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I understand your point. Larry could have gone to one of the big fish and been part of some great teams and would have produced good numbers. Instead, he came here and got to showcase all of his talents. He reaped individual awards, got his team to the second round of the tournament and eventually into the lottery at age 19 and he has made bundles of cash. Plus, we enjoyed the first game in the Dome against Illinois with about 33,000 people because of Larry. If he had stayed another one or two years, there's no telling what he could have accomplished and the team for that matter. WE all know that family considerations helped keep Larry at home. BUT, the bottom line is that Larry was able to experience the kind of big time college basketball (he created it actually) right here in town that he would have experienced had he went to KU, Syracuse or Illinois. I imagine it's going to be hard to get a ticket to a Davidson game for the next few years with Curry there. Xavier packs the Cintas Center every night as does Gonzaga, Creighton and Southern Illinois. since larry graduated from CBC, there has yet to be a player come out of st. louis who has been better than him. of all the "big time" players who have gone on to the "big name" schools" none of them have experienced the college success that Larry enjoyed in one year, were drafted higher in the NBA (except for Darius Miles, who didn't go to college) and have enjoyed the financial windfall as a pro player. That's why I understand Ryan's point. He got a chance to experience four years of college basketball with the blue bloods, but he didn't have anything close to success that he enjoyed in high school. Whereas, Highmark, Claggett, Hughes did. That's the trade-off, I guess. Nothing wrong with being a four-year guy at KU. But, there's something missing when you don't get to develop your full talents and become the best college player you can possibly be because you went to a place where you became a support player without a true chance to shine. That could be hard. But as I said, that's the trade off. bad boyz for life

another name to throw out there with marquette ties is Jim Boylan, who is the interim coach with the Chicago Bulls. he was the point guard of the '77 national championship team. bad boyz for life

Bocot is a good player. CL will definitely be glad to have him in the mix next season. bad boyz for life

Minnesota make a big move (back door actually) towards Mitchell through one of his AAU coaches, who tried to steer him to tubby, but his high school coach and mother got things straight. some of the big schools were making overtures towards willie reed during the summer as well. bad boyz for life

on friday against Lutheran North, he had nine turnovers and shot 1-11 from the three and LN had no mizzou recruits. they even had a freshman out there harrassing him into turnover after turnover. bad boyz for life

the prerequsite for being a point guard isn't necessarily having a larry hughes killer cross over dribble. Just get to the basket. He does that consistently. a straight line. Get the ball to people when they are in a position to score and he does that all the time while playing with people who aren't very good. for those who have seen him play, I find it hard to believe that you ignore the fact that he has nobody to play with and he still made them better players. That's why they won 24 games. If he had moved into Alton a year earlier, he might have averaged about 12-15 points a game, but he would have moved Lacey to the 2-guard spot and all of those other weapons Alton had would have been even better. Alton might have gone undefeated all the way to the state title game to face Derrick Rose and Co. for the championship. I think he just wore down after carrying a bad team on his back all year. bad boyz for life

Alton had graduated its top seven players from two spectacular years and were looking at a season of maybe six or seven wins with the Southwestern Conference and the schedule they normally play. Cotto took them to 24 victories, including O'Fallon and Edwardsville, who are loaded this year. If he hadn't shown up, Alton would have been battling Granite City for the cellar of the Southwestern Conference. He carried that team all season and did it unselfishly, even when opposing teams are throwing two and sometimes three defenders at him. Outside of maybe Suggs of Washington, nobody had less to work with and Alton still won a ton of games. He made very marginal at best players so much better. He's the real deal as a point guard. Bad boyz for life

to my memory, I don't think van horn was an mcdonald's all-american. I could be wrong, but I think the only mcdonald's all-american he signed at utah was Britton Johnson. bad boyz for life

My favorite from Earl last night was when Bryce blocked a shot and he broke out with the Amy Winehouse song. They tried to take the ball to Husak and Bryce said, No! No! No!. I about fell out of my chair when I heard that. bad boyz for life

we hit lasalle for 81 points last weekend in philly. So, I think we do well against teams that won't play defense. we will score some points. the problem is. we haven't guarded too well the last two games. bad boyz for life

we didn't lose this game because of lack of rebounding. not this time. they got a few extra opportunities. but today's loss is squarely on lack of offensive execution. when you hold you opponent scoreless for the first six minutes of the game at home and the best you can do is have a 4-0 lead, that is not good. when you have countless unforced turnovers in the second half of a close game, that is a recipe for disaster. the empty trips killed up in the second half and they got something like 15-16 points off of those turnovers. bad boyz for life

You got your answer to that question during the first eight games of the season. bad boyz for life

I'll second that davidlee. I just got my copy as well. It's a must read for high school basketball fans. I didn't realize how many of these great players played for the billikens in college. When I got to the Craig Upchurch page, I almost wanted to cry because of what might have been at SLU. It's a great book with a nice cover. I recommend it as well. bad boyz for life

