MusicCityBilliken

The one good thing about selecting Huggy would be Huggy would not be afraid to schedule us. The reason I think this is he had really nothing to gain by playing XU but he always kept on playing them and usually losing to them. This would be unlike Stewart and Quinn.

Deli, I always liked Dayton (your as close to being our main rival in the A-10 as we are going to get). When Great Midwest (which BTW I thought was a great conference and I wish it still existed) became new larger CUSA. Why was Dayton not invited? I never understood that because you have such a great tradition and fan base.

When the Metro started SLU was one of the big promoters. As I re-call, the SLU's AD at the time (I believe his name was Albus) was Metro's first commissioner. The headquarters for the league was in St. Louis. Albus was a real go getter. I remember he was very instrumental in bringing '73 NCAA's to Arena. Also, was a major player bringing (what was billed as) 'the game of the decade' to the Arena in '74 or '75. That was the UCLA-NC State game. NC State had John Thompson, Monte Towe (a 5' 7" guard) and Tommie Burleson.

You are right. I was senior in HS when those games happened. My brother was attending St John's and I sat in the Redmen student section.

Was at the finals of that NIT at Madison Square Garden the year Marquette won it all. I believe it was 1970. Marquette had Dean 'the dream' Meminger. They played LSU with Pete Maravich. Pete was on the DL for that game and did not play. Fans, understandably, were dissappointed. Consolation game was Army, coached by Bobby Knight, and St John's. I believe St John's had 'Big' Billy Paultz and Joe DePre. That's when the NIT was worth watching.

Back in the old days, (maybe in the 70's) Al McGuire turned down the NCAA in favor of the NIT.

Wasn't one of the arguements with the A10 was that almost all the away games are a plane ride. Especially expensive when you have all the non-revenue producing sports scheduling UMASS, URI and St Bona. Back in the CUSA days many of teams (Cincy, DePaul, Louisville, or Memphis) could be reached within 5 hours by bus or van. Don't get me wrong, I am still an advocate for being in the A10 over the closer proximity MVC schools.

At least those two years we made the NIT. We did not make it last year (because of our terrible record)and we probably won't make it this year. Romer's number 1 assistant was Brad that last year. It was not like he came into the program cold and behind the learning curve on the strenghts and weaknesses of Billiken basketball. Also, that tranfer of coaching duties from Romer to Brad was probably the most smooth as any of the coaching transfers in Billiken basketball history. I go back to Brehmer to Polk, Polk to Albrecht, Albrecht to Colman, Colman to Ekker, Ekker to Grawer, Grawer to Spoon and Spoon to Romer. Most of those turned out to be very ugly. Romer resurrected Brad's career. What was Brad doing when Romer picked him up? As I recall, when Romer got the Washington job offer, Bondi tried to match $ with no success. I would bet, Romer, at that point, probably highly recommended Brad on his departure. I think you can safely guess, if was not for Romer both hiring and recommending him as his successor, we would probably be singing praises or dissing Brian Gregory right now. To my knowledge, Romer and Brad remain good friends. I recall either this last summer or the summer before Brad took the family on vacation to the Northwest and he made it a point to stop in to see both his old mentor Bennett and Romer. Also, I believe the program was not in shambles but left the program with a nice nucleus of players. Players like Josh Fisher, Kenny Brown and Chris Sloan. And, lets not forget, both pre-season and post season all-conference performer Marque Perry. To date, Brad has not had anyone that could literally take over a game like Marque did in his senior year. IV, TL and KL all have that potential and I think at least two out of the three can equal or surpass Marque's senior year performance but not yet. Also, yea we have a winning record and we improved from last year, but I believe moving to the A10 this year greatly 'lowered the bar' for us from the old CUSA. How well do you think this team would have done with some of those great Cincy or Louisville teams. A Diener and Wade lead Marquette team. Or '40 minutes of hell' from UAB. I don't know if our record would have been as pretty. I am really disappointed we did not make it this year. Every team in the A10 this year was very beatable. What worries me is that I believe the A10 will improve next year with SJU, XU and UMASS. I just hope Brad can keep pace. Let's see how does this spring and fall recruiting and how the team performs next season.

