kevinfootes

So Duke is in a category that is bettter than UNC, Kansas, and UCLA (not to mention...Duke)? Sorry, I just don't think this one is that big of a deal to get. We could have probably gotten this game many times over the years. I understand that RM is having trouble getting teams to play us. Short of winning the game do you think this will help us land better opponents at Chaifetz? Losing the game by 1 would probably make it harder than losing by 35!

Disagree. For various reasons we've had home dates against Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, and UCLA over the past 27 years. It has happened. As I've already posted, I think the game has some potential to help with recruitng. It could also help toughen the team up a bit for later in the season. However, I don't think it does much for the fans who are paying for tickets. Duke is among the top 5-6 programs in the country, but there are probably 2 dozen BCS type teams who would agree to play us on their home floor next year as a buy game. I'm not sure I would put pur program in the "beggars" category. Comments like that on the board are typically coming from fans of other teams.

Check your facts. We played at UNC the year before they came to St. Louis. It was a home and home matchup. I'm less excited because we could play a number of one-off road games against good teams each year if we wanted. I'm hopeful RM doesn't make a habit of this. I want to see quality games on the home schedule as well.

I'm not a big fan of this being a buy team for anybody. If you don't win it (and the odds of that are pretty long), you can get yourself labeled as a "buy" team. On the plus side, players and recruits want to go up against the best. This is attractive in that regard.

I'm not saying that the way he went about it was correct. He might have owed the people of Cleveland more discretion than an ESPN special, but he doesn't owe them a lifetime commitment. BTW, saying that James "failed to succeed" is a bit of a stretch. Are you implying that Shannon Brown is more successful? Did Ernie Banks fail to succeed? Ted Williams, Ryne Sandberg...

Doesn't the NBA have a soft cap that allows more money to be spent on signing your own players? That would allow extra funds to sign Wade and bring them over the $58 million. I think most NBA teams are over the cap mark at least some of the time.

It might have been nice if Lebron would have stayed, but he really has no obligation. Have you ever changed jobs?

clock, you bring up good points here. Let's hope Biondi keeps the momentum of Chaifetz and RM rolling for men's hoops and beyond. We haven't been poised to succeed like this very many times, and I hope we don't figure out a way to blow it here. You also make good points about our players. While we aren't running an outlaw program, we've had our share of questionable players in terms of academics over the years. We're no different than most D1 schools when it comes to that.

How did you do in theology?

We should never play Marquette until they change coaches!

There were players who were communications majors when I was at SLU. There was one player in particular who had no business in a college classroom but was passed along for a couple of seasons just the same. The player was in the one communications class that I took at SLU. He should have flunked but was given a C and regularly applauded by the professor. I find it funny that there are some people who think our program is above doing things to keep players eligible.

Agree that you can't schedule murderer's row each season. However, that's not even in the realm of possiblity for us. We can't get any of the traditional top 20 or 25 programs to come to Chaifetz. IMO, one of the best ways to get attention for the program both locally and nationally (as well as sell more tickets) is to get home dates with top opponents. If we're to belive RM, he's giving this a good effort. Many top teams don't want to risk going on the road against a team like ours.

roy makes very good points on many occasions. In this case, several of us feel he's wrong. I believe I'm justified in posting that I'd like to play Kentucky in a home and home and pointing out that I disagee with roy and his vision of leading the program to prominence by playing 100-level rpi teams like Appalachian State. The best recruits will want to play the best opponents. That 100-150 level rpi opponent talk will chase them away. I wouldn't get in the business of being a buy game or having 2 for 1s, but I wouldn't hesitate to play a home and home against the best teams possible. I don't see why that's hard to understand for some people.

Thanks.

Brian mentioned that we've played home games against both Duke and UCLA in the past 30 years. We did play Duke in 1984, according to a media guide that I found. I can't find any mention of a home game against UCLA during this timeframe. Can anyone verify that this game was played? I have a recollection of Southern Cal, but not UCLA. I could very well be missing something. We also had a home game against Kansas in '83 that I missed in my earlier post.

Don't forget that roy's hero, Lorenzo Romar, was an assistant to Jim Harrick at UCLA. Based on roy's logic, Romar must be dirty because he worked for Harrick. ole roy is all over the place in this thread. On one hand, he's critical of Calipari and Pitino. Then he cites Louisville as a great opponent that we've brought into SLU for a home game. Based on roy's reasoning, we should have refused to play conference games against Memphis, Louisville, Cincy, etc. because of their coaches.

Let's just schedule teams like Appalachian State and roy will be happy.

You don't think Richmond is a "top" program?

I remember pointing out how you like to suck up to cincy fans, but I didn't recall you being a huggy lover. I'll take your word for it.

We were in the same conference with Marquette, Cincy, and Louisville. There was no "magic" scheduling involved there. The Illinois game was not played on our home floor. It was at the dome. They haven't had the guts to step on our home floor. Arizona has 1 national title. Certainly a good team but not at the same level as the ones I listed. West Virginia? A nice history, but can't possibly be compared to the teams I listed. Besides, many of the games you are mentioning occured while we were in a much higher-profile conference. It's not as easy now. roy, you would be content playing a 100 rpi team rather than a team like Kentucky? You would rather sell 7K tickets to a game like that than see a sell-out against a national power that would bring nationwide attention to our program? The #100 rpi team last year was Harvard. #101 was Appalachian State. You would rather see those teams on the home schedule than Kentucky?????????? That's just the kind of small-time approach that has kept us out of the limelight for most of our history.

So if you add those two games it means we get a chance like that once every 7 or 8 years. Why pass it up? What years did we play them? I'm having a hard time remembering.

I'm not saying that I think it will happen, but I would be absolutely thrilled to play a home game against a team like Kentucky regardless of the coach. You don't get many chances like that. In fact, I can only think of two games we've had like that in the past 30+ years...Kansas and UNC (thanks Roy Williams). There are only a handful of teams of that caliber (Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, Indiana, Duke, UNC). Why cut off your nose to spite your face? roy, if you won't play a home game against Kentucky, why continue to make posts complaining about RM's scheduling?

The wbc makes the pro bowl look interesting. Years from now it might be comparable to the world cup, but it's nothing like it now.

How are you defining "dominating"? How many countries have as many talented basketball and baseball players? Team USA won the basketball gold medal in 2008. Don't even go there with the world baseball classic. Most of our best players are too smart to play in something stupid like that. Any team with Latroy Hawkins on the roster is far from the best we can offer. If by "dominating" you mean that we aren't going to win every basketball game by 40 points and every baseball game by 10 runs (with a team that has many marginally talented players on it), then I would agree.

Thanks. The BE may want to reconsider them at this point. They seem to have some good momentum these days.