Billikan

You have obviously never played or coached basketball. Your description of what the coach said is exactly the opposite of what I have believed in for years. I'll take hard working overachievers any day over lazy wasted talent. The ultimate goal is to get great players and get them to play hard and "overachieve" but I will always take a hard working overachiever because those great players are few and far between.

On Frank's show this morning he interviewed Travis Ford, the coach from Eastern Ky. With regard to the game Ford indicated that they won 12 games last year and he has a number of new players who he hopes will help this team win more games this year. He said he had great respect for Coach Soderberg and his coaching style that emphasizes discipline and toughness. He said he has looked at tape and he has warned his team that they will wake up sore with a lot of bruises on Sat. morning after the game. He also suggested that they, like so many other teams today, do not shoot the ball as well as he would like, but that he had 4 excellent shooters. Let's hope we can clamp down on them and come out with a solid victory.

The key is whether we win the games, not who plays. Varner has strengths and weaknesses the same as every player on the roster. why are you so caught up in the idea that Varner can't play? Have you seen him play this year? He is markedly better and much stronger. He plays hardnosed ball like sloan, Frericks, Drejaj and Fischer. He will probably sit a lot once Ian gets eligilbe. But if he proves with his play that he deserves to play then let's have him on the floor.

Ridiculous is now an understatement. You say that "if Varner is seeing a lot of time come mid season then the year's been a disappointment" What a joke! If the team is winning at mid season and it continues to win then the year is a great success regardless of who is playing. The idea is to win games--it is not to win games with certain people playing the big minutes. Have you been to a game? Have you been to parctice? If you have then you must realize that coach Brad looks to Varner for a contribution on both ends of the court. I would suspect that the coach has a better feel for the game and his team than the "coaches" on this board.

What in the world brings all of this negative and nasty commentary about Varner. I have been to practice and the two exhibition games and I have seen a player that the coaches believe will be an important part of our team. As Jason G. said at the Billiken Club meeting last night--Varner is very important to what we want to do--he is by far our best screener in the offense--he playes great positional defense (he is not great when he has to clase someone all over the floor but he is a very good low post defender because he is strong and holds his position). In addition, particularly when he plays the 5, his outside shooting ability brings the opposing center away from the basket and as of now he is our best outside shooter in game situations. His rotation is excellent and the fundamentals of his shot allow for soft bounces--a sign of a good shooter. As coach said after the last game the players must earn their minutes by playing hard in practice. Varner has earned every minute that he will play. IO has had ankle problems and was out of sync in the last game. I think he will continue to develop but his confidence level is down and his defense is still less than stellar. Remember that the coach is playing with a very short bench--one missing scholarship--one redshirt and two suspended players. that leaves very few options for the first three games. We will have to grind out wins with defense and hustle until we get Bryant back. IO and Clarke will need to play important minutes off the bench. The coaching staff are not idiots as a person would conclude they must be if you read these posts--they know and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of this team. Once we get Clarke and Ian back in the rotation things will be much different. From what was said last night Ian is a very willing worker and he is improving day by day. My guess is that by mid Feb. he will be a key guy in the rotation and Varner's time will be much more limited. But for now lets support the team AND Varner while we attempt to win games with limited personnel.

Don't be fooled by the report that sloan cannot guard a 3-- He forced price to take very tough shots on the move and he had 3 or 4 prayers answered. chris can still guard the 3 position. But the problem is that he really tries to play great help defense and sometimes that will leave his man open for a long shot outside. If the guy hits shots then he will score. If the only problem we have is whether Chris can guard the 3 position then we have no problems.

I have read that they revamped the entire team and that Travis ford brought in a big group of new players with the intention that the team will be more competitive. Without a doubt, this is a must win!

This is his first season playing NCAA basketball. We have seen from the past that merely sitting out a year does not mean that the player has one year of experience. To the contrary, over the years it has taken every player many games of actual competition to adapt and get up to speed after sitting out.

I got a postcard within the last week confirming that the meeting is tonight.

JJ is a first year player who has been inconsistant in practice. If he continues to develop I am sure he will get more minutes.

that Larry Hughes is having a fantastic season with the Wizzards? Tonight he had 26 points, 9 rebounds and 5 steals. On the season he is scoring about 19 points a game with alomost 5 rebounds a game and --amazing!!--he is chooting over 42% from three point land. This confirmss what I thought after watching the team last year--if MJ and Stackhousee would stop firing up shots from all over the court--missing most of them--and they would have passed to Larry he would have been able to make a real impact on the offensive end.