Word on the street is that there was a junior college guard at the Loyola game on Wednesday night. He was either from moberly or three rivers. anybody have any info. i am out of town, so i didn't get to see who it was. bad boyz for life

kmbilliken, The a-10 was really going strong for quite a while. Temple had made multiple Elite 8 appearances (four or five I think) under Chaney and they were ranked No. 1 on the country at various times. UMass went to the Final Four in '96 and Elite 8 in '93 and were ranked No. 1 in the nation of Cal Rhody went to the Elite Eight in '98 right here in St. Louis. As has been mentioned, X and SJU were both in the Elite 8 in '04 with SJU going undefeated GW also made a Sweet 16 appearance That's a lot of success in about a 10-15 year period. And look at the players, Eddie Jones, Aaron McKie, Lamar Odom, Jameer Nelson, Delonte West, David West, James Posey, Brian Grant, Aaron Williams, Mike James, Mark Macon, Rasul Butler, Marcus Camby, Cuttino Mobley, Smush Parker, Terence Stansberry, Tim Perry, Mardy Collins, Yinka Dare, (the thick left-handed point guard at temple in the mid-90's), stephane lasme, J.R. Bremer, That was what the C-USA was becoming when it broke up and maybe reaching a higher level if i had stayed together. bad boyz for life in the period, the mvc produced pros as Kyle korver, rodney buford, anthony parker and patrick o'bryant as well as a couple of sweet 16's.

I hope Torres is allright. It's ironic. His brother had shoulder problems during his senior year in high school as well. bad boyz for life

it's just the cyclical nature of college basketball. anybody that was paying attention knew that this was coming. The MVC was senior dominated for the past two years while the A-10 was playing a lot of kids in major roles. I'm not breaking any new ground here, but the major difference is the number of big road non-conference wins this year by the a-10. (UMass and Rhody both win at syracuse; UMass wins at BC, Dayton wins at Louisville and X whips Indiana in front of a pro-IU crowd in Chicago.) then toss in X's beatdown of Creigton, Charlotte's victories over SIU and Davidson and our victory over SIU and you have some meaty non-conference wins, especially those BCS road and neutral-court wins. I was hoping for a little more from SJ with virtually its entire nucleus back, but Nivins is struggling. A home victory over Gonzaga would have been big. we had our shots as well on the road, but we took an o-fer. One thing that we've established is that NO valley team is going to come into St. Louis and get a victory unless its the conference tournament. If you play SLU, you're leaving with a loss, which is how it is supposed to be because we rarely win on the road at an MVC school. We played SIU and MSU home and home in the past two years and split those two games. by contrast, the MVC has no hang your hat victories this year over good BCS teams, except for beating up on terrible Iowa and Iowa State. They are lacking top 50 or top 100 rpi wins for that matter. the valley run was two years and it was great. what most of you tend to forget that the A-10 run of success was two DECADES. just go back and look at what some of those teams accomplished, leading up to 2004 where two made it to the elite eight. You're bound to have a few down years after running out some great teams over the course of a 15 to 20 year period. The A-10 was what the CUSA was at the time of the breakup three years ago. bad boyz for life

I heard Billiken fans say the same thing about Erwin Claggett and Scott Highmark after their first two years at SLU when the Bills went 5-23 and 12-17 and won a total of one conference game in two years. These were two overhyped players who weren't very good to begin with. Gentlemen, you are not a bad player if you are on the verge of scoring your 1,000th point in you career early in your junior year while playing a highly competitive division i schedule. Just because these young men are struggling right now, you have no right to attack them like this after what you have seen them accomplish in the two previous years. I'm going to hold you clowns to this statements for the rest of their careers. If they turn it around and finish their careers in style, i'm going to be the one in your face reminded you at every turn that you were the ones who said they are nothing more than bench role players. You are stuck with that. I never heard those statements come from you guys before, but the moment they face some adversity, all of the sudden you always thought they are overhyped. That is what I call a coward. If you always felt that way about TL and KL, you should have voiced it, the moment they signed and not wait until they struggle for a period of time. They've done their part for the past two years. The problem is that, we've failed to follow up and recruit more good players to play with them. shame on you for jumping off the ship. in my book, you're off for good. bad boyz for life

3-star the slu women's team without theresa lisch is similar to a slu men's team not having larry hughes for the first third of the season. the girl was ms. basketball in the state of illinois. do you have any idea what kind of caliber that represents. girls such as candace parker, tamika catchings have won that honor. she's the best scorer, passer, defensive player, toughest competitor on the team and she makes everyone else around him better. In short, she is the best player the SLU women's program has ever signed out of high school and it is not even close. IMO, with a healthy Theresa in the lineup, the KU game is probably SLU's first loss of the season on Sunday. She is THAT DAMN GOOD. the talent level with the slu women's program is getting better, but it is not to the point where they can afford to lose an all-star performer and not feel the effects. IT'S DEVASTATING!! Even last year, they played ten games without their 6'4" center (the girl from Belleville east) and they lost nine. She was having a great year when she got hurt. It cost the bills a winning season. When she came back, they won a game in the league tourney and almost upset Xavier on their home court in the A-10 tournament. X went on to win the championship. bad boyz for life

It would be nice to have alexander in the lineup this year. He committed to the Billikens in the fall, but a relative convinced him to change his mind and wait for a "bigger" school to come along. I guess it worked out for him. bad boyz for life

Torch, The guys that Bryce dominated were 6'9" 240 pounds and 6'10". Fix your radio.

Just think back a few years to the team that spoon inherited. bad boyz for life

word on the street is that Bryant Allen of Maplewood had an impressive visit on campus on Saturday with Majerus. the word is that he was offered a scholarship. bad boyz for life