3star_recruit
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Posts posted by 3star_recruit
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6 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:
Totally agree this is the cost of doing business, however that doesn’t address the question of do we have the money to buy out Ford’s contract and to finance the expenses of getting in a new coach. There is no way you can convince me that SLU academics generates that much spare cash to fund the current sports teams and come up with enough to pay for this on it’s own. For those who say “take it out of SLU’s endowment “, get real. Universities use endowments to invest, and use the income from those investments for university expenses and capital projects for academic departments. Take money from that to give to Ford, and you have less money coming in every year in the future to to support academics. Not going to happen. How does everyone else do it? They get money donated from rich alumni and sports fans. That’s what we need to do, absent that we do not have the cash to make this happen. I agree that not doing this could damage SLU athletics for years to come (we need the income from Men’s BB), but we still need the cash to make this happen, or we are stuck where we are.
Oklahoma State owed Coach Ford 7.5 million and both parties agreed to a lump sum payment of 3.9 million. I assume the same situation would apply here. But we'll never know what the lump sum payment is if it comes to pass.
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40 minutes ago, ACE said:
Understood, but the flirtation lasted about a week. Can you blame him for exploring what's out there with NIL when SLU seemingly had little to nothing to offer at that time? At the same time, we also have a lot of fans (rightfully so) very critical for SLU to be slow in developing their NIL game. It seems to me, Yuri's flirtation was a good thing - it was a wake-up call... a catalyst for at least trying to develop a NIL strategy... which currently a lot of fans still think is not enough. Imagine how far behind SLU would be with NIL if Yuri didn't provide a wake-up call.
He's a local kid who stayed home, played all four years, became the school's all-time leading assists leader, A-10 all-time assists leader and led the nation twice in a statistical category (something I imagine has never happened in SLU history. Those are things that would typically be celebrated.
Agreed. Basketball is a team game. If Perkins doesn't get hurt, all the accolades you mentioned would have been in addition to an NCAA appearance. But Perkins did get hurt. That's life.
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How did we go from a five point loss at Dayton, to Tim Dalger leaving and Gibson Jimerson disappearing the last two games? We didn't even compete in the second half last night. What happened to all the fight that was in this team two games ago? Was Dalger the only one unhappy with Coach Ford or was he just the scapegoat?
It doesn't matter how much talent you have once the coach loses the team. Jimerson looked defeated last night and eventually the rest of the team fell in line. I'm not sure how Coach Ford comes back from this. If Jimerson has given up, Ford is done.
Schasz likes this -
Good luck to Tim. He averaged 2 ppg as a sophomore in high school, improved enough by his senior year to go to a decent juco, developed into an all-conference player and then put up decent numbers at the mid-major level. His motor can never be questioned. Hope it works out wherever he ends up.
CenHudDude likes this -
10 minutes ago, slufan13 said:
I'm not sure Majerus could take this roster and be a top 50 team. Lots of individual talent but the roster construction makes no sense. There is no team identity. I wasn't sold on the bully-ball identity as something that could take us to a Sweet 16 but at least you had a roster and a gameplan that all fit together.
Embedded in Coach Ford's recruiting strategy is "locking down the borders". That has been consistent everywhere he's been. The problem with that philosophy is that getting the best 3 stars from your local area and adding an out-of-state impact player here and there does not lend itself to an offensive scheme. You're just throwing players together and cobbling together an offense from it. Hence we get Bullyball. Yurimania.
Adman, TheChosenOne and slufan13 like this -
1 hour ago, TheChosenOne said:
Oh yeah, no question there. I was merely commenting that I have found Ford to be fairly candid over the past 12+ months with regards to the deficiencies of his teams and his commentary is in line with what those on this board complain about. Again, that doesn't make me feel any better about the team or change my evaluation of Ford, merely commenting that I at least appreciate him directly acknowledging the issues as opposed to pretending they don't exist like so many coaches do when speaking to the media. My commentary was completely limited to the quote and his direct acknowledgement of our deficiencies as a team.
I have little trust in Ford ever being the guy to "fix" a roster that has deficiencies. The key for a guy like Ford is building the right roster that makes up for his deficiencies as a coach. Unfortunately, he has not found or stumbled into the right mix of players since guys like Goodwin and French moved on and it now has me questioning whether talent evaluation and roster construction is another deficiency of Ford's.
It's not a question for me. Roster construction is absolutely a weakness of Coach Ford. If you don't have a fixed offensive scheme, then you at least need an offensive philosophy. Ideally, how are we going to score? What is plan B if our first option is taken away? You can't just continue rolling the dice and fixing the gaps in the offseason. You'll invariably find yourself in a situation where you're sacrificing defense to fix offensive problems.
Let's say Coach Ford survives the season, fixes the defensive problems and we make the tournament next year. What happens the next year after the seniors graduate? Since there is no discernable offensive philosophy, then it's another 2-3 years of recruiting the best player available and hoping the pieces fit together. What's to stop us from being right back here when the pieces don't fit?
