thetorch
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Posts posted by thetorch
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Game management may have been something Rich was not as well versed at, but Xs and Os in any context was Rich's far and away strength. He was a great basketball tactician. His ideas and coaching styrategy can stand up to anyne in the country, just read one of his books.
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Whoa there
I think you are way off base. Norm and Spoon had comparable programs???????
Norm couldn't get much out of his talent but he always had top players in his program, when he left Dooling and Gilbert had just come into the fold, two top 50 players and bona fide college stars.
What did Spoon have????? A group of holdovers and Larry Hughes. When Spoon left Mizzou was way ahead of SLU, maybe not so much in the wins column but you could definetely see that Mizzou was moving in a direction that would eventually allow them to get nationally renowned recruits year after year. Norm laid the groundwork right before he left for what Quin is doing now.
Spoon gave next to nothing to SLU. We all know how many times Romar struck out, those two left the cupboard bare and put the program back several years.
Mizzou has improved their stock exponentially nationally the last 10 years. SLU has been running in place during that time, save for the one Hughes year, and maybe even gone a little backwards.
I am not in any way trying to make excuses. We should be at or near the same level that Mizzou is, but we aren't. Are we that far off, no not really. With 2 or 3 years of NCAA tourney appearances, a new arena, a new conference, and good player development, we will start showing up on lists of big time players. Local products won't blow us off, but this is still at least 3-4 years away. Can we compete with Mizzou on the court? Hell yes, we have a better coach and more fundamentally sound players. Can we compete with Mizzou off the court? Hell no, not at this stage of the game and certainly not when spoon was here.
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Lets get this straight.
Grawer was a great coach, he was a disciplinarian though. My father and I were very close to the Grawer program and I truly believe that Grawer didn't run anybody off that that any other would have as well.
I don't know how Melvin thinks he takes the brunt of criticism for SLU's predicament. I don't blame him for anything. Grawer was on his way out whether Melvin stayed or left. If Melvin was uncomfortable with rich so be it, but you can't just coddle certain players like that. Melvin wanted special treatment, he wasn't going to get it from Rich and he did not get it anywhere else either.
More than anything I feel sorry for Melvin. He had a ton of natural talent, he could have had quite a pro career with a little more work. There is no doubt in my mind that if Melvin would have stayed with SLU he would have been a first round pick. Melvin did not want to work though, he listened to the wrong people namely Floyd Irons, the coach Arizona St and the group around him. They never looked out for his best interests and he suffered because of it.
Look Melvin is what in his early 30s. What is he doing now? Did he say what his profession was. I doubt if he is playing pro ball anymore. He and the people around him ruined any chance of him being successful at bball. If he would have sucked it up and stayed at SLU and ignored the leeches around him he would be a backup in the league right now instead of giving some woe is me routine to a total stranger at a billiken scrimmage.
Finally as is typical Melvin only thinks of himself. SlU ruined him, Rich was too tough on him. He has been told his whole life that it was everybody elses fault. I hope he figures out one day what personal responsibilty means.
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I would shave my head for Shaw and Hansborough.
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WJC ends on July 20th I believe. I can't remember if Coach Brad said Ian would be on campus during the summer at all though. He may not come in until school starts.
I am being optimistic but I think Ian is a sleeper on the team this year, he could surprise alot of people and end up being one of the better freshamn in the league. The competition he is facing over there is tough, the Greek team is very good. I have a feeling that if he can hang with that team he can make serios contributions to the Billikens.
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Who was kicked off the team?
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Don't give up on him. He has to play a behind an NBAer in Shortsianitis. Greece is one of the best teams in this tourney, and save for a couple squads the talent at this is somewhat better than NCAA. The USA team is a freshman and sophomore all star team, and they do not appear to be the best in the field.
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This was reported on a couple weeks ago.
At the time I thought SLU had identified a site on campus, not the baseball fields, where they would put the arena.
I think this is a shakedown of SLU, Schoemel will work to get the TIF for SLU but then wants them to pay above market rate for the property. Sounds shady to me. Biondi will not tolerate this, I am sure he already has several alternatives, or will make Schoemel and the Central west end group cave on their demands.
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Just heard a short interview of Coach Brad on WGNU 920.
Apparently Coach is in Louisville watching a camp and evaluating and recruiting some guys there.
Coach was more upbeat about the conference situation than in his ESPN interview. He was relieved that all changes would wait until 05-06. He said CUSA is a pretty good league and if it lost a couple teams to other conferences it would still be strong, and would be able to lure some other good schools to replace the ones lost.
Coach made a couple comments about the new guys coming in but mostly stressed how Reggie will be taking over for Marque and that the collection of inside players should be able to fare as well as Kenny and Chris. He did mention Ian in Greece but did not say anything about his play there.
Coach had one more comment about the arena, he said he was positive that Biondi and Shanahan would have it done soon but he did not know how far along they were on donations toward the facilty.