This was a good game for the coaching staff to evaluate the team. We played terrific defense and the shots they made were generally of the spectacular-- no defense will stop--variety--Price hit at least 4 lengthy jumpshots while on the move! Our shooting from outside was absolutely terrible. Varner was the only player who could hit anything--he hit three nice outside shots including a three. The team was 2 for 23 from three point land. We opened the game with energy and ran to a 9-0 lead. They then they some long shots and closed eventually to 12-9. We then took the ball to the basket on numerous occasiions and the opposing center looked like Bill Russell--he must have blocked 6 or 7 shots in a 5 minute span. It was an amasing display. Although we maintained our discipline the shot blocker seemed to change our approach. we then go many wide open looks from 3 point land and missed shot after shot. Starting with about 5 or 6 minutes to go in the first half the EA team went into the 4 corners and used all of the clock and then heaved up long jumpers--unfortunately several went in- and then they did the same thing for most of the second half. I hope we never play this team again because we don't buy tickets to watch an exhibition team run a stall offense most of the game. The only thing I could figure is that the team had been blown out several times--although they did beat Ohio State and St. John's-- and once they got the lead the coach decided to take the air out of the ball and hope to stay close--a good strategy if this was a key game in conference, etc. but it realy hacked me off. Slaon had a fantastic game on both ends. He rebounded like a demon and took the ball to the basket and pump faked the big shot blocker several times and then scored and drew the foul. He had several nice steals and was great, as always, on help defense. Fischer also had a nice game and he had two fantastic spinning drives for layups in the first half. Varner played well and really stood his ground in the middle when Tom was on the bench. He has a beautiful shooting touch--the potential game tying 3 pointer was right on but just short. JJ got a few minutes in the first half and played well. He had a nice steal and a nice jumper from the baseline against the zone. IO, on the other hand, did not start, did not show up to play and looked lost out there. He tried to dribble thru traffic and put up a variety of shots--three or four were blocked and the others missed. He was 0-7 from the field. Worse than that, his defense was not good from a fundamental basis and the coach was on him for that. I still have hopes for IO but he need to play stronger and defend better if he wants to get quality playing time. Clarke played big minutes and he seemed confident. His defense seemed strong. He missed another 3 long three point shots and clanked in two free throws. Let's hope he can start to hit shots when the games count. Also, I do not believe he turned the ball over. As a matter of fact, it seemed to me that we had many fewer turnovers in this game. Fericks is a warrior. He got his shot blocked numerous times early but he must have listened to the coaches because late in the game he made 2 nice shots with head and shoulder fakes on the big shot blocker. He is as intense as sloan--he seemed to have a cold or maybe his bask was bothering him but it looked like it was hard for him to run. Bryant played a few minutes in the first half and he looked fine and then he hit the pine for the duration. Obviously, Brad wants to see how his early team will look. Let's hope we can survive the first three games without Bryant--he is clearly our best pure shooter and offensive player. Ian did not play--no eligibility til January. Overall, it was a tough game to watch because of our very poor shooting. If we had shot the ball well I think we would have won by 20--and those were wide open shots. Let's hope they fall when the games count. Our defense is good enough to beat almost anybody.

If you watched the St. Josephs/Gonzaga game last night you would have seen a first game that had some nice plays, some decent shooting and a lot of discipline. Just because it was the first game does not mean that a team can play with no discipline. I would expect the shooting to be somewhat slow to come around but not the discipline. The problem in the Bills exhibition game was that we were playing everyone and clarke made several dumb turnovers and Bryant tried to dribble thru traffic. We will be better. The others may be better but the lack of discipline and fundamentals is a hard problem to deal with as a coach.

