smitty

Then Strickland got some real bad info and should apologize tomorrow for wrongly reporting a high school kid's academic situation.

Did anyone else hear Andy Strickland on Bernie and Randy's show this afternoon - his buzz segment? I caught the tail end as I got in the car but I could have sworn he said Cotto did NOT qualify and would probably be headed to JUCO. Please let me know if anyone heard this - it was probably about 5:20 or so.

Didn't see him. I think Majerus made an opening joke referring to him as Mickelson though.

Also discussed by Bernie and Randy on 1380 and by Frank on Channel 5. At least this is more official than anything so far.

Per Frank on Slaten's show. Majerus is our coach!

Could it be that we are finally actually trying to be a Top 50 basketball program? Maybe Biondi just needed a little push in the form of money and an active booster. Granted we don't have anything finalized yet but I am more excited now than I have been since the Spoonhour days. Even if Majerus does not work out, it seems as though Biondi and Chaifetz will not settle for a mediocre coach.

I have no great theory on the timing but I honestly do not think the timing would have any impact on who we come up with as a coach. The hiring /firing carousel in late March only affects the BCS conferences IMO and the non-BCS conferences to the extent they lose a coach to a BCS conference. Whoever we hire in the coming days/weeks would have been the same hire as in late March. Obviously it impacts our spring recruiting but I have no great confidence that we were going to get anything more than a Horace, Obi, Vashun, etc. anyway. The only negative I see is that Tommie and/or Kevin walk. I see this as extremely remote given they would have to sit out for a fully year if they transferred. Plus, Tommie's buddy is coming in from ESTL and Kevin's family seems pretty tied to SLU. Kevin and Tommmie seem too smart to transfer schools just because of a new basketball coach, even if they had a good, solid relationship with Brad.

Despite the fact that it makes almost no sense for me to root against the MO Valley schools, I feel compelled to just so the local media (a la) Bernie would shut up. Bernie posted about the A-10 yesterday on the pressbox after the GW debacle and made fun of the A-10 yet again. The whole thing just makes me sick.

I give Sodie an overall grade of "D+". I think the coaching part of the grade is a "C" - record was less than anticipated but he had to deal with Kevin's injury and a serious lack of depth. I give the recruiting grade an "F". Despite valid concerns about the administration, West Pine Gym and other recruiting disadvantages, for him to have 2 of 4 freshman this year already gone and 2 that hardly played combined with what seemingly will be a very underwhelming 07 class is unacceptable. Bottom line - I would fire him IF and only IF you can get a big name coach or up and comer similar to Shimmy in here. If the administration is unwilling to make that commitment or if that type of coach is not out there, then I stay the course with Brad and give him 1 more year.

I do not listen to Bernie's show that much but I have heard him on at least 2 occasions now rip the arena. His premise basically is that the administration is not taking shortcuts and backed off the original design. While true that there will now be 3,000 or less seats, we are still talking a first class building that is costing $80 million to build. Many posters on this board, including myself actually prefer the smaller venue as it should make for a "hot ticket" and more of a college atmosphere. I think much of Bernie's criticism is valid but when he rips on SLU for building an $80 million first-class arena saying they should do better it just makes me think he has some sort of personal vengeance against the school.

Can someone please post the top 10-15 STL area players in the 2008 class (maybe in order) and what there status is to date (i.e. whether committed to a school or not). Maybe a good idea to keep a sticky for everyone to keep track. We've already lost 2 in the last week or so and I would like to see who is remaining that is better and on par with Roundtree and Booker. Thanks.

Did anyone catch what exactly he said? KFNS' Kevin "Slatey" Slaten: He wasn't "sick" on Monday as reported. He was serving a one-day suspension for his comments about Brad Soderberg and SLU. The SLU administration was livid when they heard the comments. That is why Bob Ramsey was on his tirade today about everyone ripping on Soderberg.

I can't imagine how much Drake and Evansville would have beat us by.

Agree partially about Obi and Horace. Brad cannot follow them to class everyday and make sure they workout and study outside of practice, but this is partially why they were late signees. He put himself in a position where these guys were the only answer to fill a recruiting class. Late signees hardly ever work out. Drejaj was a bit of an exception. Brad needs to start being more successful in the fall signing period so he doesn't put himself in a position of scrounging for players like Obi and Horace who may have been late signees for a reason - grades, work ethic, injury, or otherwise. It would be interesting to start a listing of these type players who both worked out and did not. Floyd McClain I believe was also in this category.

