he said by corking the bat correctly a player can cut from 1-1.5 ounces off of the total bat weight that could increase the bat speed enough to give a hitter about a 5% gain in distance under idea conditions. let's see, over the course of the season i would think a 5% increase for sammy might turn 10 flyballs into homeruns. hard telling how many one hop grounders are now line drives. it makes a difference. a big difference. that all said, the fact they went thru all of his other bats and found nothing tells me he might be telling the truth on his "it is my batting practice/exhibition bat". god only knows what that accomplishes. but for some reason, i believe him.

jj he claims he saw him in some all-star game where mckinney hogged the ball and wouldnt give justin a chance to do anything. thus he was able to determine from that one game that justin was a bust. that and the fact that k-state recruited him and let him go. he must be terrible based on those two instances.

how in the world is izik clumsy? at times, he looked like george gervin to me driving to the lane and leaving defenders in the dust.