for those of you who are hardcore college basketball fans the games on ESPN this weekend have already told us something about our Billikens. Two teams from the conference played and neither looked very good, particularly on offense. I am not saying that we will beat both of those teams but I sure did not see anything that intimidated me in any way. St. Johns, on the other hand was an absolute joke on the offensive end with no plays, guys gunning up shots as soon as they got over half court and no court sense whatsoever. As I watched those games I concluded that the optimism on our board about our Bills may be justified. Further, I see really nice things ahead because of the points we emphasize with our new recruits. we now seem to be emphasizing recruits that can shoot the ball and who are disciplined, coachable and tough. It becomes clear from watching those games that included two top 25 teams--Wake and Marquette--that the college game is degenerating into a game where discipline, good shot selection, good shooting, structure and teamwork (except for Deiner)are on the way out. Our team this year and our recruits for the future fit a mold that is different and that could be better in that we seem to be very disciplined, we play excellent team defense and we should be able to shoot the ball. If we do shoot the ball reasonably well and avoid turnovers--the MU/St. Johns game was ridiculous in its sloppy and barely forced turnovers--we should be able to play with just about any team in the country. I am excited to see how it all turns out.

If you read the press releases and the comments by the coaches it sounds like these 3 players are all around great guys and talented players. I know that the coach wants solid citizens who will work hard--it sounds like he got exactly what he wanted. this is a great day for the Bills and for our new coaching staff--THREE solid LOCAL recruits!!!!

I think "bite me" is a good indication of who might have tender sensibilities. I have seen us beat exhibition teams and then lose game when they count. It could happen again. But I saw this team and it had some talented players that we shut down with our defense. If not defended correctly I think that AIA team could beat a lot of teams on a given night--i.e. Indiana and Wake Forest. I am just frustrated by your assumption that if we beat them then it must be a different team that beat Wake and took Indiana to overtime.

I passed on your comments the last time re the AIA game and the team but now I just have to reply. Why is it that you assume that the Bills must have beaten a bad team and the others played a better team? The fact is that there is only one AIA team and we saw their stars. The reason they looked "rusty" as one person put it is because our defense was outstanding. We pressured the guards relentlessly and fought over the screens. Sears got only 5 shots even though he was setting up way outside. Why can't you for once give our Bills some credit--note the high scores for AIA in other games--the reason is simple--we defend as well as anyone. We were sloppy on offense but we scored enough to win. We can play better. How about some positives for a change?

103--row d--1-4

I was out of town when this started so I did not see it. I am 58 (old!!!) and a double grad of SLU-- played basketball on the freshman team--when they needed non scholarship players to help them practice. I played and coached(grade school, junior high and select teams) basketball for more than 30 years. I have 3 kids, 32, 30 and 20. They are diehard Bills fans.My wife is also a SLU grad and we are loud and supportive, diehard Bills fans. Contrary to some observations, my wife and I are the loudest fans in our area and many of the younger fans seem reluctant to cheer. My dad played ball at SLU so I have been going to games since the 50s. I have hardly missed a home game since 1963. I lived and died with our Bills through some great and very tough years. I was on the exec committee of the Tip Off Club many years ago and I was a member of the committee that established the criteria for "points" that are now used to rank the season ticket holders. My rank is in the top 20 and I have great seats in the third row. I remember a lot of history that some of our younger posters may not recall. The University is much changed since I was there in the early 60s. Father Biondi has done fantastic things at the school and I love the new coach. Go Bills!

On Sat. I noticed that he was frustrated but he seemed to go out of his way not to be too vocal. My guess is that he viewed the game tape and saw some lazy attitudes that lead to turnovers and it set him off. JJ must be the player who could be cut. His attitude needs serious adjustmen based upon what I observed. The bottom line is that Brad thinks this team can compete if they play with constant intensity and composure but we will struggle if we do not. I love the guy for his approach and his attitude. Question: Has anyone heard of a possible scrimmage this weekend? At the end of Saturday's scrimmage I saw Brad talking to the refs and I thought I heard him say that he wanted them to come back the following week.

The answer is "NO"! It amazes me how the national publications come to conclusions on players solely based upon where they play.

I agree that we need more informaiton before we can really evaluate this team because of the new faces. I think all of our returning players are better. It will be fun to watch them meld with the new faces.

In terms of offensive ability I think our front line is MUCH improved over last year. Last night I was pleased by our overall defense. If we can avoid foul trouble and stop the guard turnovers we will be fine. I would suggest that JJ will need to show dramatic improvement before he ever gets 10-12 minutes a game. In spite of some comments by some posters my view of JJ after seeing him in practice and a scrimmage is that he has a lot to learn and he need to play much smarter and with intensity before he will get anything more than mopup pt.

Fantastic!!! Keep up the good work--that was a very nice crowd of loud students for tonight's game!

Actually, I was thinking of that statement when I wrote that message!