Bay Area Billiken

IV played a decent game, but those missed FT's at the end did hurt. On the one that stuck on the rim, the DePaul TV analyst on Comcast Chicago, Stacy King, likened it to a car crash. It was interesting to see much more energy from the Billikens with the young lineup that started the game. Luke Meyer is a gamer and is going to get better if given a chance. Polk played a great game for a freshman point guard.

Randy Bennett can certainly coach. St. Mary's was 2-27 the year before he arrived in Moraga. Now the Gaels are knocking at the door of the Big Dance with a record of 19-5 overall, 6-1 in the WCC, and an RPI of 34. Whether SMC can take the next step and win on the road at Gonzaga, where it is very hard to win, remains to be seen. But what a turnaround has occurred under Bennett at this small Christian Brothers school in the East Bay hills.

Agreed. I believe the rivalries that will be missed the most are Marquette and DePaul. Marquette was with us in the MCC (now Horizon) and DePaul and Marquette were both with us in the old Great Midwest Conference. DePaul was a driving force in the formation of the Great Midwest. I hated to see the GMC go away in the de facto merger with the Metro to form C-USA. It is too bad that Louisville could not have just joined the GMC, as Cincinnati and Memphis were already there, which could have obviated C-USA from even being formed. Then C-USA started courting football schools, the ACC took 3 Big East teams, the Big East needed teams to replace them, Notre Dame wanted DePaul and Marquette, and SLU had little real choice but to leave the remnant of C-USA.

The rivalries with Marquette, DePaul, Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and even UAB will be missed. Old rivalries with Dayton and Xavier will be restored. The series with Charlotte will be retained in the A-10. Various outside forces conspired to change the conference landscape, and in the long run, I'm not sure that will be a good thing.

In West Coast Conference action, USF (San Francisco) beat Gonzaga last night 73-70. Gonzaga has now lost this year at both St. Mary's and USF. The WCC has the 7th highest conference RPI so far, which is believed to be an all-time high for that 8 team group of private schools, 7 of them Catholic schools. The Missouri Valley is 8th, C-USA is 9th, and the Atlantic 10 is 13th. The source is Ken Pomeroy's RPI site. That was a big win last night for the USF Dons, who are still undefeated this year at home.

We were there last night. Obviously, it wasn't pretty, and it was disapointing. For what it is worth, here are a few thoughts: 1. Luke Meyer SHOULD be playing more. He may be a freshman, but in his brief 10 minutes, he seemed to have the court awareness and basketball moxy. Other than trying to play power forward at one point at 6'5", which seems grossly unfair, he didn't seem timid to this observer. He moved without the ball. He dived for loose balls. He made 2 layups. He is going to be a good one if given a chance. A high school hoops announcer friend saw him score over 40 points last year. Yes, it was high school, but 40 plus points is 40 plus points. My concern re Meyer is that he not get frustrated sitting on that bench and hang in there. His time should come. If I was running this team, based primarily upon what I saw last night, his time would come now. 2. Justin Johnson should be playing more. He is raw, but he has the potential to develop into that illusive power forward that SLU has needed since Anthony Bonner graduated. He was hustling. If he plays, he is going to get better. He could really compliment the future team of Lisch, Liddell, Polk, and Meyer. 3. Granted it was garbage time at the end, but the energy level seemed much higher when SLU pressed and at least pressured SEMO's guards. Coach Soderberg's defense seems to be based upon packing the lane, which was a stark departure from the Spoonball days. SEMO's little guards were getting wide open 3 pointers. SLU was more athletic at guard and could have exploited that much earlier. 4. SLU's bigs were repeatedly burned by the shorter but more athletic SEMO "bigs." Again, it would seem that the answer there would have been to pressure those SEMO guards to keep SEMO's fluid bigs from getting those touches. That was the essence of Spoonball defense. 5. The post-game debate on KMOX focused in part upon whether SLU should now play the freshman or stick with the veterans. That is the big question, isn't it? Obviously, at 2-9, this season is basically lost. Recruits are on the way. The veterans as a group have not been getting it done. The freshman are freshman. I wish I had the answer to that one. But at least the freshman would get valuable experience by being thrown into the fires.

Randy Bennett's St. Mary's Gaels are 9-4, 7-4 against D-1 teams, with an RPI of 81. He has done a great job resurrecting this program from the bare bottom. St. Mary's plays in a 3,500 seat (bleachers) gym, much like a large high school gym. The success of the Gaels has to give hope to us all.

