p diddy

true dat. but with big guys, you explore all avenues. big men are different. they are on a different wavelength than the rest of us. i'm pretty tall myself, and i know i'm on a different planet at times. just about all of the young big men (freshmen and sophomores over 6'8") have either been sitting on the varsity (like adams or harrell) or have been playing junior varsity (like brandenburg or t. williams). none are ready for prime time just yet, but someone in that group will emerge.

Melvin Robinson did not start his first game at Vashon until he was a senior. He was doing pretty well at slu before he quit the team. he was on the junior varsity as a 6-11 sophomore in high school. as a freshman at cardinal ritter, jahidi white played a total of about 10 varsity minutes. He was a jv player. all 6'9" and 280 pounds of him. john thompson and all those d-1 schools should have left him alone, not to mention those three NBA teams. samuel dalembert did not start until his junior year in high school. he is now starting for the philadelphia 76ers. what was seton hall thinking. tim duncan was a swimmer in his native virgin islands and did not pick up a basketball until he was about 16 years old. wake forest clearly wasted their time recruited him. nazr muhammed was a fat out of shape 300-pounder who wasn't really a factor in high school until late in his career. i guess rick pitino should be fired for recruited him. you're right. why on earth would anyone consider recruiting a 6'11" 15 year old with a big upside and a 4.0 grade point. guys, who let the lightweight on this board. this is wayyy too easy. bad boyz for life

I'd rather have Leon as well. He's the next piece to the puzzle, being that athletic small forward who can go inside or outside. The question is, will he see that slu can possibly be the best place for him to succeed despite the numerous offers from "Name" schools that will come his way. or will he go to the "name" school and potentially get lost in the shuffle like jimmy mckinney did at mizzou for the past three years. 'Zo recruited J-Roc hard and he wanted to come, but the lure of the big name and bright lights got to his peeps and he went down the road. he would have been a stud at slu, playing his correct position (swingman), instead of getting recruited over at mizzou. that happens all of the time at the high-major level. the same thing happened to johnnie parker several years back. circumstances chose his school for him instead of best fit and look what happened to his career. tommie, dwayne (pre-injury) and Kevin could have gone to bigger places, but they are going to have great careers here. 1. because they are really good players. 2. they are in a position to succeed. i imagine slu is recruiting powell pretty hard, seeing that brad was more than a few vashon games this year. he would be a nice fit to a program that is on the way back. let's see if leon will choose a place like slu and have a great career or capitulate to the hype and choose "Big School U." and fight for minutes. does anyone have any thoughts on this. besides, there may be one more scenario in leon's recruiting at play involving another school very far from st. louis. i really cannot mention any more, but if you are really on your game, problack, you will know what i am talking about. bad boyz for life

word on the street was that cory took an unofficial to slu in late may, the same weekend his aau team played in the eagles tournament in columbia bad boyz for life

the daniels kid from vashon has a big up-side with his shooting ability and athleticism. he just lacks focus at all times. he reportedly is up at west pine taking part in the pickup games on a regular basis. two years with jeff kidder will help him greatly. bad boyz for life

Tommie Liddell needs to have the ball in his hands from the first day he steps on the floor as a Billiken. no questions asked. I watched him score almost 40 points tonight without a drop of selfishness. he made one highlight reel play after another, but still tried to play a team game. if you know what you're watching, you can see that he is a special type of player. I bet he had close to a triple-double. I can't wait to watch his career unfold at slu, however long it may be. bad boyz for life p.s. the st. louis team really missed kevin tonight.

Unless there has been a change, Kenny daniels is going to Indian Hills J.C. Come on, Pro black, you're our vashon man on the board, so let's stay on top of things. bad boyz for life

problack, nice try about lorenzo recruiting tommie, but as you see there are people on this board who know better. i knew that false statement would get rejected with the quickness, regardless of what justin dentmon may have told the u-dub staff. besides, lorenzo knew of tommie's re-commitment to slu last summer, so he wasn't going to risk a friendship over a player, regardless of what mr. webster does. bad boyz for life

