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NashvilleBilliken

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Posts posted by NashvilleBilliken

  1. What is the rule concerning red shirts? Has he been practicing with the team for the past few months or was he required to sit during practice also? If he was able to play, has anybody seen him in practice lately? Is he going to help us at all this year?

  2. I agree with every point you make. I really wish Chris would start to score a little more. He appears to have a decent shot, but he rarely takes it. I would love it if he could score down low from time to time. His offensive game is the same way it's been the past 3 yrs. He's a senior now and we NEED senior production out of him.

  3. I hope it's Izik and JJ. From what I have seen, these two provide the biggest upside to anybody on the roster. If they can increase there productivity by 25%, we will be in good shape. Justin has showed good development thus far, he just needs the minutes and confidence. After being outgunned by a team like SMS, hopefully coach will say/do something to these guys to help them understand how much there athleticism is needed and what they need to do to be productive on the court.

  4. I agree wholeheartedly that we need to develop more of an offense in the paint. Tom has shown that he has the ability to score on the blocks, but he is just not getting a lot of opportunities. I think that is in part to our strenght at the gaurd position. With Ian coming in and Tom showing he can score, I really hope Brad gives them more offensive opportunities.

  5. Do they think Pitino would actually take that job? Am I missing something? From all accounts, he is doing great at Louisville. Has a high ranking team and has for the past few years. He is moving to the Elite baskeball conference. He is making tons of money. And he is working for a school with a great tradition. Why would he want to take the St. Johns job. Can someboy educate me as to why his name is being thrown out there?

    However, I agree with Roy in that I can definitely see Cal heading up north....

  6. I think dismantling the Blue Crew would be a very bad idea. Every major team in the country has a "Blue Crew" of sorts. Many teams have multiple student support groups. Why should SLU be any different? I will admit that sometimes the Crew can get a little obnoxious, but they are also very loud. This is what there job is...be loud and disrupt the opposing team. If you don't like it, move a few rows back. Or make a case to Woolard to buy them tickets at center court so you and the other law kids can sip on your cocktails and enjoy the game in peace.

  7. I would be willing to bet if you checked a lot of different message boards across the country, there would have been Mizzou threads that week. The story was/is huge. Just like we had a lot of threads when Eustachy got caught at the frat party. It's dramatic and; more importantly, bad for Mizzou. Those are two things that interest Billiken fans. We commented and that was it. As Roy said, your responses are what prompted the continuation of the threads. For fans of this program, it is very hard for us to understand this scenario. This would not happen at SLU, and if it did, there would be prompt, decisive action. The faculty, alumni, and fans would DEMAND it. Just the fact that matters of lack of institutional control became public is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. We operate in a classy fashion. See the hiring of Soderberg. It wasn't the media circus you saw at Washington or other institutions. Again, an example of our class...

  8. Dude, you make your entrance to the board by getting everybody riled up and dissing SLU. Then a few days later you say it is all a joke and you just wanted to see everybody's reaction. Then you are on the BILLIKEN message board taking a pro Mizzou stance on the "issues" in Columbia. Then you start a stupid thread asking why we like SLU and count the responses (the "hate Mizzou" thread was obviously a response to MUTiger's comments). I'm not sure why you think you deserve respect...around here, you have to earn it. Stick around and contribute some worthy material and maybe you'll get the responses you're looking for. Until then, don't be suprised by the anomosity...you HAVE earned that one.

  9. I read that article this morning and was happy with what it had to say. If Tom is just getting better and better as his health returns, I am very optimistic. I was going on the assumption that this was a permanent asthma condition and we'd just have to deal with it...glad to hear otherwise! I thought he played quite well at GT and showed the ability to score in the paint...which is something we've lacked for awhile now. When he did a spin move, I was very impressed since any other SLU 5 in the past few years would have lost it out of bounds. If Tom starts adding a few more pts per game, that would be fantastic.

  10. Yeah, I really think we need to hit a little winning streak. Although we lost, I think we saw some good things at the GT game. Darren is finding his shot and hit some big 3's. If he can start scoring 8-11 pts per game, that would be huge. IMO, that is our biggest problem. We are a great defensive team and can keep our opponents right around 60 pts for the most part. However, we can't really score much more than that ourselves. With Darren putting up some numbers and JJ coming around, I am really optimistic about the rest of the season. Even though they may have some defensive problems, their offense could more than offset it. They are not BAD defenders, they just have a tendency to look that way on such a great defensive team.

  11. IMO, if we win tomorrow, there is no telling what could happen. GT is one of the most talked about teams in college basketball lately and many feel they should even be ranked higher than they are. With our very close, nationally televised game against Zona, and a win AT arguably the best team in the country, the Bills momentum and recognition would be huge. If we win and win the next one or two, we will be a top 25 team. However, I honestly don't think we are going to pull this one off. But I guess this is the life of a Billiken fan....

  12. It's good to see the Bills mentioned positively in the national media (it's only a sentence, but it's still nice)

    http://www.foxsports.com/content/view?contentId=1943356

    And that's 7-0 Georgia Tech (which hosts a dangerous and well-coached Saint Louis club that nearly stunned Arizona a week ago). Here's a look at Paul Hewitt's Yellow Jackets and the four other teams we would rate just behind them based on performance, not hype or potential.

    Georgia Tech: We were all lulled into thinking Hewitt's rebuilding process in Atlanta had been (at least momentarily) derailed with the one-and-out decision of 6-10 Chris Bosh last spring, and the transfer to UConn of his second-best post player, 2002 ACC Freshman of the Year Ed Nelson.