Justin Love didn't play out here that year against USF. SLU was ahead big in the first half of that game but fell apart in the second half. That was a game the Billikens should have won and likely cost them an NIT bid. Oh well, the Billikens of Larry Hughes blew out USF in St. Louis the year before.

I was hoping it had not gotten to that point. However, couldn't this current Billiken team find a place for a Kelvin Henderson type?

I cannot dispute your points. You are right. SLU seems to be in the midst of the old Billiken 2 step- one step forward and a big step back. I have been looking for any silver lining in the dark cloud. It has gotten to the point where I am afraid to look for the scores. I don't want all the gains SLU has made over the last 2 decades to be lost, and believe me, the gains have been truly tremendous. My 4 undergraduate years at SLU coincided with one Ron Ekker's presence as Coach. I personally sat in Ekker's office with my roommate our Senior year until he finally relented and let us restore the Billiken mascot. SLU should beat teams like Austin Peay and Eastern Michigan on a neutral court. SLU should beat teams like ORU, UWM, and even Hawaii and Dayton on the "home court." I hope the team is not giving up. Being 2,000 miles away and since SLU TV games were moved off Fox Sports Midwest to the local Charter cable, coupled with no longer being able to hear Billiken Bob Ramsey and Earl Austin, Jr. free over the internet, I have to rely on Stu Durando's accounts in the P-D and this fine messageboard. We are coming back for the Holidays and are planning to see SLU v. SEMO in person next week. I hope the Billikens put this bad start behind them and go all out next week. We want to see a winner.

SLU has been good when SLU has kept the local players at home. This has been proven time and time again. In the Rich Grawer years, SLU had Anthony Bonner, Monroe Douglass, and Roland Gray. In the Charlie Spoonhour years, SLU had Erwin Claggett and Scott Highmark (both Grawer recruits), followed by Larry Hughes. With Kevin Lisch and Tommie Liddell on the way next year, there has to be hope. Re Coach Soderberg's apparent penchant for size at the bigs, Spoon took a team to the NCAA with David Robinson as the de facto Center at 6'6". Jeff Harris, listed at 6'5" was one of SLU's best inside players. Donnie Dobbs played on an NCAA team and was 6'3". Maybe the Coach just needs to consult SLU basketball history in his recruiting.

These include Austin Peay, Eastern Michigan, ORU, Hawaii, UWM, and Dayton. Two were by a scant point, and another was in OT. The only 2 blowouts were at Gonzaga and at SIU. With a little luck, mojo, better play down the stretch, etc., this team would have a much better record than 2-8. Granted, SLU may not have won all of them, but the start to this season has been particularly dastardly. The bounces have to start going our way. Let's beat SEMO and go from there.

Coach Soderberg needs to stick to an 8 or 9 man rotation in games, irrespective of mistakes. Playing the whole roster is rarely the answer. Players don't have enough time to get into the flow of the game. I realize that the SIU game turned into a blowout, but I hope playing the whole roster does not become the norm borne from desperation. I've never favored the make a mistake and exit the game approach. Players become tentative and afraid that if they make a bad play, they get yanked.

Evidently Kevin Slaten has an axe to grind and can be dismissed. But what is really wrong with this SLU team? Because many players returned from a winning team that made the NIT and even beat Iowa in the first round, it can't be a total lack of talent. Negativism seems to breed more negativism. SLU lost some heartbreakers, apparently due mostly to poor shooting, and now the snowball has turned into an avalanche. Losing by 26 points at SIU is simply unacceptable. Playing the next game against SEMO at home should be a place to start. That should be a win if the Billikens show up and play some ball. On the other hand, SEMO lost at home to SIU by only 4 points, 72-68. But SEMO does not have the height or talent level to contend with the Billikens, if the Billikens come to play. On paper, SIU did not have the height either. While it would seem prudent to give Justin Johnson more playing time, gutting the whole nucleus of the team would not seem to be the answer, not yet. Has there been any suggestion of Coach Soderberg loosening the reigns on this team? Are the players just too tight? Have they gotten to the point in which they are afraid to make a mistake? On another note, Vashon's Lorenzo Gordon is leading a resurgence at Illinois State. What is the word there? Did SLU ever try to recruit him?

Has the team let up in intensity? The point is that eventually the law of averages has to be on our side, as long as the effort is still there. I don't think it is an overall talent problem, or is it? I know that Reggie Bryant is a proven scorer. I'm looking forward to seeing SLU play SEMO in person over the holidays. Shouldn't SLU at least win that one?