I think by the summer before his senior year Hughes committed.

Found that interesting on what she said about Spoon. Chris had 2 years with Spoon and 2 years with Romer. He was never was coached by Brad even when Brad was Romer's assistant. Anyway, I remember coming to the Kansas and Charlotte game back around Christmas of '98. Took the family to Spoon's restaurant (used to like looking at all the Billiken memorablia). I saw Chris in the back really chowing down. I bet he would never had that with Brad.

Jeff was also one of my favorites. One always knew if he approached life the way he played ball, he'd be a success.

nm

Steven Smith seems to be taking over.

How does it work? I have been a BC member going on 10 years now both at Starters and Captain level. Do I get points for each of those years if I ever wanted to purchase season tickets?

What did she do? Did she accept the Duke job before the season was over?

I noticed after I wrote the above that she was co-coach of the year in the A-10. Also, improved the won-loss % immensely. Funny, seems that she is finally turning the program around, gaining coaching experience and she goes on a medical-leave. Also, even though she on medical leave, Duke goes ahead and hires her as a assistant. Probably making more as a Duke assistant then what SLU paid her as a coach. What could possibly go wrong?

I was visiting St. Louis about 5 years ago (it was around the time we beat Kansas) and I remember it was very cold. I took my son over to Busch to see the Cardinal Hall of Fame. When we got out he was moaning about the cold so went into the BHOF and bowled a couple of games.

I read on the SLU web site they hired her right after she graduated from Wake Forest. She still a kid with no experience on coaching. Not as a HS coach or as a assistant. You get what you pay for.

Whitehead (the ex-coach) was 15-40 in her 4 years at SLU. If I re-call, wasn't SLU a national power back in the early 80's? Maybe they feel they needed new blood to at least re't to respectability. Anyway, from her picture she does look very attractive.

Are they planning to have indoor track season with the new areans? Also, do they plan to have shot put, pole vault, high jump, javelin, triple jump, etc...?

The Isle Capri Casino headquarters just moved from Biloxi the St. Louis. Since they were the first casino to open on Mississippi coast after Katrina, they made more $ in the month of January then all of last year. Maybe Cheryl needs to hit them up.

WOW, so the guys in the yellow shirts confronted you over just heckling. Sure you didn't say anything obscene? I was at the game and arrived early to watch the Bills warm up. I tried to get into the lower area of the arena but they said no dice. After the game it was much easier and my son got Ian's, AD and KL autograph.

I not seen McKinney play much since where I live Mizzou is not high on the radar screen... But Didn't Anthony get several offers from several Big East schools (WVU and Providence)? Also, the high school Anthony came from, Seton Hall Prep, was also a USA Today top 25 school when Anthony attended.

Outside of UNC at home, who else are we scheduled against OOC. I know it has been mentioned that the series with Gonzaga and Iowa are over. Possibly Ole Miss will have a return home date. If we we had beaten either Iowa, UNC or Gonzaga this year we would be a lock right now on getting into the dance.

Just returned from the game about a 1/2 hour ago and I think it was one of the most impressive road games I seen the Bills play. 1st would always be that NIT win over Michigan State in the Garden. Brad coached one he** of a game. That inbounds score with 2 seconds on the clock was priceless. Also, our freshmen (KL and TL) are unbelieveable. The Charlotte fan sitting next to me was so impressed with KL. He said Kevin reminded him of that Charlotte star of about 5 years ago, Jobey Thomas. If you remember Jobey used to kill us. On a lighter note, my son managed to get the autographs of AD, KL and Ian after the game. He said Ian was great and was shoot the bull for awhile. I think having the Billikens.com shirt on helped.