    But, man-oh-man, our collective minds have been blown by the way Georgia Tech has played.

    The Yellow Jackets' average winning margin is 25.9 points and only three of those games have come in Atlanta. Against the three best teams they've played — Connecticut, Texas Tech and Ohio State, all outside of Atlanta and the latter in Columbus — that margin doesn't slip all that much (18.3).

    Hewitt is easily the "Coach of the first month of the season", and sophomore point guard Jarrett Jack is playing better than any player in the country.

  13. Here's Stu's latest from the post.....Thanks!

    Soderberg settles on starting 3 guards

    By STU DURANDO

    Post-Dispatch

    12/10/2003

    SLU's Reggie Bryant (left) shoots around Arizona's Mustafa Shakur last week in the Billikens' 68-67 loss to the Wildcats. Bryant lead the Bills in scoring with 24.

    (Tom Gannam/AP)

    The long-awaited arrival of Reggie Bryant for St. Louis University created a bit of a challenge for coach Brad Soderberg in devising a starting five.

    Thus far he has decided to go with a three-guard lineup, and it's a look that might continue regardless of the matchup.

    Soderberg has used Bryant with Josh Fisher and Anthony Drejaj the past two games, and figures to do so again when the Billikens travel Saturday to play Georgia Tech, which also has a guard-oriented team.

    "I'd like to settle in with three guards if I feel comfortable it's our best team," he said. "In a couple of early games, we started with the bigger team, and I felt I was adjusting more to the opponents' quickness. I don't mind starting a smaller lineup because it might force teams to adjust to us."

    Without Bryant available, SLU started a more traditional lineup for the first three games with forward Chris Sloan, forward Ross Varner and center Tom Frericks.

    However, the guards have been among the team's most productive offensive players. Bryant has averaged 18 points in his two games. Fisher is third on the team at 13.8 points a game, and Drejaj is fourth at 9.6.

    But defense is more important to Soderberg, and that will be the ultimate factor.

    "I want to find the best defensive lineup that can provide us with some points," he said. "I'm moving closer to believing that the team we started against Arizona fits that bill."

    Coach is calling

    for reinforcements

    Soderberg is still waiting for another perimeter player to step forward so that he can give his three starting guards some rest. Bryant has averaged 35 minutes, Fisher 34.4 and Drejaj 30.

    "I can't continue to play those guys that much," he said. "They're playing close to 115 minutes as a threesome and that's too much. The most capable is Josh. I don't think Drejaj is ready to be a 36- to 40-minute guy, and I suspect Reggie isn't because he's not as big as Josh."

    Johnson is earning trust

    Redshirt freshman forward Justin Johnson is slowly working his way into a key role off the bench. In limited minutes he has shot the ball well (62 percent) and played solid defense and has only one turnover in 67 minutes.

    "I'm trusting the fact that he won't turn it over and that defensively he knows his responsibility," Soderberg said.

    Johnson played 15 minutes against Arizona and did a good defensive job on Channing Frye. He also made his two shots.

    Foul trouble

    Frericks returned to the starting lineup against Arizona but was banished to the bench after two minutes with two fouls. He leads the team with 15 fouls despite averaging only 17.6 minutes. Soderberg says the problem is Frericks' positioning.

    "It's pretty simple," he said. "We have to improve his positioning. When he gets out of position his solution to get back is to just grab the guy and move him out of the way."

  14. Your point is taken and I will drop the subject for the sake of the board; however, I do disagree (and I in no way consider myself to be a racist...i have friends of many different ethnic backgrounds and lifestyles).

    Being born in New Jersey, attending school at SLU and living in Nashville, I have been exposed to a large amount of different American cultures. Especially here in Nashville, I have been exposed to a large amount of the "Deep south". These people talk with thick southern accents and with very poor English. Education is not a large part other their lives and, to be honest, most of them don't care about it. However, I see nobody defending the way these people talk saying it should be a language taught in school or embraced by the public. In fact, many just make jokes of it. I don't see how it is different because at one time, an ancestor lived in Africa....

  15. I do not think that is Afican American dialect..it is just not good speaking skills. I hear black and white people alike talk like that and it makes me cringe. Replacing "am" with "be" is not a dialect, it is just not right. It makes the person look like a moron. Some of the sentences used by both the women and Clemons were barely coherent. If a person goes to a job interview and speaks in this fashion, there chaces of recieving that job over a correct speaker are slim to none. I admit that I may increase my profanity and say certain things I normally wouldn't with my buddies, but I always speak in an educated manner forming grammatically correct sentences. If correctly conjugating verbs is no longer required in English classes, I have lost a lot of faith in our English teachers...

  16. Thanks for the post Ramblin. As JJ states, our team is just horrendous on the road. That is why I am really writing this game off. However, you are certainly correct about the tempo. There is no way this Billiken team can run with a fast break offense. We simply cannot score enough points to keep up. But judging by your comments, if we establish the pace of play, I certainly think we could be in it in the final 4 minutes.

  17. You know, I didn't even think about that. I wish I had gotten to see Darren play against Zona, but hopefully he'll be in on saturday. I think his athletism is needed, but he needs to understand the system. If we can get JJ and Clarke to fit into the rotation for quality minutes, along with Bryant, I really think this team could do something this year. I think that would really make for a good combination of athletic scorers and hardnosed defensive role players. But until then, we will be struggling for W's IMO.

  18. The GT game is on ESPN+. This is one of the reason's I subscibed to the ESPN Full Court package. I think this is one of two or three games that will be on ESPN+. I was supposed to be in ATL for the game, but now it looks like I will have to resort to watching it on TV...oh well.

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