stewart can really go. it really hurt edwardsville's season when he got hurt. he and moosman make a nice guard combination with gateway along with dustin. that's a nice perimeter trio. they have been getting a lot done in some of these tournaments. you might be right about washington. i just haven't seen it yet, but i'm willing to keep an open mind. i've seen moosman perform well on the road against some pretty stiff national competition in fort wayne and bloomington. that convinces me more than what he does against the less than stellar competition from around here. when i see james do the same (and i see a lot), I will come around. btw, dustin has enjoyed some solid performances on the aau circuit. i think bills fans are going to like him. now, that stokes kid can really play. he's tiny, but he has a lot of guts and a lot of offensive talent. he reminds me a little of dwayne, only smaller and he's right handed. bad boyz for life

there were many schools after tommie, but washington and lorenzo was not one of them (at least from what i heard, anything's possible). washington went after dentmon from carbondale and got him. michigan state, oklahoma, and still unlv were some of the others that went after tommie before he signed. the rumors around webster really didn't get going until after tommie had signed with slu. but the vultures were definitely out the minute he chose to go prep school. we saw that first hand last july. bad boyz for life

washington is a serviceable floor leader when he stays in his role. there are times when he tries to be a scorer (like the state title game) and he looks really bad. you can see the hair of floyd's head begin to stand up whenever james looks to score or get out of his role. that is when vashon's looks really lost. he's in the mode of akins, kemp, jackson. other v-grads who were good high school floor generals on loaded teams, but not necessarily division I material. if we go by pro-black's logic, we must take the todd spencer kid from poplar bluff as the top junior point guard in the state. he has two Missouri Class 5 state championships to his credit. He ran the team and allowed ben hansbrough to play the 2-guard most of the time. he had a little help from ben and tyler, but he was the facilitator of poplar bluff's wrecking ball. i'm just being a little silly about that, but i think everyone gets my drift. on that list, i would probably rank washsington No. 3 at best or maybe 4. i say washington is on the level with jay robinson, the kid who just graduated from webster groves. bad boyz for life

i'll go with the moosman kid from borgia. washington is solid, but nothing special. He is the point guard on a loaded team. he is quick and defends pretty well, though. he can pass to polk for the 3 or throw the alley-oop dunk to leon. maybe, he'll prove me wrong next year. his sister is a much better player. moosman is a much better shooter, creator, scorer off the dribble and he's strong with the ball. whenever i see them play each other on the summer circuit (when the reins are much looser and you can really see who can play some ball), alex works james pretty good. bad boyz for life

is the woodland kid from lutheran north or mcnutt kid from hazelwood central kid in those rankings. i saw both of them played well when their eagles team that whipped gameface in the championship game of the addidas tournament at mccluer north. i think doss was on that team. we must have some pretty good sophomores in town. bad boyz for life

Pro Black, Marque Perry and Josh Fisher were not point guards when they showed up at slu either. marque played a swing role and josh played a lot of small forward in high school. both were quite good for us for a long time. when travis diener was a freshman, he played a lot of 2-guard because cordell henry was still there at the point with d-wade at the 3. as a said before, when you have a number of guards who can pass, catch and shoot with good basketball IQ's, it doesn't matter who runs the point in a motion offense. DP, TL and KL are all quite capable of getting it done. they are good guards of various size and various skills, but they know how to play the game. luke works well without the ball in the motion and danny brown is the best athlete. throw in AD's grit and we have a nice situation in the backcourt for years to come. it took the nation most of the year to figure out that deron williams was illinois' point guard and not brown, although all three were quite capable of taking the reins. dee is a good point guard, but williams is just better at the position. not playing point guard at vashon really hurt the careers of shelton and mcKinney. when mizzou tried to play jimmy at point, it made little sense because jimmy is a 3. joel was strictly a small shooting guard. lorenzo did pretty well at washington with a 5'7" shooting guard masquerading as a point guard. conroy was the point, but nate had the ball in his hands most of the time. dwayne has way more point guard instincts than nate, who is just a dominant athlete and physically stronger than most guards. bad boyz for life