Coach Ford is making his job a lot harder than it needs to be. Just pick an offensive scheme and recruit accordingly. Now that NIL allows teams to replace half their squad every year, coaches who can plug players into a scheme have a distinct advantage over coaches who don't.Coach314, TheChosenOne, billiken_roy and 1 other like this -
12 minutes ago, VeniceMenace said:
Agree. Overall KenPom rankings during Ford's tenure:
2017: 273
2018: 148
2019: 106
2020: 62
2021: 53
2022: 68
2023: 96
Current: 200
The defense sucked when Coach Ford got here. In a couple of years he made us competitive on defense (about top 100) and for the next four years that has been our calling card. We are a top 100 defense or even better at the height of bully ball. Ideally you want your best offensive players to also be good defenders but that isn't always going to happen.
But when your entire starting lineup consists of guys who are average to below average defenders, you have what we've experienced this year: total defensive collapse.
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19 minutes ago, thetorch said:
https://x.com/jakelieberman2/status/1749104520628421097?s=20
Showing interest in another JUCO. 6'2 combo guard out of Tampa. Originally signed with an NAIA school in TX, went the D-2 JUCO route instead.
This is the kind of player we need to stay away from: A volume shooter with subpar assist numbers. We already had Rashad Williams.
billiken_roy likes this -
Successful teams come in all shapes and sizes. The problem isn't the size of the guards. The problem is the collective skill set of Coach Ford's teams. You can press with a small team but you need ball hawks. We are in short supply. You can counter length with good passing. We're the worst passing team the conference. You can win on the road but your leaders need to be road warriors. We don't have that either.
Even if Meadows would have been healthy all season, his career stats say he's not the 5-6 apg guy we need at the position. Dalger is an effort guy but he's not a ball hawk. Our underclassmen are probably our best defenders but they are our worst offensive players. Jimerson and Hargrove's performance in road games make it almost impossible for us to win against good teams in their building.
This season is all about making a run in February when we have some winnable road games. That's all it's ever been about ever since Parker went down 4 games into the season. We have too many weaknesses in the roster that can't be masked against good teams. It's nice that Coach Ford is addressing these weaknesses with recent offers but damn it he should have done a better job of addressing them in the off season.
billiken_roy, Taj79, DOC and 4 others like this -
Gibson Jimerson
Home: 43.8 FG% 44.0 3P% 20.4 PPG
Away: 34.7 FG% 29.3 3P% 12.0 PPG
Terrence Hargrove
Home: 52.1 FG% 52.8 3P% 15.2 PPG
Away: 47.3 FG% 20.0 3P% 9.9 PPGIt's hard to win on the road when the splits for your leaders are that drastic. Something has to change.
2010andBeyond likes this -
We officially extended an offer to Brody Robinson after he played his most complete game of the year yesterday: 26 points, 11 assists and 4 steals in a blowout win over Dodge City. He shot 6/7 from three.
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22 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:
What conditioning does he still need? I don’t know basketball but I know fitness. He should not need conditioning in January. Hell he dropped like 30 lbs right? It’s not like he was injured or couldn’t participate in team practices. Also he’s not better than Marten Linssen.
This is the craziest thing to me about the eligibility waiver, the only thing that it prevents is playing immediately in games. That’s a big deal, but it’s not like the player can’t move freely. Also, as mentioned above, I don’t care if he wasn’t eligible. He should be in shape. If he’s not in shape, he either didn’t care or coaches didn’t do their job.
I get the impression that this is the closest Big Brad has been to being in shape his entire basketball career. He certainly wasn't at Georgetown. But the main issue is that he's an average defender at best. Getting him to a level we've grown accustomed to at the center position will be a long-term project.
Hargrove never had a conditioning issue yet it took him several years just to become average on defense. -
1 minute ago, cgeldmacher said:
So he's the Jordan Kyrou of the Billikens?
I wish I could talk hockey but I can't. I do know a little baseball. Big Brad is the basketball version of Ryan Klesko.
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2 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:
I think we are seeing why Ezewiro wasn't playing much for a bad Georgetown team. From what I understand, he has lost a lot of weight since showing up at SLU. Can you imagine how hard it would be for him to get up and down the court with 30 extra pounds? He can't keep up now. For every basket he gets, he costs us an easy layup on the other end due to his conditioning. For those of you that think that the best version of our team is one that runs after a defensive rebound and plays up tempo, we cannot do that when our break out is 4 on 5.
Best offensive big we've had in a long time. He's also the worst defensive big we've had in a long time. Conditioning will fix some of that.
willie likes this -
31 minutes ago, gabriel said:
I would never question the work ethic of the players - the guys have consistently worked their tails off this entire season and I'm grateful for every single one of them.
But if the state of our program is celebrating losses to our biggest rival because the game was "close." Then this is a program that I, and I assume many others, don't want to be a fan of moving forward. We play the games to win. We work all season to make the tournament. We keep setting arbitrary goals (play close on the road to a ranked Dayton team, win 20 games, etc.) to make us feel okay with underachieving.
I would have died for this program 3 years ago, now I am struggling to even pay attention. If the leadership continues to show that they are okay with mediocrity, then they will continue to lose more and more fans like myself.
