billiken_roy

while watching sportscenter this morning during a commercial break, all at once a new commercial pops up. three students sitting on couch in a dorm room discussing the billiken games they SHOULD have been at last year. flashes of highlights as they talk amongst themselves. all at once the camera comes back to the three kids and they question "why werent we there?" just that second, brad busts in the room screaming "come on let's go" and the kids run out of the room. imo, a pretty good commercial considering our track record. good job athletic department!

izik is the igniter. if izik comes up big this team will soar and it is the beginning of a lot of good years imo.

this should probably be in the link below about sports plus last nite, but the one sentence that stood out imo last night was coach soderberg stating any less than the ncaa tourney would be a disappointment. he has never made any kind of statement like that in the previous two seasons. in fact he went out of his way to downsell the team. now brad is publically calling for a tourney run as we enter the last season of cusa and the toughest the conference has ever been. my point is something has him turned on. it was also obvious to me by the glowing words he has for dwayne polk last nite, he is ready to turn it over to him now. as i have furiously defended, you all know i believed he would gradually bring polk along. apparently that is not going to be the case. dwayne obviously has won coach over big. and i too now expect dwayne to be on the floor most of every game from start to finish nearly. maybe dwayne is his cause for optimism. maybe it is the clear maturation of darren clarke, maybe it is the upgrade that v newborne brings, maybe it is the obvious maturation of ian v, a lot of positives, and imo, assuming a near equal defensive effort as last year and the health of newborne, polk, bryant and frericks, the only questions left are izik and rebounding. if those two issues are standout, it might be a long march.

i will believe the billikens are a full fledged fast break team when i see it. the pack defense and the rebounding demands that brad puts on everyone in years past are conducive to anyone getting an outlet pass. even if he gives polk the green light to flash out, the pack defense says you have one foot in the pack circle at all times unless your man has the ball. i.e. the shooter's defender would be in a position to really break out and receive a pass. now if we are talking about polk taking off on steals and loose balls, that is one thing, but i dont see a bill walton to keith wilkes type thing developing. if it does, it would come at the expense of our defense and allowing open people in the case of second chances, i just dont believe brad will compromise his defense for that. the better utilization might be spreading the floor more on offense and not being as absolutely patient and restrictive on the offensive end. however, that said, brad has always said that anyone can shoot the ball providing they have a good look and are shooting shots they can make. time will tell. and remember, umsl isnt louisville. i.e. we might see fun and games friday nite that wont be seen again.

did i miss something on this thought? isnt west pine on campus? why would the policy change? especially if there is a separate court for practices.

since mel is about as jewish as they come, i dont think you have too much to worry about.

whatever "negative" remarks are made here are very pale compared to the typical active message board. i read quite a few of them, and for one as active as ours or more, ours is a damn glee club. now a lot of that is the fact that we are hardcore fans. we'd be here and at every game we could be at regardless of the billiken record. but let's say that the billikens explode and get to the top 25 on a regular basis, any bets on how fast this board grows with it? new self proclaimed fans will be coming from everywhere. and with that, since they arent really the hardcore fans just bandwagon jumpers, will come more biting commentary and observations than we can imagine. now is that all bad? depends what we (the billikens program)wants. if you want to start filling the house and bringing in more dollars, imo you take that and in fact fan the flames and create as much day to day interest as you can. if everyone wants to continue to be "comfortable shoes" sure, go ahead and surpress it. but in the same sense, dont expect the time at the top to continue. if the billikens ever want to be a consistent top 25 program, they need to be taken forgranted as a winner. top programs win kids in recruiting battles just because of who they are. and that comes from the press, the internet, everyone talking about their team. as to the practice thing, my job doesnt let me get their every day anyway, so how coach soderberg handles his practice doesnt really concern me. however, i tend to agree for the time and place of that practice, it is his home and everyone better abide by his wishes. that said, if he does close it up, then the program owes it to the fans to showcase the team a time or two before the exhibition season starts. midnight madness would be nice. a lot of schools schedule an open scrimmage/introduction at some point during the opening few weeks of practice. but my gosh, i just dont see covert all the time and what it accomplishes. is the point to really take umsl and truman state by surprise?

i am a huge mel brooks fan. if he was indeed made pope, i would convert and become a catholic.

