Kahok

If he was that good, then the offer from Calipari would never have been recinded. I have seen him play also and would take a pass on him. If he was as good as you say, someone else would have signed him.

Sorry, but we don't want him, Big, slow, no work ethic. He would be the biggest project ever.

We are the only city of our size that does not get all of the local team's games televised in one form or another. Cincy, Louisville, Memphis all have 100% of their games televised. And CSTV has a deal with Conference USA.

Recruiting is a process that takes place over a period of years. You can sell immediate playing time to start, but after you get a class that is the caliber of Tommie and Kevin you sell the next recruits on being part of the puzzle to building a winning program, then you follow up with bringing recruits in that have ability comparable to Tommie and Kevin to be a part of your second string and give them playing time so that when Tommie and Kevin are gone that we don't miss a beat. If you can't do that then you end up being a tournament team every few years and Bernie writes a damn column about those being satisfied with mediocrity

Maybe you are content to be like a CU, but I would rather be able to compete with Georgetown and marquette year after year. Maybe Bernie was right on in his column. Recruiting is the life blood of any good program and we are not doing it. I will still be at the games no matter what, but I still want more.

I thought you didn't want to be compared to a Valley team, All I was getting at is that we have not signed anyone with abilty comparable to Tommie and Kevin, How do you maintain momentum when you don't sign comparable players each year.

That is not what I meant, Good teams have recruits that have ablity to step in and not go from a winning team to a losing team. If we lost two of our stars to injury who do we have that could step in and keep us from being a losing team. Who did we sign that could step in? You build teams from one recruiting class to another and we have not done that. I am just not happy with building off of the Tommie and Kevin class, maybe all of you see something I haven't.

Each recruting clas should feed off of the previous class, We should be feeding off of the class from last year and we are not. We are two injuries away from being a 20 loss year instead of a 20 win year. For those that think that Brad has has built off of last year take either Tommie and Kevin out, or one of them and Ian and tell me who can replace any of those three. I just don't see where we have built off of any sucess from last year.

Noiw you have made me really mad again. You called Clagget and Highmark old stars. It seems like they were just here a couple of years ago. What is even harder to believe is that it seems like guys like Bevo,and Easy Ed played just a couple of years ago. I guess I am really getting old. All I can say is I am ready for this year, I think we are a year away from being good but this is going to be a fun year. At least someday you will be calling Tommy and Kevin old stars. Let's toss it up and play some hoops.

I am thinking of my Brother and Sisters in the military. Semper Fi

I have a plant located in Memphis so I end up spending a lot of time there. I realize you have an axe to grind with Calipari, but do you honestly believe that a kid that has had two major knee operations and has been out of basketball for over a year and lisated either three or four on the depth chart is going to make a difference on their team. He is a kid that could have quit school, but has received his degree and will continue to work on his schooling.

The University of Tennessee had a 6'3" power Forward last year, I believe his name was Bradshaw, he was a small guy but Tennessee would never have gotten anyplace without him. Luke reminds me of this player and I believe can have the same value at the same position as Bradshaw.

All of this talk about Calipari has caused me to look at Memphis since he has taken over. I cannot see where he has done anything but help that program. He is constantly on sports programs pushing the cith of Memphis and the Basketball program. He is graduating his players, He led the program to the elite eight last year, BTW Milt Wagner is still on the staff for those that thought that it was only going to be while his son was there. I can't see where he has done anything wrong, maybe most of you can see things I can't. I would love to have a coach going on national TV and pushing SLU and the city like he does.

Football will be the sport where this will come into play the most. With all the redshirt years, picture the starting Quarterback at Indiana who starterd for three years decides that he wants to play for a national championship and Ohio State is looking for a Quarterback. You will see more graduate school kids playing football then basketball. Wait until the big BCS schools start going after each others players and see how long this new rule is in effect.

You are right, if you are a good team you have to schedule for seeding, but the second part of the equation is the league RPI. If you schedule for seeding then you will schedule better teams, but your league has to hold up their end with wins.