I was there at the then Checkerdome and remember that McKendree College game all too well. That may well be the single lowest point of all. Remember, that Billiken team included David Burns. With the national attention Coach Statham has been receiving lately, the dark memory of that game returned. Plus, in Coach Grawer's first year (5-23), SLU lost at home to Division 2 UMSL and SIU-E. And who can forget that overtime thriller at West Pine Gym over Blackburn? The point is that the current team has lost a number of close games and has evidently developed some type of shooting phobia, even from point blank range. Negativism breeds more negativism. If the team is playing hard, the shots eventually have to start falling. We need to keep the faith.

This poster's 7 years at SLU coincided with the "Ron Ekker Era" and the first 3 years of Rich Grawer's Billikens. Thus, I have probably personally witnessed the bottom of the bottom re SLU Hoops. My first year in California, the Billikens turned the corner and went 18-12. But improvement was evident in Grawer's second and third years, and one could tell that things were going to get better. SLU has good young talent and 2 talented recruits on the way. There may be some growing pains, like Grawer's last year and the first year of Spoon. But after that, look out for the Billikens. Let's get a power forward to go with Polk, Meyer, Lisch, and Liddell. Then we will be talking NCAA. Keep the faith, Billiken fans.

So it sounds like Coach Soderberg's chief recruiting task is to get that illusive power forward. SLU has been searching for the power forward since Anthony Bonner graduated. Bonner was such a good player, a quality individual, and he improved during his 4 years at SLU. Can't we find somebody like him somewhere? Could Justin Johnson be a "poor man's Anthony Bonner" if given a chance? I know there have been issues with Johnson, but why not give him his chance now? What good does it do having him sitting on the bench? What do we have to lose? Maybe Johnson will develop into that power forward.

that Coach Soderberg's vow that everything is now on the table, might mean opening up his offense? Frankly, what do we have to lose? Most recruits want to play an up tempo game. This poster is sitting here almost 2,000 miles away and must rely on the reports received from stltoday.com, billikens.com, etc. But the most fundamental point in basketball is the need to make baskets, score points. If the "motion" offense is not working, how about trying to open up the game? It is my understanding that Polk can play a running game, and Luke Meyer was a big scorer in high school at Borgia.

Gonzaga played poorly but still won last night at Washington State. WSU was coming off an embarrassing 81-29 loss at Oklahoma State. Gonzaga is very hard to beat at home, even though the Zags have moved into a new building this year. Gonzaga has been the power in the WCC for quite some time. Turiaf remains a force in the low block, and Gonzaga always has good shooters. Gonzaga likes to play an up tempo game, but was harnessed by Coach Bennett's WSU Cougars last night. SLU Coach Brad Soderberg, as we all know, plays Bennett's system. By the way, former SLU Assistant, Randy Bennett has done quite a job with the Galloping Gaels of St. Mary's, who won at Cal earlier this year. Santa Clara is also having a good season so far, having beaten North Carolina and Stanford.

... not if the Billikens can beat ND! Thank you, Taj. It appears that the "truth" is pretty obvious, doesn't it? This venue situation should be all the Billikens need to come out super motivated to end ND's season, right in its own backyard! GO BILLIKENS!

Is there any way the Billiken Pep Band can be in Ft. Wayne? We think the band is great, one of the very best. When we get back to St. Louis, it is great to hear that band!

The Savvis Center website indicates that Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken will be at Savvis on Sunday night at 7:00 p.m.

If interested, please see the article, "Ft. Wayne excited to host ND-St. Louis NIT" at www.southbendtribune.com. The evident discrepancy is that the Blues are playing next Thursday night (3/25/04)at Savvis Center, not Wednesday night. Thus, even if 2 full days are required to remake the ice surface, why wasn't Savvis Center "available" to SLU for Monday night? I know the game is in Ft. Wayne, but even our local San Ramon Valley Times today has the game as Notre Dame at St. Louis. If any of you know what happened, please advise. If we lost a home game against Notre Dame merely because of site unavailability, is there any greater reason why SLU needs that Billiken Arena?

cujaysfan, I am not disputing your point. But somehow the word leaked that this game was being played in St. Louis. Then something happened after Notre Dame beat Purdue last night. Frankly, I fully expected that SLU would be playing at ND from the beginning. But then we learned that the Joyce ACC was unavailable, and that the game was supposedly in St. Louis. As a double SLU degreed alumnus (1982 and 1985), who still remembers the last 2 Billiken games at Notre Dame, I was hoping we would finally get the Irish in St. Louis.