Jalensdad2002

You must be speaking of Gerald Bell. Apparently he is a competitor in practice therefore the coach feels obligated to play him. Mark Howliett does get hot but he is too streaky and gives you nothing on the defensive end. He is a liability. I like Bennie Lewis also, he father played semi-pro ball overseas. He has a high basketball IQ and he stands 6'5 inches.

Yeah I agree West is on a different level. As far as Luster he is playing somewhat out of position as a 4. He is also hobbled by an ankle injury. I would move him to the 3 and sit Mark Howliett. He is giving them very little and he is one dismensional. Jump shooter only. I had a chance to talk to the coaches about Lisch and they were all in agreement that he is Top Shelf. They raved about his toughness and his ability to run defenders through screens only to knock down the open J. I must make time to see him at the Collinsville Tourney. That should be a helluva tourney considering that Peoria is returning. Shaun Livingston is the real deal. He made a believer out of me.

B-Roy you hit it right on the head with Sargent. I know Price is known by some as X-Factor but the true X-Factor is Sargent. He puts that team on a whole different level. My question is why didn't they find playing time for him last year. 6'4 who can shoot long range and defend. Liddell played one of his worst game as he did last year in the first game against West. West held him to 3 of 17 shots. If you make Liddell become one dimensional such as a scorer and not a distributor you have a good chance of beating East Side. Belleville West has one of the top teams in the state this year, just ask nationally ranked Jackson, Lanier. They are playing at very high level right now, but the season is a marathon and not a sprint.

Yeah I agree this game is something the Bills can build on. I would have love to have seen more aggression from O'Hanon. He shies away from contact and doesn't really gets after it. Surprising considering who he plays for. Bryant looked much better, I don't believe his performance was a fluke. I would like for Chris Sloan to attack for the whole game like when he flushed it on the break. Stop pump faking so much just go up and convert or get fouled. Fisher is an excellent defender but he is not a playmaker and that hurt them against Arizona.

>I always hesitate to post,but here goes. We are always >optomistic about our team, but the fact is until we get the >Woods, Whites, and Lees from the area we will always >struggle. What would this team look like this year with Lee >and Mckinney? We are putting a lot of pressure on Liddell >but remember he is barely a top 100 player and that is only >in some magazines. > You can rest assured that Liddell is the real thing. He was invited to the Nike All-American Camp but did not attend due to summer courses. That is were the rankings are pretty much set. He made the choice to schedule his summer courses around the NBA Players Association Camp. He felt he would get more from the camp, irregardles of his national ranking. Hoopmasters.com rated his performance Top 20. The camp by the way was made up of the same players who participated in the Nike Camp. He was roomed with Shaun Livingston. He wasn't overly concerned with his national ranking because at that point he pretty much knew he would be offered a scholarship from some program. Those who have seen Liddell play have raved about his talents. Eric Bossi of theinsiders.com sites have him ranked #75 in his post-summer rankings.

From my understanding Liddell is working very hard preparing for ACT. His is currently enrolled in the Slyvan Program. Knowing him the way I do I have no doubts he will qualify. This is a catholic program correct, don't cross your fingers, get on your knees and pray.

Tommie Liddell has the East St Louis Flyers off to a 5-0 start. The Flyers recently won the Lincoln, Il Thanksgiving Round Robin Tourney.They outscored the opposition by the score of 71.4ppg to 47.3ppg. Tommie Liddell posted averages 17.4ppg on 72fg%( an amazing 76.9% from 2 point range), 54.4% from 3 point range. These numbers are even more impressive when you realize he only averages 10 shots per game, and because they won so convincely he was often pulled early. In games that he completed his ppg jumps to 20.3ppg. There is a lot of discussion on different sites about what his true position is, consider this Tommie is the point guard for East St. Louis. Not the point forward or swing as he is often called. To further illustrate this point Tommie Liddell is averaging 7.6 assist per game against 2.8 turnovers per game. He is averaging an un-point guard-like 7.6 rebounds per game (3 offensive), 2.6 steals per game, 1.4 blocks per game. In their final game of the Tourney against a very game Peoria Manuel team, Tommie put up a stat line of 23 points on 10/13 fgs, 11 assists, 6 rebounds(3 offensive),and 2 blocks. After being forced into OT by Peoria, Tommie calmly led his team to victory by scoring 6 of his 23 points in OT despite being saddled with his 4th foul early in the 4th quarter. Against a guard oriented team Tommie consistently toyed with his defenders in the open floor only to break them down and pull up for the lost art of the mid-range jumpshot. Unselfish to a fault he set up his forward with easy layups or alley-oops. For the Tourney he finished with at least 10 dunks. One was so beautiful that when he took off he stayed in the air for an eternity. Earl Austin, Maurice Scott, and an unnamed Asst. Coach for SLU can verify this. St. Louis Univ. needs to be brought up on charges of grand theft in the theft of signing Tommie Liddell. One other point, Tommie Liddell is a disruptive force on the defensive end. He often stole errant passes or block would be 3 point attempts. Most of the plays led to thunderous dunks by him or Darian Luster.

Eric Bossi of Phognet had Liddell rated as #75 in his post-summer rankings.

>tommie has just been handed big shoes. I believe Mr. Liddell has the feet to fill those shoes.

It's at theinsiders.com site under Illini-Nation.com Look for the topic It's Duke. The site is sort of like the supermizzou net and I believe the Illini site is referred to as Orange Krush

>the hazelwood vs east side game is especially intriguing >imo. we get to see who the real star of the senior class >is. :-) Yeah that should be a good game. Eric Bossi of TheInsiders.com site pegged Grimes as the #44 best player in the country and he had Liddell as the 75th best. In unrelated news there is some talk about your boy Kevin Lisch on the IlliNation board.