Roy, the reason they don't show any better is the League RPI. If you are the worst teams in the A-10 you schedule teams you can beat to have a better record to help out the league RPI. Would you rather beat a team that is 10-10 or a team that is 5-15 in your league which would help the most

But there are teams and it doesn't matter who they beat, The top teams in your league can schedule for seeding in the tournament, But to make sure your league has a good RPI you must have wins. So that when conference time comes the bottom teams in your league don't drag the rest of the conference down. If you don't believe it look at the MVC, Look at their OOC and see if as a league they played a better schedule the the A-10, but look at their OOC records and see if there is a signicant differences in the record of the league as a whole. But the key is for all teams to make sure they schedule wins. That is what will insure that you get more then a single bid.

It's all in scheduling, the MVC has figured out that if all teams end the OOC with between 9 or 10 wins the their league RPI will be high, that is the reason they look so good. The A-10 has not figured it out yet, all teams should schedule their OOC games so they will have at least 9 or 10 wins, then we will have a high RPI.

The kid grew up in Charleston, He is a junior this year averaging 22 pts and 16 rebounds a game. The point I was trying to make is teams from all over the country knew about him and showed interest, why didn't we know about him or show interest, especially since he is the big body that could have taken over for IV.

Another kid from Missouri goes elsewhere. A 6'10" 290 pounder from Bell City has verballed to Memphis. His coach said that he had received interest from Memphis, Oklahoma, Virginia and as far away as Central Florida, But there is no mention of SLU. William Bogan is his name, and in his first year of playing high school ball, but if all of the other schools knew about him, why didn't we.

The RPI is a game, the idea for a conference is to get as many teams in the Big Dance as possible and you do this by playing the RPI game. The conference in order to be able to place a number of teams in needs to win as many games as possible. If you are a team that is looking for a high seed then it becomes important to play a great schedule, however the second part of the equation is wins, It becomes important that your conference has a winning record going into the conference schedule. If you are the bottom feeders in aconference you still need the wins, so you schedule teams you can beat and build your record and thus building the conference record. The MVC does a good job at building the conference record and it shows when you look at their teams RPI, Each team in a conference should look at the non conference schedule and try to make sure you have at least nine or ten wins, this will insure that the SOS and RPI of you conference does not hurt you when selection time comes along. That is why the MVC is talked about in terms of three or four teams and most haven't played that super schedule that everyone talks about.

I didn't mean to imply that TL and KL were not good players, just that they were about in the top 125 where they were ranked in HS. And Roy you did say that they should have been rated much higher then they were. The fact that we are young does not mean that we should lower our expectations, hell a lot of teams are as young as we are. I still however believe that a head coach should look at where his coaching strengths lie and then recruit to his strengths and I don't believe that Brad has done that. For what is worth I agree with your assessment 3 Star.

That's good then, your expectations are not as high as mine. We should all be satified with .500 years. Like I said it is recruiting and coaching. We should be happy with getting top 100 recruits, but we shouldn't expect when they get here to suddenly be top 25 recruits.

For those willing to say we are playing like this because we are a young team, take a look at many of the top teams in the country and see how many of them are as young if not younger then we are. Even Duke starts two freshman, Texas has two sophmores that are their key players. Memphis has 1 Senior and everyone else that plays is a freshman or sophmore. Look at North Carolina they are real young. It all starts with recruiting and coaching. We thought that VN was going to come in a be the player we were looking for NOT. We thought that DP would be able and lead us to greatness NOT. We thought that KL and TL would come in as freshmen and lead us to greatness NOT. They are playing about where they were ranked coming out of high school, despite Roy thinking they should have been ranked much lower, they are playing about where their ranking suggested they would. I don't believe that DM coming in next year will give us any greater threat on the court then we have now. Unless coach can pull some rabbits out of the hat, we are in for another long year this year and next.

You don't find many power forwards in college basketball that are strictly a power forward in the true sense of a back to the basket four. College coaches now are into the pro set of dribble drive and they must be able to shoot the three or the longer mid range jumper.