SShoe

Let's also be honest with ourselves. There are no top high-school recruits essentially left, and if there are they probably have academic issues. Brad's comment is a good way of curbing your enthusiasm (funny show) so people don't expect SLU to go out right now and get a stud. We can wait next year for that, Powell and Tyus? I hope we get exactly what Brad said he wanted, a solid JUCO PF who can give us good minutes and a project.

C'mon, birthplace of liberty

Just wondering who plans on attending in Cinci and if so, maybe we could get a little gathering before hand to toast the upcoming upset. I was thinking a possible spot might be Mulligans near Hyde Park. Nice place, relatively close to Xavier's campus.

The past few weeks has been break, and there are never students there during break (shouldn't be and excuse, but it is). During school, students show up in better numbers and every now and again, they'll show up for big games in almost respectable fashion (except those balls eventually get thrown back onto the court at crucial moments).

If a top 50, regardless of position came along, it'd be stupid not to take him. But this year, to recruit with the idea of filling certain weak holes seems logical to me. Please don't do that next year though.

There were some comments, not from Brad, but Ramsey suggested covertly about Ian's younger brother being a recruit. Interesting he said something about his liking the current team chemistry and right now wanted in essence good role players, who can do certain things well. He didn't want another player who wanted to 15 shots a game, but rather a guy who could fill in areas where we were currently weak. Obviously the 4.

Unless something happens, Tommie is probably Frosh of the year in A-10 and I would expect Kevin to be on the all A-10 Freshman squad.

congrats to Tommie, but what about Lisch. He was superb this week.

Wow, interesting to look at the names above him, but more so below him. Players like Francisco Garcia, James Augustine, etc.

Good post...

Luke does need to play more. When he comes in he always makes something happen or has limited mistakes. That steal in the first half is the best example of him immediately coming off the bench and playing well. VN actually played pretty well last night making a few good passes and actually went to the line. The minutes should come from Drejaj's. He has struggled and until he is in shape or at 100% he shouldn't be playing. We talked earlier about how quick Brad is to pull JJ out for mistakes (and rightfully so last night), but Drejaj made some of the same mistakes JJ made (missed rebound and turnovers) in the second half last night and he continues to play major minutes. I liked Polk's defensive play last night. He caused 2 a lot of problems bringing the ball up.

I wasn't trying to claim Ian's improvement only came because of his play in Greece, but I do think that had something to do with it. I actually attribute Ian's improvement mostly to his getting used to the physical side of American-style basketball. A lot of skilled European players come over and don't do well because they get pushed around a lot. Ian has learned to "push-back". I do find it encouraging that Ian has improved as much as he has and hope that Brad has had a lot to do with that. I'm just thinking it's too early to decide if Brad's ability to develop players is strong. It's not too early to suggest that Quin's ability is lacking, considering all the quality recruits he's gotten and their lack of improvement. McKinney being one of them.

He's going crazy.

>JJ must understand that we need him to be the second coming >of Dennis rodman and not Antoine Walker. His first time in >he committed the cardinal sin of defense--his man took an >outside shot and JJ did not block out or go get the ball and >the guy got the rebound--AFTER IT BOUNCED ON THE FLOOR--and >then he went up and scored. I thought Brad was going to blow >a gasket. Then JJ decides to shoot early in the shot clock a >fall away 17 foot jump shot when Ian has been a force. Later >JJ decides after 5 secondes are gone on the shot clock to >take a 15 foot jumper over their shot blocker which of >course was blocked. If JJ thinks his role is to take outside >jump shots early in the shot clock and not defend and >rebound then his place is at the end of the bench. It must >be incredibly frustrating to the coaching staff because he >has shown an ability to rebound. Exactly right about his play tonight. Sometimes I feel bad for JJ. His leash is much shorter than anybody on the rest of the team, and Brad is really hard on him. But watching these possesions, I can imagine why Brad is so rough on him. Those shots he took were so damn stupid. The second shot was 5 seconds into the shot clock, but also he had just entered the game for 5 seconds as well. JJ is fine when he lets the game come to him, but when he tries to make things happen to much, he gets into trouble.

You can't really compare the two at this point. One is a freshman with all the promise in the world and the other is a senior at the end of a disappointing career. With defenses so keyed on Gardner, McKinney should do a little scoring. If in 3 years, Tommie hasn't progressed at all, then this conversation can be started again. Jury's still out on Brad's ability to develop players, because the only 4-year player has been Drejaj, who is a bad test subject because he isn't exactly what we would call a great athlete with a lot of upside who needed a coach to develop him. The improvement of Ian is encouraging, but that could be attributed to his play in Greece.

My girlfriend in Cinci needs constant updating because she is without the Billikens..... I almost jumped onto the court when Tommie hit that.... They're growing before our very eyes.

I'm sorry to hear about that. That's classless and somebody needs to answer some questions after something like that. It also doesn't exactly help our PR. SLU needs to get the names of all the people there and send autographed pictures.

I think I just don't like pizza where the cheese sticks to the roof of your mouth. Some people like that though. I've seen Brad and Dan Donigan a lot there in the past. They probably gets free meals or something.

LaSalle cooled off and Temple went away with it.

At this point your locks are Xavier and GW, I could see someone like Temple or Charlotte getting hot and being the third. And then we win the tourney and make it 4.

> > Of course we could lose every game and we could win every >game so I will predict with 100% accurracy that we will win >between 7 and 21 games. > > > > That's funny.

How is saying Tommie being more promising to Kevin an insult?

it's crap

In looking at the Conference schedule now and pre-GW game I had us at 10-6. The schedule plays into our favor and the A-10 is not that good. Had we beat GW, I might of had us going 12-4 or something like that in conference. I have hopes that we can win the A-10 tournament still and if not I think the NIT is a certainty this year. This team is already good enough to finish in the top 6 of this conference. It sucks because our record could/should be much better.

that's certainly his weakest area.