3star_recruit

SIU just got demolished in their first true road game. Guess what? SIU is our first true road game. Who knows how our guys will respond? It's not realistic to expect career highs from Jimerson every night.

I saw the same thing from LJ in high school. Struggles from three for long periods then gets hot for 4 or 5 games then goes cold again. You'll see him get hot when you least expect it.

Good to see Mike Meadows filling it up. Jimerson needs all the help he can get. Too bad Hargrove had such a tough night shooting the ball. The freshmen looked like freshmen -- overmatched. Just hope they improve each week.

Last year vs Providence.

I want the team to do well no matter who the coach and AD is. I don't control that. Until Parker returns, we're pretty limited in the teams we can beat. I expect over the next 5 weeks Thames will become a consistent 8-9 ppg scorer. LJ is basically a spot up shooter right now. The percentages will improve but it will be harder for him to be a consistent scorer because he lives and dies by his jumper.

Thames had 4 fouls in 11 minutes. Hughes was a disaster, shooting 1-7 in 31 minutes. Those are our two best underclassmen. It just wasn't meant to be that night. Hopefully they'll be better tonight. For the other freshmen to get on the floor, Thames and Hughes have to be consistent scorers. Otherwise we'll just score 65 points while our freshmen experience losing game after game.

By force do you mean going from a 3 points and 1 rebound a game to 6 points and 3 rebounds a game? Because I think that's all you can reasonably expect even with increased minutes this year. He came off the bench for his prep team. He's a fundamentally sound project.

We're going to take our lumps while the youngsters are going through their growing pains. Ideally, you want that process spread out over the course of a season. They need to become sophomores in the next 5 weeks. Otherwise, we're lucky to win 3 games.

My prediction: the computer will suddenly see a Parker effect over the next three games. The same effect that us humans have already seen by watching the previous games. Can this team even score over 70 points against a decent team without Parker in the lineup?

And USU is in the same position. And I quote from their own message board, "Without him (Great), we are 1-4 up to this point.". This is the plight of most mid majors. If your most talented scorer is in the lineup, you've got a chance to be good. If not, not so much.

It's skewed because Parker isn't playing. Wyoming didn't lack big men, we were just able to counter them with 22 points from Parker. With him we're a B-. Without him, I agree, we're a C-.

Wiz, we have no way of defending their 6'8 245 lb power forward who is averaging 20 and 10. If we don't shoot a high percentage from three, it's a wrap.

I think you nailed it. The prioritization of short-term over long term goals is evident going all the way back to Coach Ford's tenure at Oklahoma State. He doesn't seem to have the whole in mind when he recruits the pieces. His teams often have scoring droughts because the players don't complement each other. The result is Coach Ford's teams have enough talent to finish middle of the pack or a little bit better. But the pieces must fit together in order to finish in the top of the conference standings. And you're right, the short leash he has on young player's is classic short term thinking. It does not serve us in the long term.

The NIL portal is going to do to mid-majors what it's going to do. SLU hasn't been able to put the team it recruited on the floor for 4 years now, largely due to injury. That's a recipe for disappointment.

Zhang is an international player. There are no clear rules for what compensation international players are allowed to accept. Going after foreign players and players who have already exhausted their transfer possibilities (Ezewiro) are sensible counter strategies to portal free agency. Unfortunately the NCAA is dragging their feet on eligibility and nullifying the effectiveness of these strategies.

This is one of the rare occasions where lack of transparency makes sense. You can only use a medical redshirt if it's a season ending injury. It's too early to make that call. If I were SLU, I wouldn't give any further details about Parker's situation at all until that decision is made. We're not good enough to make a run in the A10 tournament without a legitimate big. Does it even make sense for Parker to return this season if we're a below .500 team by then and our big man situation hasn't improved substantially?

Not talking about SVB. Talking about Bruce. We all see the long-term potential but he doesn't have the body to deliver yet. There's no rush to make a decision about his long-term future. If there's no chance one of the other bigs will be cleared in the near future, then sure, commence the experiment.

Too early to call. The NCAA is still issuing eligibility rulings on a daily basis. If we are forced to throw the freshman version of Vouyoukas out there for 20 min a game, the losses will pile up. I'm willing to wait another 10 days before having to make that decision.

In my observation, the guys most likely to improve are the ones with the higher basketball IQs. They will add a little to their game each year. Or they will have a light bulb moment at some point in their career that takes their game to the next level. Linssen made his major jump at UNC Wilmington playing 20 min on a bad team. At Valparaiso, he could barely get on the floor.

Bruce reminds me of Vouyoukas in his freshman year. He understands how to play the game but isn't physically capable of what we need him to do yet.

The young guys' minutes have increased each of the first two weeks of the season. The only reason LJ didn't play 25 minutes against Wichita State is because he got sick. Thames is moving in the same direction. Either we'll get some good news about one of our bigs in the next 10 days or Bruce will have to grow up in a hurry. In any case our young guys will be playing plenty of minutes.

We don't have a spare 17 ppg scorer sitting on the bench. The next man up is going to be a young guy with little experience or an older guy who is just a role player. That's just how roster depth stacks up at the mid-major level. Your most talented scorer better be healthy for the vast majority of the season or the regular season is effectively over. That will be true no matter who the coach is. Can one of our young guys develop into a consistent double figure scorer over the next 6 weeks? I think it's possible. But we're going to be a below .500 team while he's getting reps during that stretch.

Most MBMs would just be fine with a healthy Perkins and COVID layoff that lasted two weeks instead of a month. That's two additional NCAA appearances. Three NCAA tournaments in a four year period, even if it resulted in no wins, would still make us one of the top mid major programs in the country. You blame Coach Ford's for the injuries, Covid and Situation 2. I think part of it is Ford and a lot of it is just bad luck. Ultimately it doesn't matter what the reasons are. If he can't figure a way to turn the ship around, his days are numbered.

Coach Ford has experienced more misfortune than any Billiken coach I've ever seen. Nothing like Situation 2, this rash of injuries to key players or the COVID layoff happened at any of his previous stops. If his teams were as healthy as the ones he had at UMass, I think we would be smiling right now. Instead it's a nonstop fire drill.

Basketball ain't football. Even the top basketball coaches can have a season go south in a hurry when their best scorer goes down.