The fact that we hung around all game with Parker on a minute restriction bodes well for this team going forward. I gave a best case scenario a couple of weeks back and I think we're right on track:
QUALITY OF PLAY
Early Jan:
C+ (With a healthy Meadows and Hughes)Mid Jan:
B- (With a 75% Parker in the lineup and a healthy Thames)Early Feb:
B (With a 85% Parker in the lineup)Late Feb:
B+ (With a 95% Parker in the lineup and the freshmen playing like sophomores)MariaReynolds, Gremio14 and CenHudDude like this -
46 minutes ago, TRN said:
So, we didn’t play Bruce or Brad the last 5 minutes or so. Someone needs to explain how that’s a good move with Holmes taking over. Clueless coaching, but we only lost by 5. Put lipstick on the pig.
Unfortunately their poor decision making was killing us at that stage of the game, on both sides of the ball. We didn't have an answer for Homes but at least TJ did enough to help cut into the deficit.
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10 hours ago, 3star_recruit said:
Play average defense and and shoot over 40% from three and we hang around until the end. Play our typical defense and this game is over by halftime.
The guys managed to pull off option one tonight. We were nothing special but we did enough to hang around. That's the key to success going forward. We need to play passable defense to give Parker and Jimerson a chance to close out ball games.
I understand why the coaching staff went with the senior down the stretch but Meadows decision-making the second half was disappointing. If he plays a little bit better this ball game goes down to the wire.
Parker moved very well tonight. We may see the old Parker in 2 weeks rather than 4.
CenHudDude likes this -
25 minutes ago, ACE said:
The following may be a take that is not very popular, but I don't think Ford was a bad hire...
He got the team in the Dance in just his third year following the Crews dumpster fire; then the following 3 seasons, he had 3 Top 50 ish teams (I don't want to rehash bad luck v. excuses v. self-inflicted wounds) but the bottom line is not too many coaches in SLU history stacked recruiting classes and built rosters like that over a four-year period.
BUT.... BUT I also think that in the new NIL/Portal wild west era, things have clearly headed in the wrong direction. His time has probably run its course and a change is probably for the best.
In conclusion, because it's time for a change now, does not necessarily mean it was a bad hire then... both things can be true.
The college basketball environment changed drastically over the last 3 years. Some of the OGs decided to retire so they didn't have to deal with it. Some of the coaches who were leading top 25 teams before NIL are struggling to make the tournament now.
If the BOT wants an established name all they have to do is wait a year. The list will just get longer. Any search firm that claims that they can pick a winner in this new environment is lying. It's the Wild Wild West out here.
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I thought the point of this thread was to discuss a list of coaches that our conservative BOT would actually sign off on?
Meanwhile back in reality, the coaches at Ohio St and Michigan are fighting for their jobs. Since they are not officially on the market yet I guess an Ahearn subreddit is the best we can do.
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Play average defense and and shoot over 40% from three and we hang around until the end. Play our typical defense and this game is over by halftime.
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Dayton is a consistent team that has been winning on defense and timely offense. Their first three conference opponents have not managed to break 62 points and the Flyers themselves have not scored over 72. We have been a consistently weak road team and poor defensively.
If we could just manage to play average defense for one game, we can hang around.
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4 minutes ago, slu72 said:
Grant at Dayton?
Grant was an assistant coach at Florida for 10 years before taking his first head coaching job at VCU.
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Hiring NBA assistants sounds good in theory. They know how to get to where the players want to go. And they've had some success as coaches already. So let's look at the real life examples over the past decade: Rex Walters, Dan Majerle, Mike Dunlap, Jerry Stackhouse, Juwan Howard. Why isn't the theory holding up in reality?
MusicCityBilliken and AGB91 like this -
18 minutes ago, TheChosenOne said:
They swung and missed on their top transfer targets and then their backup plans appear to have been huge misses as they aren't getting much production from any of their transfers. Definitely missed evaluations on guys you would have had a lot of tape on. I think you could question the coaching as the team does not play sound (poor rebounding, breakdown a lot on defense, rely on a dribble heavy offense, shoot a lot of 3s despite not having any good shooters at this level, and struggle to finish in the lane due to lack of strength and athleticism), but they are essentially an average mid-major type team competing in a Power 6 conference. Whatever goodwill Gates built up in his opening season is likely to be gone at the end of this season as I am not sure where their wins come from with this group. Ultimately, a bad team that is overmatched in the SEC. Not sure how to discuss that in the context of SLU beyond both teams being fairly bad and now holding the same record, I guess Stu was asked to Tweet that so SLU fans were aware Mizzou sucks too?
We can see that Mizzou 0-3 in conference. We were close to going 0-3 to start the conference as well. Why are the two teams struggling? Mizzou can't score (failed to break 70 in 2 of their first 3 games) and we can't stop anybody. At least we have the potential to offset poor defense with an injection of offense from a healthy Parker. Mizzou's roster is set. Sucks to be them.
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This is an excellent point. The big donors are free to do whatever they want with their money, just like we are. Dragging big donors on social media when we can't replace their money doesn't seem very wise.