for those who haven't seen lisch, he is really outstanding. it doesn't matter where you put him in the backcourt. his position is guard, plain and simple. he wasn't at the nike camp and he wasn't an aau all-american, but so what. nobody plays with the passion on BOTH ends of the floor at all times. kevin routinely dominated the pre-season pickup games during the fall before his senior year at althoff. if tommie liddell with his special gifts, would bring it like kevin does, he could be a NBA lottery pick. a guard is guard. if you can shoot, pass, dribble and think, you can be an outstanding guard. kevin, tommie and dwayne are capable of doing all three. Jimmy mckinney was an all-american, player of the year, three state titles. darren brooks got no recruiting looks. in college, brooks was a star and jimmy has struggled miserably in columbia still trying to locate his game. it's been close to 15 years since a vashon player has figured prominently on a college team that went to the NCAA Tournament. I think Dwayne will be one who will break that trend. what it means it that those high school credentials are nice left there when you put on that college uniform. i could be wrong, but i'm of the opinion that lisch would have been a starter on the 2004-05 billikens. i don't really care who is better. the main thing is that all three are top-notch players and they belong to us. bad boyz for life

a lot of mistakes were made in area recruiting in recent years, but i don't see where have complaints with what has happened in the past two years and beyond. in that time, slu has signed polk (2004 Player of Year), lisch (best area player in class of 2005), liddell (most talented player in class of 04/05), meyer (nearly 30 points a game and an A-student). All were on the all-metro team in 2004. coming next year is maguire (best perimeter shooter in class of 2006). jarod leonard of desmet was offered before his troubles this year and word on the street is that bobby hill of vashon has been offered (maybe problack can confirm since he is close to the vashon program) powell is also on the list. there are several area kids in the class of '07, '08 who are in the billiken crosshairs as well. so my question is, why are some people still complaining. we should have had some guys who went elsewhere (darren brooks and others), but that has been rectified. that dog won't hunt anymore. slu is getting pretty much the best perimeter talent in town. what they need is some low post presence and that hasn't been readily available in the last two years. (save for grimes and shaw). some of the younger classes have some forwards and centers. so, the next time you want to rant about why didn't we recruit....just stop yourself and look at the prospective roster for the next four years. you should have no complaints, unless you're just talking just to be talking. bad boyz for life

i think the pacers would have been the best team in the east this year with its full roster before the brawl. bad boyz for life

Pro Black, Here's an official welcome to the billiken board. lorenzo gordon was recruited by slu, but because of lack of transferable hours, he needed 15 hours of summer school to be eligible at slu. that wasn't the case at illinois state. That's a no-brainer choice for any kid to make. mckinney wanted to come to slu and play for lorenzo. he would have been a marquee player for the billikens. but mizzou wound up getting the nod because they were more "BIG TIME." hindsight is 20-20, but if jimmy and his folks new that quin was going to recruit over him and he would have such a mediocre three years at mizzou? hope he has a big senior year because the first three years have been a disaster. watch liddell's career at slu and you'll see how he will flouish. I hope leon powell has been watching this as he starts to gain a rep and his recruiting picks up. all the powers will be all over him because of his talent and his high-profile high school. hopefully, he will choose a school where he can succeed at instead of getting caught up in the big name and going to a place where he may get lost in the shuffle. i don't want to see him get busted in the nose again. Powell will be a great fit for the Billikens. bobby hill is a nice player with a nice up-side. he's kind of positionless, but i like versatility, espeically if he grows another inch or two. i think slu is on the right track for area recruiting. everyone is complaining about the past years (and justifiably so), but in the past two years, the billikens have signed or got commitments from: dwayne polk tommie liddell luke meyer kevin lisch dustin maguire they were also No. 1 on Jarod Leonard's list before his situation arose. who knows how that will end up. what we need is this area to develop some capable bigs. brad has shown that he can recruit the top area perimeter players to slu in the past two years. I willing to bet that slu will successfully get a top area perimeter player in the next three recruiting classes. you can't get everybody, but they will get their share (look at those five up there). bad boyz for life

An outstanding performance by our own #20 in the first round against the Chicago Bulls. I literally screamed at him when Hinrich picked his pocket, but after Arenas blocked the shot and Larry floated that left hander in, all was right with the world again. Congrats to Larry, who has graduated to become one of the top all-around guards in the league. Larry Hughes, a bad boy for life

