DeSmetBilliken

It could just be an attempt to get ahead of things by a few days. Depending on who is driving making the call (boosters vs May/Pestello), it could be a little bit of a repudiation of May. My observation of the SLU athletic department under Chris May is that they view things very optimistically. In the last few years, SLU has salvaged several seasons by winning the A10 Tournament, with women’s team last year, men’s team in 2019, as well as probably a few seasons for men’s and women’s soccer. My theory is that because of these instances, Chris May views winning the tournament as a very real possibility every year now, and therefore won’t consider this season a failure yet, because there was still the chance that they’d catch lightning in a bottle in Brooklyn. Firing Ford before the tournament tells May, “this season was a failure. It’s over now”. Also, don’t forget, I think it was in the lead up to the A10 tournament last year that May got on Cusumano’s radio show and made his idiotic comments in support of Ford. Firing Ford before the A10 tourney would seemingly prevent May from running those comments back.

Knowing the way SLU operates, it’s probably cheaper to scramble a flight home for Ford from NYC than Olean.

I get the phrase, but Chris May and the way SLU operates is an insult to Mickey Mouse.

That is impressively bad.

Isn’t a flagrant 1 what used to be called an intentional foul?

Not much to say, other than that game really stunk tonight, and the Hargrove family is awesome .

I was going to say that in college basketball, while the Pac12 still exists in its current form for a few more weeks, it’s actually a Power 6. It turns out that the Pac12 is 6th in Conference NET rankings.

To be fair, I think today Frank suggested a scenario in which Ford , because he is a nice guy, agrees to a significantly lower salary, with the understanding that the difference between the salaries be moved into NIL.

I apologize for the lack of detail, but I’ll let others provide more details on this if they wish to potentially implicate themselves. Anyway, earlier this season Trilly reported on something SLU related that, as I understand it, may have required his source to be in the building in order for him to know it.

I get what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think that it’s reasonable to expect the BOT members to have department director level knowledge of every subject they have to consider. I have no doubt that Chris May, or someone on his behalf, puts together a nice summary of the relevant athletics issues before meetings. That still doesn’t put them on anywhere close to the knowledge level of the department director . I may not be a Chris May fan, but with the exception of a couple of BOT members (Chaifetz in particular), May still is in a position to have way more context on athletics issues than almost the entire BOT. That’s why he’s the athletic director. If you’re so focused on removing some “blame” from May to make him look better, the BOT rubber-stamping the contract is worthy of less than 10% of the blame. Not enough to reduce responsibility by May in any meaningful amount.

Others have responded to this well, so I don’t need to repeat their comments. The bottom line is that Chris May and whoever else was involved in Ford’s last contract extension on SLU’s behalf made by all indications a bad deal. The fact that the BOT approved the deal does not absolve May from responsibility at all. If Chris May or anyone else at SLU is just willingly agreeing to questionable deals and figuring “I’ll just let the BOT decide if it’s good or not”, that’s ridiculous.

This 100%. I admittedly don’t know what the voting standard to pass the BOT is (unanimous, 3/4, 2/3, majority), but do we really want (insert name of BOT member who isn’t involved in athletics here ) delaying personnel decisions for athletics by going all Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, or like a city council member holding legislation hostage to get a carve-out for their district? Absolutely not. Just think about it…we have an agreement on a deal with a new coach, but then 3-4 board members slow up the process because someone told them that we should be hiring Bruce Weber or Tom Crean instead. Then the deal with the other coach falls through. That would be a bad deal.

No

When I read this article, I had one takeaway: Ford is gone. I already thought Ford was gone, but this strengthened it. Even if it was covered up a bit with some spin, Chris May isn’t being quoted acknowledging that our record is terrible, or talking about lower attendance if he’s preparing to keep Ford around. This is about setting himself up to say that SLU had no choice.

How does that work? Did the team that drafted him not offer him a contract, or do they retain his rights while he plays at SLU?