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Our conference will not be as bad as people think. East Carolina, UAB, Houston, DePaul and Charlotte will vastly improve. The top teams will be nearly as good if not better. I would love to play L'Ville and Cincy twice but it is not going to be so terrible, the nascar league will be much better than last year.
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Or Temple or Umass for that matter. I think CHarlotte and SLU have better programs at the current time than those three schools.
UMASS was nothing before calipari and is nothing after him, rhode island had lamar odom for two seconds, and cheney will retire sometime or croak on the bench one or the other, and temple will be left w/crazy Bill Cosby.
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That Savannah State game looks tough.
Did we have this many patsies last year? Still think this is a very strong non con.
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Not a shock, expect a few other bottom programs to move on in the near future.
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Muse barring a miracle will not be able to get in as a freshman. He has only been able to play 3 semsters of ball in three years of HS because he is always ineligible. I believe he has buckled down and will be able to graduate this year (it was in doubt) but he will be headed to mineral area, after that who knows.
He does have a great body, maybe better than grimes potentially. Somewhat thin now has a good frame to gain weight on.
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I think I am going to fall on the really optimistic side on this. I expect no less than 18 wins this year and an NCAA berth.
We have a ton of good things not least of all is we play defense, I think we will be the top defensive team in the conference and one of the best in the nation. As we saw last year Fish and Drejaj can check any guard out there, our post defense is still a ? but I don't think it will be for long.
We have a bevy of good outside shooters. Drejaj, Bryant, Clarke, Sloan, and fish and IO who will improve. We can concievably put out lineups where 4 and sometimes 5 guys are comfortable shooting and making outside shots.
We have concievably 3 guys who can score and take over games, Bryant, drejaj, and IO. All of these guys can dish, penetrate and shoot. Instead of one go to guy we have 3 who can fill the bill.
We have much better athletes, last year we were plodding in some games, like against 'Zona and we could not keep up with athletic teams. With JJ, IO, CLarke, Bryant, Ficher, and Drejaj we won't be cought flatfooted, and with more scoring options we can keep up better instead of running a one man show.
I truly believe we have two big time players in IO and Bryant. Both of them will score over 15 points a game. That is firepower we did not come close to having last year.
We may not win all the tough games, and we may not go on a huge run, but I don't think we will have to. This team will be capable of winning on bad nights, no more losses to Martin, SMS and Houston.
For all these reasons I think the Bills are sure to be top 4 or 5 in CUSA and a good bet to go dnacing in an improved CUSA.
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The new BCS is going to be much tougher on teams that are not in a conference. Notre Dame may be the one with the network backing and all the dollars but there are alot of schools and conferences who can set policy and who want in on a peice of the south bend pie. I think they will turn the screws on Notre Dame and make them join a conference or shut them out of the BCS.
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Don't worry, if you have ever read a news release from CUSA they all look and sound the same. 3 paragraphs comprised of generalities and double talk, I am confident we will not get screwed mainly because if these guys don't pull off a merger they will be out of work.
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I would not expect anything bu8t Katz being a shill for East coast schools. If its not being played within a hundred miles of the atlantic these guys simply don't care and can't beleive that anything that matters happens in the midwest or west.
I can see why Soderberg is down, hell he could be in a top 5 conference or the horizon and he has no idea where he is going to end up. L'Ville with Pitino knows thay are going up, these other guys, UAB and Memphis are not being realistic. UAB will end up in the sun belt and Memphis will be lucky if they get included in the big east, they will probably end up in the WAC and calipari will bolt.
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No way Temple is out of everything. My only guess would be Notre Dame not coming along.
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Floyd's retirement at Vashon is immeninent, he has enough years to get a top pension from STL public schools. I don't think he is getting paid for coaching anymore. While I don't care for the man on a personal level I wonder what he could do for a D-1 school say in the valley or horizon? He is a helluva coach and his recruiting skills are masterful.
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Frericks is also not the average Juco transfer as he has played one year of D-1 ball at UAB.
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My guess is Marque is going to Europe.
The problem with the summer leagues is if you play in them and then cannot make a roster spot you are screwed out of the Euro leagues. The Euro leagues set up their teams before the summer leagues are over so a guy like Marque has to make a choice, go for the sure thing in Europe or roll the dice in the states and end up having to play in the NBDL for pennies compared to what he could make overseas.
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Is this the team that Izzo is coaching with Romar and Quinn? Or is it the one Arthur Johnson and Rickey Paulding were trying out for?
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Another great recruiting effort by Coach Floyd.
Good for Curtis, he is a talented player unfortunately he never can get on the court for Vashon due to his lackluster grades. After a couple years at mineral area he should be ready to go acedemically to a major college.
Pickup play at the Simon Rec
in Billikens.com Main Board
Posted
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...9483491-9839069
He has 3 books listed on Amazon. One apparently has not been released yet. I have the two others and I believe two more which may not have gotten as wide scale printing as these did. I will have to search in a few boxes for them.