It is Obi Ikeafor. Word on the street is that his mother came with him along with another member of the family. bad boyz for life p.s. root for larry tonight against the bulls

my 240 to 250 range is more of a guess from looking at him. I could be way off. He looks pretty big. maybe because everyone else was much smaller around him. bad boyz for life

he's closer to 240 or 250 pounds than he is to 210. bad boyz for life

word on the street is that we took a pass on X. instead, he will sign with DT at Western Illinois. bad boyz for life

you take xavier for the simple reason that he is a talented player from the st. louis area who apparently wants to come home and play for slu. haven't we learned our lesson on passing up on such players because we think we can find someone "better" and we usually don't. I watched him play his senior year in belleville and he was one of the top players in town. when you win only nine games, the object is to find more good players to help you improve. if you have X, you can add him to the likes of liddell, lisch, polk, meyer. that's five good players from st. louis on your roster in '07 and not a weak sister in the bunch. Just think what that will do to future recruiting in the STL. if we start winning and going to the tournament with virtually our entire perimeter corps (plus danny)from the area. that is how this program is going to be rebuilt and hopefully sustained over a period of time. if they're any doubts, look at the history. my vote is a resounding YES.

Here's a little help for you (past 10 years) our dedicated group can fill in the blanks 04-05 (9-21) bad year all around 03-04 (19-13) NIT, 2nd Round 02-03 (16-14) NIT, Tied for 4th place in CUSA, upset No. 2 Louisville and broke its 17-game winning streak. 01-02 (15-16), last season for Lorenzo Romar before he leaves for UDub. 00-01 (17-14), top player Mo Jeffers drafted by Sacramento Kings in second round. 99-00 (19-14), Won CUSA Tournament title as No. 9 seed. Miracle in Memphis. Lost to Utah in first round of NCAA Tournament. 9-22 (FT) 98-99 (15-16), Last Year with Spoon 97-98 (23-8?), NCAA Second Round, beat UMass in first round, Lost to NCAA champion Kentucky in second. larry hughes was the National Freshman of the Year in his only year of college ball. 96-97 (11-18), Our last dreadful year before 04-05. 95-96 (16-14), NIT, lost at Minnesota in first round. 94-95 (24-9) ?, NCAA Second Round, beat Minnesota and lost to Wake Forest and Tim Duncan by five. 93-94 (22-10)?, NCAA, first round. lost to maryland i may be off on the records by a game or two in some years. as you can see, we have enjoyed our share of successes over the years, but we've haven't been able to keep it going for an extended period of time. lots of peaks and valleys here. We been to the NCAA four times and NIT four times, but there have been some rough seasons mixed in there. that leaves us bills fans a little frustrated because we've experienced a taste of the big time, but not enough to satisfy our appetites. for about a five year stretch, we were in the top 10 nationally in attendance and getting more than 20,000 of many nights, but that was during the mid to late 90's when spoon had it really going. the biggest crowd came in 98-99 when we beat illinois in the dome in front of about 33,000. it was the first basketball game play in the then-TWA Dome. Our biggest nonconference victories in that span, in no particular order Kansas (99-00) on ESPN Illinois (98-99), Big 10 Champions Missouri (99-00), Ist meeting in 20 years at the dome Iowa State (95), Fred Hoiberg teams California (99), NCAA Southern Illinois, several victories over a top quality team at Dayton (04), NCAA Tournament team Valparaiso (97-98) Sweet 16 Team Our biggest conference victories came when we beat No. 1 Cincinnati in the C-USA Tournament (K-Mart's broken leg), No. 2 Louisville in Feb. of 03, and No. 5 Louisville at Freedom Hall in '97 (I believe they went to the Elite Eight that year). we've played home and home series with the likes of Kansas, Arizona, Georgia Tech (last year's NCAA runners-up), Illinois, UCLA, Missouri (3-game series), Southern Illinois, Iowa State, Vanderbilt, Iowa, West Virginia, California, Gonzaga (next year), plus the possibility of a home and home with NCAA champion north carolina. We have been playing dayton pretty regularly for the past 10 or so years and the results have been pretty much even. Our biggest exposure game was in '95 when we played UMASS with Roe, Camby and Co. at the Savvis on ESPN in front of 22,000 and Dick Vitale in the house. I hope this helps you out a little bit. we'll see you in the loop. bad boyz for life