bart

Could have been him. His hair was shorter and seemed a bit lighter (bleached out by the sun?). I was puzzled watching this recruit play -not a great athlete, not big and strong, but he was definitely not intimidated playing with the likes of Tatum and others. Every few minutes he would get himself open for a good look and, more often than not, hit it including several treys. I would like to watch him play some more. He struck me as one of these players who can very quietly do damage. You look aat the box score and see 5 out of 8 from the floor (including a trey or two)and 4 out of 5 from the line and say, gosh did he really have 15 points or so?

They usually kick off at about 4 pm. Work schedules, etc. seem to intervene from time to time, so the cast of players changes just a little bit from day to day. Monday, for instance, Sloan was rushing in a wee bit late (I think from work). Therefore, if your favorite player isn't there at exactly 4 pm don't run off. He's probably on his way. They seem to go 3 or 4 days/week. This seems to change a little from week to week. You might be able to call the athletic office and see if they know. Then agian, there must be some arcane NCAA rule that specifies no one at the university can comment on summer scrimmages.

SLU 72 wondered how come he hasn't heard much about summer workouts. I'll try to fill some of that void. There are a number of current players in St. L. this summer. They are scrimmaging regularly in West Pine Gym. Yesterday I watched Fischer, Sloan, Bryant, Hunt, IO, Varner, Dreja, and Johnson along with Tatum (who is going overseas to play) and a recruit or two scrimmage. Somebody said Larry the Legend might even be showing up. although this is full court five on five without a referee, several things are apparent. Fischer is one tough defender who has a good sense of how to clog passing lanes. Given Brad's emphasis on defense, I predict he will start. Bryant has a scorer's mentality. He looks to score. We have all heard he is a shooter, but he can also take it to the hoop as well. In the scrimmages I have seen, his shooting seems streaky. Dreja is a nice player, he contnues to work hard and his confidence in his long range shooting has grown. I'm glad Brad found him. Johnson is bigger than a year ago, but not big and strong enough yet. I hope he continues on the weight program. If he has gained 20, he could handle another 20. I hope and I think he can hit the mid-range jumper. Roy, Johnson is a good athlete for a 6'8" kid. He has hops.IO is bigger and a bit more defined, but again more weight would be a welcomed. He should create some real match up problems for some of our opponents.A white kid about 6'5" or so who I was told was a possible recruit hit a couple nice jumpers. The names and faces change from day to day, but the scrimmages continue.

The rec center was open as usual, so if you were a member you could get in as could parents with proper identification. I happened to be running on Wednesday afternoon on the rec center track,so I could look down and see all 6 courts. All 6 courts were running 3 on 3, 4 on 4 and 5 on 5 drills and scrimmages. A bunch of good looking players including power forward who looked enormous. Every once in a while Raveling would blow his whistle and get everyone over to one court and run through team defense or some other aspect of the game. His emphasis on team defense was defensive positioning away from the ball and proper rotation on ball movement. One thing that caught my eye was the number of elderly assistant coaches running the show - they seemed to be the majority of the coaches on the 6 courts (they were running half court games and drills so 12 games or sets of drills were going on simultaneously). I wonder if the older coaches were NBA scouts or NBA assistant coaches. Just too much going on at one time to focus in closely on any one player.

Too, your comments on Ricky doing "hard time" must be qualified just a bit. He'll be let out of the slammer each day to attend summer school classes. I wonder if the taxpayers of the state are footing that tuition bill? It's insightful to see how far some coaching staffs and univesity administrators will go to keep star players elgible. It certainly let's us know what their core values are really all about. I'm not ready to write IO off as a starter just yet. There are a number of things I wish IO did better. However, he does somethings well that can present real matchup problems for the opposition such as having to guard a 6'10'' forward who can put the ball on the floor and also hit a perimeter jumper. He is also a great option on breaking the full court press. Time will tell, but I believe he is going to get some significant minutes this year, as a starter or otherwise.

Mo Jeffers finally received his degree in May from SLU. He has been playing in Europe - Switzerland was his last stop. He fired his agent recently and just signed with a new agent, so maybe his new agent is doing his job and will get Mo a "look see" in Chicago. I hope so, he is a great kid. Don't forget, when he initially got drafted(wasn't it Sacramento?) - he had a wrist injury and was never 100% in the workouts. He's healthy now and has had some good seasons in Europe. He mentioned he would probably be going back to Europe - I think he said Poland was a possibility -if he didn't stick with an NBA team.

Marque has an agent in Chicago. He told me about a week or two ago that he was hopeful on being invited to Chicago (he made the all camp team in Portsmouth), but that the pool of who will be invited was in play as injuires/cancellations/changing player evaluations all impact the list. Marque did say his agent had been contacted by the Knicks and Minnesota, so he is expecting to be given a good look. I wish him the best.