First of all, on paper, Travis Ford had a track record of success in getting to the NCAA tournament. That got us 1 bid to the big dance. I think with the change in landscape with NIL and the transfer portal, people are placing a greater premium on being able to have success within this very small time frame. If someone made 3-5 tournaments 5-10 years ago, it may carry a little less weight. It’s also normal that when you fire a coach, fans tend to be intrigued by the opposite of the coach that you fired. There are questions as to Ford’s X’s and O’s coaching ability. Schertz, for example, is seemingly known for being a better tactician.

I get that viewpoint. McCollum hasn’t coached in D1, so there’s an inherent risk there. At the same time, I think there is a difference between McCollum and Anderson. In addition to the eye-popping record at Northwest Missouri State, 4 national championships, he’s seemingly brilliant as a tactician and coach. D1 coaches pick his brain in the offseason. Anderson, while he has a lot of success at UCM, I don’t think he was known for being a brilliant tactician. I think it was more of a mix of old Mizzou fans wanting a return to the Norm Stewart days, and Anderson happened to be fresh off a national championship. Without him being a “true son” of Mizzou, he doesn’t get hired there.

Moments on the court? I’m not sure. With that said, highlights of the Ford era for me were getting to watch Jordan Goodwin and Javonte Perkins play for the Billikens. You could probably add Hasahn French and Yuri Collins in there as well, but I just got a little more enjoyment out of watching Goodwin and Perkins.

It’s last place battles in late February like this that you dream about when you decide to pay Travis Ford the biggest salary in the history of the Atlantic 10 Conference. It’s just so exciting.

I’m intrigued by coaches who were at what should be peer schools to SLU, but have been more successful in basketball than SLU. Devries was a longtime assistant at Creighton (under Altman and McDermott), saw how they built things up there, and now has had some success running his own program at Drake. I’m sure entirely convinced that SLU has it in them to do this, as they have a tendency to shoot themselves in the foot, but I want them to hire a coach and say to them “You’ve seen how a school like us can win, because you’ve been a part of it. We want you to do that here at SLU, we’re going to support you in that, and we’re going to stay out of your way.“ You can go to Devries and tell him that whatever worked at Creighton, go ahead and do it.

That’s pretty much where I am too. I’m not including guys like Chris Mack and Porter Moser in my list, as I think those might be a bit far-fetched, but I’m basically at Schertz and Devries as a 1 and 1(a), and if those guys don’t come here, I’d be happy pivoting to McCollum. I really want us to return to a situation where we have a coach who is a high level basketball tactician.

Weber comes off as a good guy and would’ve been a decent hire when we removed Crews’ interim tag and when we hired Ford, but it’s too late now. We need a coach who can thrive in today’s college basketball environment, and I don’t think hiring a guy looking to squeeze a few more years out of his career is the move here. Ahearn is high risk, but potentially high reward. A lot of NBA coaches haven’t adjusted well to college. I’d potentially take him over a retread with name recognition who had success 5-10 years ago, but I’d rather hire a coach with recent college success. While he’s younger, Ahearn gives me Billy Lange vibes. Lange got the St. Joe’s job because of some “he knows Philly basketball…it just means more here” nonsense. While it would be cool to say that I remembered going to grade school basketball camps with the new SLU coach, where he’s from and where he went to high school should have nothing to do with the SLU hiring process. Give me someone who is on the way up. Also, our greatest successes have been with Spoonhour and Majerus at the helm, and both of those guys went about things a little differently. I’m not entirely convinced that SLU is capable of succeeding when they try to act like a normal program. We may need to hire a coach who has taken a different path (McCollum, Schertz) than normal. Maybe someone a little weird. Devries seems pretty normal and mainstream though. He’d be good too.

Honest question…WHAT??? Are you saying that Dalger left over non-payment of NIL money?

I’ve been mentally preparing for the idea that Ford will be back next season. Admittedly, I have trust issues with SLU. I also wasn’t convinced that SLU was going to fire Crews, and that got announced 5 minutes after the season ended, so it may just be a me issue.

As someone else said, they do this once a year, typically for the blizzard game. One year they did Colonel Sanders and several chickens, maybe another year they were polar bears. Stuff like that.