first thing, i love coach soderberg. cant say enough good about him. and i hope he is the head coach for the billikens a long long time. however, it makes me nuts to hear him berate the internet. this board generates enthusiasm and fan support. imo, he and the rest of the athletic department should be "using" this tool to their advantage. even if our board has rumors and misquotes, still the good outweighs the bad. imo, we even had a hand in the summer tommie liddell saga. we posted it here first that the internet was claiming tommie was switching to unlv, and i believe the coaching staff was then notified of what was being said on the internet. reading between the lines, before unlv had a chance to really sink their dirty claws into tommie, thanks to the word of the internet, our coaches were able to react and get to tommie and his family and talk some sense in him. but everything saint louis university does has to be done with cia like efficiency. i will never understand that. imo the more slu is being talked about everywhere the better. they want to sell tickets and raise money, it aint gonna happen playing under a glass shield.

davidnark said, "I don't think this is a secret, but IMO the biggest question for this team is who will be our backup point guard." david, i think dwayne polk will do just fine. i dont see how he can be questioned. ;-)

actually i hadnt read the article when i replied to thicks. my guess is that they switched spots with julian wright's team. as the article states they wanted his team to play later.

i am betting that a different game was supposed to be the late game or at least a different team and last minute begged off the late time and thus althoff was switched to the late game. i will have to ask around on that one. i know the althoff assistant coach pretty good, i will ask him about how they got the privledge of playing the midnight game.

crymdg2

but you do make a nice point that his year at prep school can make a big difference in size by the time he gets to grand at laclede.

trust me, hughes was bigger both height and weight coming to slu than tommie was as of last march. not saying that hughes is any huge muscleman, he isnt. but tommie is still smaller.

the fact we have witnessed that soderberg, romar and spoon are/were able to get players to come in and become better than average defenders is what i base my statement on. now if they never got better, then i wouldnt say that. i would say it is just the kid. but more than less past billikens have tremendously improved defensively after they get to the college level.

they brought in a LOT of new players last year. unless you are upper echelon, especially in women's sports, that reloading process is mighty tough.

kwyjibo, i think you are far too forgiving. i have watched kevin lisch since he was 8 years old lay it all out 100% of the time. all of his sisters and his younger brother are the same way as well. they have been coached by their father to play the same way and it has become a habit to go all out whenever they dont have a ball in their hands. i have watched them workout by themselves doing defensive slides for 5-10 minutes straight, playing full court man to man where the emphasis is on defending full court, and listened to family discussions that always center on defense. on the other hand, you and i go out to the backyard hoop with our kids, we shoot. we dribble, we talk about scoring. it is a mindset. nothing less. and until you train your mind to be able to think like that on automatic pilot, it isnt going to happen.

since this is a for iscussion only topic and not about any specific billiken, i think that so many of the good scoring guards have been given the free ride on the other end of the court for so long in their basketball career that when they are asked to actually play defense, they just dont have the strong mindset necessary to do just that. i blame the poor aau and high school coaching that a player got up to that point. it is tough to break old habits.

i was just giving perspective to thicks expectations of v newborne is going to average less turnovers per game than chris sloan. imo a bold statement.

orlandostewart said, "The Men's Soccer, basketball and the women's soccer and volleyball all have won, except Women's Basketball. 10 years and not even winning conference is pretty bad" i am not trying to get smart, i dont know the answer and apparently you do. can you tell me the last year that each of our respective billiken sports teams you mention above did indeed win a conference regular season title? for example i know the men's basketball team havent won since joe wiley was a billiken playing againt wes unseld and the louisville cardinals. i.e. a long time ago. i wasnt aware of the women's soccer and volleyball teams winning a conference title.

that is correct. he cannot even practice with the team until they get back from the virgin island. yesterday my son saw him shooting by himself in the rec center while the team was practicing in west pine. he is not at practices.

it goes to illustrate the high level of talent that is in the nba. you need to be in the right place at the right time. i too hope marque gets another shot somewhere.

chris sloan averaged just over 1 turnover per game. izik had more turnovers and played an average of 10 minutes less per game than sloan. fisher and bryant averaged over 2 turnovers per game. which is pretty good considering how much they had the ball in their hands. if dwayne only averages 3 turnovers per game and newborne is less than one, i will be overjoyed.

boy are those folks in for a surprise.