thetorch

We should be a consensus top 5 team in all the polls now. I am going to go to the FLA International game next week. How good of a team does FLA International have?

Huge win, Clemson is a consensus top ten team. I can't wait to see how good this team will be with experience.

That is correct. We have to make our team as good as possible and the new arena and decent fan support for it would also help.

Aid package is just financial aid. You can only give schollies in a certain time frame, so if a player signs to late he can't get a scholarship perse, but instead the school will give him/her financial aid package that will pay for everything. I don't SLU had to do that this year but mizzou did with Linus Kleia because he signed after the signing period was over. It is pretty much a formality and you cannot do it unless there is a scholarship available. Say Duke cannot use all their scholarships up and give financial aid to other top players and have an 18 man team.

Could someone provide a little info on Ellis for me please?

Boise State????? I had the unfortunate experience of going to Boise once, let me tell ya Boise makes Omaha look like Las Vegas. Maybe he really likes potatoes.

Still, as a mizzou hater like many fellow billiken fans "we" would like to see them lose a highly ranked area recruit.

There is no reason SLU should be in the CUSA if it does not include Cincy, L'Ville, Marquette and DePaul. We have little connection to the other schools, the ones we do (Memphis, UAB, Charlotte) are not enough to keep us around. It is easy to see we don't belong in the NASCAR league but where else can we go? What other conference is out there that 1. has similar scholastic reputations 2. Has good BBall programs? There aren't any that I can see right now. If we don't catch on with Marquette and DePaul in some other conference or create our own conference of like minded schools (doubtful), SLU will be banished to mid major hell.

Roy think of it like NFL preseason games. I bet SLU found it advantageous to have a couple practice games against real competition besides practice with all their young kids.

Most impressed by the Billiken D and Goalkeeper Hutton. They held off the Virginia attack well under pressure. The Cavaliers had 33-6 shot advantage in the game and 16-0 advantage on corner kicks. Clemson will be a tough one next week. Wish the BBall billikens had this kind of SOS.

It could be a reference to Too sucking once again on the Tiger teet, as his last few posts have been critical of Quin, but on this one he clearly jumps back on the S.P.U.M.A.C. bandwagon. More likely it was an excuse for an immature person to type the word ***. These guys who say the well is dry for arena money, are they the same in the know folks who gave you the Brian Gregory tip? Buy American?????????? Isn't Quin's biggest recruit from Lithuania? I hadn't realized they had been made the 51st state in the union.

Just what the board needs.

Those guys look like a cross between the Allmann Brothers and Siegfreid and Roy.

Don't know if Isaih is mensa material but in a battle of brains with his peers I think he would do quite well. The Pacers have a ton of talent, but they also have a ton of headcases. Isaiah may have had a good eye for talent but he had problems developing it, specifically with the production of Bender, Harrington, and Tinsley. IMO the real problem with the Pacers is the huge contract they gave dud Austin Croshere. Still 4 years and 40 million left on that baby. Brad Miller would still be in a Pacer uniform if not for that. This upcoming season the Pacers should finish first or second in the East, but will lose to Detroit or NJ. 2 or 3 years from now if the team can stay together they have a good shot at a title. Alot of ?s though. Artest is my favorite player in the league but he has to get under control, or he wil be gone and that will not bode well for him or the Pacers.

Pro Cardinals, Rams, Blues, T-Wolves College Football Mizzou, Notre Dame (My cousin plays TE for them, otherwise I hate them with a passion). College BBall - SLU, first and foremost. Any underdog in the tourney. There are several teams I follow and actively root against at any oppurtunity including but not limited to Mizzou, Duke, Kentucky, Florida, Memphis, UAB (until Bartow dies or quits going to the games), UNLV, Xavier, Virginia (or whoever Pete Gillen happens to be coaching this week), and Notre Dame.

If you look at the conference ratings the last several years the A-10 has been falling drastically. The A-10 is on the cusp of major along with the WAC, right above the Mo Valley. The A-10 has not had a national championship contender since UMASS. Xavier has been the star of the conference the last 5 years and is a perrenial top 25 team but they are the best the league has to offer. Dayton, St. Joes, Temple have also had top 50 programs lately but I just don't think they can stack up to the best of the CUSA.

Good for Temple. They have stunk since 01. Cheney is old and not getting the kids he used to. Without Cheney IMO Temple goes nowhere and he will be leaving soon or retiring. They are not a power in that conference anymore.

Xavier has been a perennial top 25 team now for a decade. No one else in the A-10 comes close to that. I don't think the A-10 is a mid-major conference, but they are pretty close, definetely not better than CUSA who some consider mid-major.

I will have to respectfully disagree with these valley proponents. The Mo Valley is a fine league, and I would prefer joining that league to many others, but being realistic as it stands CUSA is better, and even without Cincy, L'Ville, Marq, and DePaul it would be on a simialr level although maybe not for long. As regards to SLU in the Valley, if the Billikens were a Valley team we would be in the top 3 every year, more often than not winning titles. Historically SLU has shown this, we were always a top team in the MCC, a league that is quite similar to the Valley now. In the Great Midwest a league much better than the Valley were among the top teams and we have remained so in CUSA. Each time SLU has raised the bar as far as conference affiliation we have more than held our own. The Mo Valley while it has some strong programs, SLU would still be one of the top 3 teams year in year out, if not the top team.

While I have had a personal viewing of Meyer in game situations, Earl Austin Jr has also said he has serious flaws in his game. In discussing him at the last Billiken Club meeting he said something to the effect of his shots may go in at Borgia but at the D-1 level they will end up in the fifth row. It is possible he has improved but even if Stanford is after him I would still take Liddell and Evans over him.

Hopefully Stanford will pick Shaw or Meyer and we can take on the other one.

There have been reports the last couple of days that have the Big East staying intact and adding two football schools and two basketball schools for a 16 team league. L'Ville and Cincy are the football and Marquette and DePaul are for Basketball. Apparently the BBAll schools in the Big East really want to stay with the rest of the league and think that Marquette and Depaul added to it wil give them enough power in the league structure.

I read about Freddy Adu this weekend maybe in the Post and I believe he is still playing for the u-17 so I don't think they are back yet, but it should over shortly.

One for SLU getting any ink from the Sporting News and two for the apparent excellent play from supposed project, redshirt Bryce Husak. If he is still too thin I think we should still shirt him, but if he can seriously help the team you cannot hold him back. We need all the inside help we can get, throw them all out there and see who comes away the best for the team.

St. Louis could get 5,000 at a curling match if ND was involved. CUSA is not a terrible soccer conference, but some of the big east teams are not much better. Tough game last night, the Bills inexperience really showed. I thought we got robbed on a no call in front of the ND net, should've been a penalty kick. It will take time for this team to play at its highest level, fortunately the group should be peaking as soon as the NCAAs come around.