billiken_roy

the better term skip would be athletic talent. running, jumping quickness for his size. that is what people are talking about. not basketball skills. at least that is the way i read it. i agree he has a lot of athletic talent, but i agree with you on basketball skills.

i personally dont think we have a sufficient sample of play on izik at any position to gauge what he will do. i hope p diddy is right. to be honest though, this is the first statement p diddy has made that has me raising my eyebrows.

the fact that coach soderberg put anthony defensively on 3's is a huge compliment to his defensive skills. what you think they just stuck him out there for the heck of it? coach soderberg put him out there because he was the best we had. i am not disagreeing on the aspect he isnt the best person to defend james white or fancisco garcia, but if matched up sizewise with a comparable guard, i have more confidence in anthony drejaj to play defense than any other guard on this team. that shouldnt be the case. polk, bryant, clark and brown are all much better athletes, but for now, it is my guess that the defensive stopper vs any opposing guard is going to be drejaj. if that changes, it wont be because drejaj wasnt good, or not trying it will be because the others finally got it.

anybody can guard when they "put their mind to it". that is the majority of defense, attitude and hustle. most of our great defenders have not been the best athletes on the team. most were good athletes, but not the best. fisher and sloan come to mind. carlos mccauley comes to mind. jeff harris. of course it helps if an athlete puts out. but to say you know jj can defend when he puts his mind to it is a little bit confusing. how would we know, he has never put his mind to much of anything at slu. i just hope the young man realizes he is being given one last chance to save his future and makes an honest try at it both on and off the court. but i am not counting on johnson for anything anymore.

well that is exactly what happened. igudala btw, was a power forward for arizona. so you are correct on sloan guarding him. muhammed was guarded by drejaj and bryant i remember watching that. i am sure white as well. if you question that, if our lineup is sloan, frericks, drejaj, bryant and fisher and cincy is playing both hicks and maxiell, who do you think guarded hicks if sloan was guarding white? it is exactly the point 3 star has been making for quite some time. our very small three guard lineup doesnt match up to the teams that have a more traditional sized small forward.

3 star, as long as he is being recruited by the big ten and such schools, the writer will say that. of course next november when he signs with the billikens that same writer will say, "jared cant shoot the three pointer". comes with the territory.

when tommie played xavier vs ofallon, tommie was on the way up yet. that would have been junior or before season. the senior season when price was at west, liddell outplayed price badly.

i will agree with jalensdad on one thing...tommie was terribly used in high school. brooks did him nor flyer basketball a favor with the style he played or asking liddell to be as unselfish as he was. therefore i do agree that we probably havent seen the tip of the liddell iceberg yet. his third quarter vs belleville west last year, (west was the best team in southern illinois last year) was just a one man show as good as i have seen in the area for a high schooler in a long long time.

jjray, they will draft "bigs" on potential. wings and guards have to have the goods upfront. there are a lot of tommie liddell's out there trying to fulfill their potential.

wow.....2 years and then the draft? i am as big of a tommie liddell fan as there is (well maybe not as big as jalensdad) but he isnt a larry hughes. hughes and tatum carried that cbc team to fabulous heights. hughes carried that aau team to a national title. hughes carried a billiken team to an ncaa bid (let's not forget virtually the same team plus justin love was extremely mediocre the next season) i have seen tommie do some wonderful things in spurts. but too often he just blended in as well. plus he is no where near the defender that hughes was and isnt as big as hughes was. if he is ready to be drafted in 2 years, he will have made some great strides over the next 3 seasons. i hope you are right, because that kind of success will mean the billikens went a long long way as well.

skip, you underestimate chris sloan and what he did. that said, i am fast becoming a newborne convert. now if izik can put out....

reggie bryant is going to light up any team that is "brave" enough to try to guard him straight up. no knock on young mr polk at all. it is like a baby playing chess with bobby fisher.

you think he will be scared he wont get pt at slu, but he will at big ten schools? that's interesting. one would think the opposite. leonard comes in as newborne graduates. would seem to me a wing spot will be up for grabs. i would think between lisch, liddell, polk and leonard they could split 120 minutes and be very happy. in fact, we could easily throw another one or two into that equation and have ample minutes for everyone.

actually, typically we were playing 3 guards, so it would have been reggie or drejaj or fisher in most instances. sloan was inside getting beat on by a power forward.

my concern is that the defense will give up about 10 more points per game and i am not sure if our offense will match that. at the last billiken club meeting, anthony beane lead numerous answers to questions with a line about if our defense...... i.e. the coaches are agreeing with tseugnekillib. i know some of you dont want to face it, but the more i hear this stuff, the more important anthony drejaj will be to being on the floor.

it p!sses me off that one has to read the article to know that saint louis university also offered. the title makes no mention of slu event though we are on even footing.

my son called me today from school, after watching some of the billiken practice and told me that polk was just splendid tonite. second, marque's line in the spurs vs mavs game: 19 minutes played, 3-3 from the field, 2-5 from the line, 1 rebound, 3 assists and 3 steals. matched tony parker's line. go marque!!!

it was a joke! steve doesnt care.

on this board.

if steve donates $30 million dollars before next tuesday, i will vote for kerry. priorities take precedent.

give us $25 million from a private donor and $35 million from the taxpayers and add that to the existing $12 million allready there. my math says we are done. there is no comparison.

rich, i was the first on this board to champion cheryl levick. however, by now we should have seen her remove the leashes and turn her staff loose. nothing has changed at this point. i attended her signing press conference/luncheon and was tremendously impressed. but like i said, show us something. steve told me not to comment on cardinal talk on this board.

willie, you forsee a number of biblical like events in the previous post. "president kerry speaking?" i can only assume the next president of your rotary chapter is also named kerry, or possibly kerry collins will be there to address the washed up quarterbacks of america convention. "the beatles in concert?" i guess you could mean ringo and paul individually?

billikan, no disrespect, but we have more or less been hearing the same song now for quite awhile with no new information. when pressed for "how close are we fund raisingwise?" we always seem to hear the same $10-12m number and have always been led to believe we need about 5x that to start. it is nice to hear there is a committee in place, but forgive me and i assume most everyone else, if we arent too excited at this time for what seems to be a slipping dream. if they want to get the area pumped up again, they need to give us a sign. a solid real sign. blind faith only goes so far.

i hate to be the chicken little, but imo unless a billiken "bill laurie" shows up with just an unbelievable donation ($25-30 million would be nice) i just dont know if this thing is going to ever happen at least not anytime soon. it is my opinion that right now is not a good time. father biondi is also trying to build his research center, plus replenish the general endowment after the stock market crash of the early 00's took almost 30% of the value of the fund. third on that extremely tough list is not a good position to be in. i sure hope we dont compromise our vision of the arena and build a scaled back shoemaker center instead of the improved cintas center. if anyone has been to cincy to see both facilities, they know what i am talking about. as much as i would love an on campus facility, i dont want a glorified high school gym either. do it right or dont do it at all.