DeSmetBilliken

I know the St. Joseph’s hawk mascot is a tradition, which I always enjoy seeing, but the fact that tonight we’re playing a team that flew a college student halfway across the country to don a hawk costume with sweatpants underneath and flap their wings/arms for 2-3 hours consecutively tonight appropriately adds to the silliness of this week.

Exactly. Regardless of who the coach is, it is in SLU’s best interest to have a well-functioning NIL program. Does “NIL program didn’t have its ducks in a row, so we couldn’t get players” become another excuse like injuries, Situation 2, Covid, that kept us from making the NCAAs and is used as justification for giving Ford another year? Maybe, maybe not.

On the radio show last night , Ford mentioned that people he knows from back in Kentucky reach out to him occasionally that they read something negative about him and offering to do something about it, to which he always quickly tells them not to do anything. I suspect that the SeanMcDonald account is one of those people.

I think people have to care about you to be a laughingstock. We’re largely irrelevant. I’m not sure which is worse.

There are some coaches that you can tell are well liked by national media. For whatever reason, I never really got the idea Ford was one of those coaches. I’m starting to think that I was wrong on that, because he really had that announcer today defending him.

I don’t think there’s a postseason ban for Wade. There may be recruiting restrictions placed on him, which may apply, or that SLU would have to submit paperwork to argue that they shouldn’t have imposed on them. The other thing is that employing a coach on a show cause sets a school up to face more severe punishment from the NCAA if the coach is found to be in violation of NCAA rules while under the Show Cause.

Overall I think this is a good list. Wouldn’t be a fan of Wade (show cause) and Huggins (old and other issues). Admittedly I don’t know much about 7-9. I don’t know how likely it would be that he’d be interested, but I’d feel out Pat Kelsey as an option. The big question is how competitive is SLU going to be with NIL. At the moment, we look to be behind. If we’re not going to compete at a good level in NIL, we need a coach who can identify (likely under the radar) talent and build a successful system, even as you lose players to transfers. I know we’ve brought up the Champions Center and how truly helpful it actually is for men’s basketball in the NIL era, but if we still end up being less competitive in NIL, the Champions Center still might be a plus for us in recruiting that under the radar kid who happens to fit into the right coach’s system. If most other schools zig, we may have to zag and put together the team that looks better in games than in the team picture.

I regret nothing that I said about Crews 7-8 years ago. To his credit though, I don’t think Crews had a game that was as big of an unmitigated disaster as today was.

I generally like Frank, but if this season really starts to go south, as it looks like it might, I might amuse myself by replying/quoting his SLU posts with things like “Nevertheless Frank lashed out at SLU fans last spring when they suggested that this was where the program was headed.” Also, I speculate that people inside the program knew that this team wasn’t going to be good, hence the lack of coverage or effort to be seen. Frank could just be following orders…if you don’t talk about the team, no one will know they’re bad.

There’s no way that Frank C made this video without being told that somebody was pushing for Ford to be bought out.

Agreed. I don’t know if this setup for the BVF was made out of some preference on SLU’s end, or made out of a feeling of necessity to keep the players they had at the time (Yuri, Jimerson, etc). Regardless, it seems to be a problem with attracting players from outside , be that freshmen or impact transfers. The question now is whether the younger players on the roster will justify the emphasis on paying to keep existing players vs paying new players. We don’t know the answer yet. As others have said, NIL has to a fairly significant extent neutralized Ford’s likely strongest attribute as a coach…recruiting. His player development isn’t stellar, and I don’t think he has shown an ability to get his teams to play above their talent level. If SLU wants to be a factor in college basketball going forward, they either need shift their focus on NIL to bring in impact players, or if they’re still set on paying to keep their existing players, they need a coach who can implement a system and consistently identify and develop under the radar talent. Ford isn’t the coach needed for the second of those options, and it’s a bit questionable if keeping him would yield good results under the first option.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/stats/_/id/4399106/rashad-williams This is Williams’ stats page on ESPN. One of the seasons he was at Oakland likely didn’t count toward eligibility (covid year). It doesn’t look like he played last season at UAPB. Not sure if that was due to injury or didn’t get a waiver. So basically he’s using his 5th year (covid year) of eligibility this year.

I think Chris May has something to this effect on a placard somewhere in the athletics department office. Kind of like the Notre Dame “Play Like a Champion Today” sign.

Woof. SLU has always been pretty bad with logistics, but it’s always just been the source of annoyance or amusement for those who have the option to see things behind the scenes. If it’s affecting the players themselves and the on-court product, that’s really bad if true.

I’d expect nothing else.

He also poked LeBron in the eye.

These posts largely reflect my opinion here. This building is huge for the non-rev sports, but for the athletes who have the skill and ability to make big money via NIL, it’s not going to get them to SLU or keep them there. I could see it being a big help in getting the under the radar recruit that Majerus used to excel at getting, but is getting under the radar guys what Ford is good at? I don’t know.

In Majerus’ third year (I think…the year after Lisch and Liddell left), I think everyone on the team except Paul Eckerle was a freshman or sophomore. There could have been a junior or senior walk on too.

Well said Roy. Condolences to @Schasz. I’m sorry for your loss.

It’s been the opinion of me and several others, just from observing things over time, that for whatever reason, the SLU Pep Band as it has been for years doesn’t really fit into what the SLU athletics department has in mind for a game day experience. This pretty much dates back to when Chris May became the AD. Recently however, a big issue was playing time and scripting of music. When you have a band that actually prides itself on musical selection and performance, and then a revolving door of athletics department staff who might not even know that the band plays different musical instruments ends up making song choices in an effort the start “a tradition”, it doesn’t go well. We’re glad you enjoyed it, but just as a clarification, we’re not affiliated with the SLU Pep Band.

Same here

1) The people mentioned in this thread as insiders are not Hughes and Claggett. 2) I’ve heard/know who one of the two posters is, and they would be in a position to know what’s going on with the program

He’s been at Cal the last few years. Apparently was interim head coach while their recent coaching search was taking place. Can’t tell if he was kept on by Mark Madsen, or if they haven’t updated their website.

This is a fair point, and I don’t know the answer. I also thought it was ridiculous to think that we could hire Majerus back in 2007, and that happened.

This is a good point. Personally I’m not convinced that Ford is the guy to get us over the hump. I think he’s plateaued here, just as he did at OSU. At OSU, his plateau was the Round of 64. Here, his plateau is 4 seed in the A10, semifinals of the A10 tournament, and a NIT berth. If the right candidate was out there and attainable, I’d replace Ford without a second thought. With that said, it’s certainly possible that SLU could fire Ford and make a mess of the search, ending up with a lateral replacement at best. Confidence in the powers that be at SLU to get it right is a different conversation. So there is a credible argument for rolling the dice on Ford for another year and hoping he doesn’t have an absolute clunker of a year like his last at OSU. Anyway, I don’t know who would be officially available this year because I’m not in a position to be part of those conversations. My ideal Ford replacement would be Chris Mack. I know he has said he wasn’t taking a job this year, and that may be, but if you removed Ford, you have to try and make him say “no”. Beyond that, Pat Kelsey at Charleston and Darian Devries at Drake would be next on my list. I had this thought when we were replacing Jim Crews, and I still think a good hiring strategy for SLU is to hire someone with experience at Xavier, Creighton, Marquette, or some other school like SLU that has had more basketball success. Tell them to build SLU’s program the way those other schools operate. Kelsey was at Xavier, and Devries was a longtime assistant at Creighton.