Agree with what you said. If Soderberg is not the answer, we need to be able to hire a real big name coach or find a Shimmy in the rough. You cannot fire Soderberg to hire a Barry Hinson. That would just be running in place. You need to make a hire that makes sense. And, if you cannot get a big name at this point with our mediocre track record, then someone from the STL area with good local ties and someone that recruits may want to play for would be a good idea. I never said I would advocate hiring Derek Thomas tomorrow but if we give Soderberg until next year to prove himself and Western Ill finally makes progress with a good recruiting class or 2, let's look at him. They may be 4-9 but 6 or their losses have been by 4 points or less and all except 1 of their best players are underclassmen. He may be that Shimmy in the rough. Who knows?

Ok forget I even bothered to throw the name out there. It was completely ridiculous. I think we should go get Roy Williams. He seems to really respect our team even beating us by 21. I think we have a shot at him. Now that is lunberjack on the packaging - whatever the hell that means. This board has lost all sanity.

Western Illinois is not exactly Duke or even Illinois State in terms of exposure. There is only so much he can do. In St. Louis, you have to have local contacts. Derek has ties to the area and would seem to be someone recruits could relate to being a young, energetic African American. I am just throwing the name out there as a thought, not advocating his hiring tomorrow. Lord knows he couldn't do any worse than Soderberg or Romar on the recruiting front.

He seems to have Western Illinois going in the right direction, has local contacts and would seem to relate to recruits pretty well. Do not know about how good of coach he is yet, but he would seem to be a pretty good fit.

being in a bad conference really magnifies this loss even more. We cannot make it up except for going 14-1 the rest of the way. It is tough to win on the road, even against bad teams. I am not trying to make excuses for the loss because it was horrible, but the bad conference makes it even worse. A good coach would not have lost this game. We were completely unprepared. Soderberg is an average floor coach at best and I am starting to question his ability to motivate this team, especially prior to game time. Offical Billikens.com sponsor of McGlother Irvin

I would wager to bet that when our starting 5 were out on the floor we had a 25 point advantage. They were fantastic. DB and JJ absolutely need to get better or minutes need to go to Knollmeyer, Husak and Maguire. While Knollmeyer and Husak do not do anything spectacular out there, they seem to be smarter role players and less prone to turnovers. Offical Billikens.com sponsor of McGlother Irvin

We dropped from 41 to 44 when MO State lost to Creighton. It is interesting to watch how it works on a real time basis. Offical Billikens.com sponsor of McGlother Irvin

Yes, Mizzou had a terrible season - leave it alone. You would think that by reading this board that we all have a severe inferiority complex by taking extreme joy in the failure of Mizzou this year. I encourage everybody to talk about relevant SLU topics and leave Mizzou out of it. Pfunk is right. We all enjoy it when Mizzou fails but then when they do have a quality win and a Mizzou fan gloats on this board we tell them to go to hell. Offical Billikens.com sponsor of Orlando Stewart

I couldn't agree more. It is starting to sound like we have an inferiority complex. The fact is that Mizzou's RPI is about 40-50 points better than ours whether we like to admit it or not. Yes, it is fun to see them lose, but let's shut up about it because they still have a legitimate shot at getting an at-large berth and we are a long shot at best. They don't post any anti-SLU posts on tigerboard unless they are responding to us. Let's focus on SLU basketball and let tigerboard focus on Mizzou basketball. Offical Billikens.com sponsor of Orlando Stewart

While I agree that at least 50% of D-1 coached probably adhere to this rule, I think an exception should have been made in the SMS game especially. Reggie is really our only player that can truly create offensively. Even if he is off, he opens up good shots for others. When he is out of the game it is a real loss. Brad should have rolled the dice in that game especially IMO. I love Brad and his coaching ability, but I think he needs to be a little more flexible with that rule. That SMS game is going to really cost us if we are on the bubble. SMS lost to a horrendus Evansville team the other night. Offical Billikens.com sponsor of Orlando Stewart

Just curious what everyone thinks about Brad's first half 2-foul rule. IMO, it may have cost us 2 games this season. Without a doubt it contributed to the loss of the SMS game when Reggie sat out the last 18 minutes of the first half. We needed Reggie in the game for scoring and IMO it was low risk as Reggie isn't very foul prone. In the Charlotte game, once Freriks and Isik left the game and we left it up to Varner and Ian, we were done. I don't fault Brad as much for this game as they both ended up with 4 fouls and are more foul prone than Reggie. What does everyone think of this rule? Offical Billikens.com sponsor of Orlando Stewart