Interesting evaluation, A high major prospect, I think SLU fans are in for some great things in the next few years. All the credit should go to Soderberg and staff for landing such a high major. Now if only he they can come through with a highly skilled power forward.

I was and still am a Big fan of Gilbert. I campaigned on the old Bullseye Board that SLU for whatever reason neglected some of our local talent. I mentioned Gilbert as well as Kent Williams of Mt Vernon should have been recruited heavily.

>Good question. > >Skill-wise, I think these two are pretty close. > >I'd take Jimmy based on intangibles. The guy won a lot in >high school and proved he was a clutch competitor. > >Tommie still has some time to prove that, however. > >- Nate We often have the same conversation on the East Side in reference to Darius Miles and Laphonso Ellis. Does the fact that Laphonso won 2-straight State Championship make him a better player than Darius? I don't know. Basketball as far as I know has always been a team sport, Skill wise I'd take Liddell. We all saw how Mckinney struggled when pressure was applied this past year. Liddell has the size and skill package to disrupt on both ends of the floor. If this Horton kid is as advertised McKinney will be fighting for his minutes this year. He may very well end up the odd man out ala Parker at Missouri. Would he have been better served staying home and return this year as an up and coming Sophmore at SLU or as an unproven Sophmore at Missouri. Time will tell

> > > i was at that game. clag was incredible that night. it was >a double header. in the next game, cardinal ritter beat >lincoln by one point. julian scored 37 points. > >bad boyz for life Yeah I didn't start that game thankfully, because I think their first 8-10 points came from highlight reel dunks. But we soon settled down and made a game of it. A side note that event was a precursor to the annual Martin Luther King Classic at Savvis. We were initially scheduled to play Chicago King but they could not make it. They had 2 7-footers who made it to the NBA.

> > I was always amazed at Clagg's range ... even if the D was >in his face ...he would just take a step back and let it fly I would have to agree with that statement. A week prior to our high school game against Claggett he went off for 45 points against East Side. When we met them we were very happy to hold Claggett to 27 points.

I hope he is only being playful, but the old movie with Anthony Quinn was called Zorba the Greek.

Yeah Liddell did mention a team from Mississippi.

I'm assuming you believe that Althoff will represent. It all depends on the seedings. I couldn't agree more about the man to man defense but I think Coach Brooks is too cautious and want to keep his team out of foul trouble.

East Side typically plays full court pressure defense and then falls back into a scrambling zone defense. Tommie is used at the top of the key to bother long range shooters and sometimes drops low for weak side help on post players. Very rarely have I seen them play man to man. I think he matches up well with quick players but he has a bad habit of reaching for steals. Mark Howlett is not what I would consider to be a defensive stopper by any stretch. I would expect to see them play zone.

I'm not sure who their opponent will be this year, if not Vashon possibly some team from Chicago. They will also being competing in the Coca Cola Shootout on 11 December against some team from the South. Tommie must really enjoy playing at Savvis, because he boasts averages of 26ppg on 73.3% fgs, 10rpg, 3.5spg,and 2.5bpg in games were he starts.

>Has a date been set? The game is set for 21 Feb.04 16hrs at Vashon.

>I realize that Tommie really struggled with his earlier shot >earlier in the season but the stats are the stats. For the >season he shot 28% from three and the season before that he >shot around 31% If I remember correctly. I hope Tommie will >improve behind the arc but Larry and Marque proved you can >do a lot of damage without a deadly three-point shot. Stats are Stats. 50% overall shooter, are you under the impression that all his fgs are from dunks or layups. Most teams that he faced played some type of gimmick defense on him so most of points came from mid-range jumpshots.

I'm a bit curious as to what you guys consider a good shooter is. These are Liddell's numbers from the 2002-2003 season 50.4-overall fg% 54.6%-2pt fg% Although he only shot 28.5% from 3 point range, those numbers are not truly accurrate in the sense that he started the season shooting only 22.2% in the Flyers first 10 games. The next 10 games would see Liddell's team go on a 10 game winning streak with Tommie averaging 19.7ppg on 56.1% fgs, 9.3rpg(3.2 offensive), 3.4spg, 3.3apg, 1.1bpg, and only 1.1tpg. During the 10 game winning streak Tommie would shoot 45.4% from 3-point range and 75% from the charity strike. In the IHSA postseason Tommie Liddell's numbers jump to 22.5ppg on 64.2% fgs, 9rpg(4 offensive),4spg, 4apg, and 5 blocks per game. Incidentally Tommie did not have a single turnover in the postseason despite being the primary ballhandler for East Side. I would dare say that Liddell is on par with any player in the state of Illinois to include Shaun Livingston. He would be Top 50 if not for the fact that he scheduled his summer class around the NBA Players Association Camp as opposed to the Nike Camp were player rankings are determined. He chose the NBA Players camp over Nike because he thought he would get more from the experience in the long run. Incidentally he roomed with Livingston at the camp.

>question I guess is to the local HS gurus...how big of a >part do you think Polk/Meyer or the talk of landing Shaw has >played with landing Tommie. I'm of the opinion that the landing of the 2 local players had very little to do with Tommie's decision. I think most of the credit should go to Coach Soderberg and Staff. Soderberg was really dogged in his pursuit of Tommie. Tommie had received mail from just about every major program in the country, but none of them compared to Soderberg. Most of his letter were handwritten as well as he was the only one who made sincere inquiries into Tommie's academic progress. Besides all of that SLU offered the unique situation were he could immediately step in and contribute, provided that he works hard on and off the court.