MU88

This is usually how this kind of situation is handled. Kids are not run off unless they are trouble. Some kids may stay. You never know. On the other hand, kids have been known to tell the coaches during the season that they intend to transfer at the end of the year. Coaches usually don't play those kids very much. On a side note, you cannot judge a kid after his first or second year of college or sometimes even after the third year. The MVC player of the year never scored more than 12 points in a game in high school. He scored less than 60 points total in his first three years of college. This year, Adam Emmenecker, developed into a star. If he wants to, he can earn a nice living playing basketball. Some kids just take a little longer to get "it."

More on Cotto. Don't know if this was posted. Cotto

Just something to think about, free tickets may not be free. I talked with the Marquette AD about doing the same thing at the Bradley Center about 10 years ago. He advised me that MU's rent was based on tickets distributed. It cost MU $4 for every ticket distributed, even if they gave away the tickets for free. Does SLU want to spend $15,000 to $20,000 to have an extra 4000 or 5000 people in the stands? Maybe. They probably make a few bucks on concessions, etc. I can see the positive press from such a giveaway. However, if you do it for all home games, it does add up to a significant amount of money.

You guys are silly. You have a new coach and its going to take a while for the team to adjust. Further, SLU is far less talented than many of you seem to believe. I always liked Lisch and Liddell is a decent player, kind of remnds me of the Buford kid at Creighton about 10 years ago. The rest of the roster are just bodies. The big guy last year, although he had a crappy season, really attracted attention when he was on the floor. His graduation was a huge loss. I would expect SLU to improve over the season. They will be a better team in March. Maybe an NIT team. However, its going to take 3-4 years for turn things around and stabilize the program. RM is rebuilding the front court next year. The following year he has to rebuild the backcourt. This isn't a situation where the new coach inherited a talented, poorly coached team. In those situations, a coaching change can reap quick rewards. In SLU's case, he inherited an untalented, relatively well coached team. Its going to take time to get the talent level up.

Of course any BCS school will leave the BE for another BCS conference. Why? More money. The BE is still the lowest paying football conference. That won't change unless and until the BE wins a national championship in football and/or gets regular mulitple BCS bids. As for UL or UC being less than thrilled, you are simply uninformed. Louisville has been trying to get into the BE for 15-20 years. Their fans are overjoyed about playing in the BE. Louisville is relatively close to Syracuse, Pittsburgh, and WV. Same goes for UC. The fans are really excited. USF is a long trip, but all the BE schools recruit heavily in Florida. Also, all of the new BE schools are really excited about their new found access to the major northeast markets. Applications are way up at UL, UC, MU and DePaul. These schools have lots of alumni on the east coast, plus the BE has allowed them to step up recruiting. I know that MU just hosted a major alumni event in New York last week. It also ties major alumni events to when its teams are playing out east.

Huh? The BE only has 8 football school (plus ND, who doesn't play football in the BE). There is no reason for the BE to go to 12 football schools. None of the available candidates add any value to the tv contract. There is a chance that the BE might want a 9th football team for scheduling purposes, but that is about it. There is no requirement for a BCS conference to have 12 (PAC 10 and Big 10 don't).

Basketball schools don't receive any football revenue. However, the league admitted that the tv contract for basketball (16 teams) and, believe it or not, football (8 teams) was larger per team for the 16 team conference than it would have been if the 8 football schools broke off and formed their own league. Evidently, having the bball schools in the conference increases the value of the football contract. My guess is because the Saturday afternoon BE football package is now available in cities like Milwaukee and Chicago, places where they were never available previously. With the BE football league being so successful, talk of a split has been somewhat muted. In fact, the only public complaining has been now coming from the basketball coaches who were mad over the 6 bids the league received last year. On the other hand, the comments from all the Presidents has been giddy. Money makes everything good. In addition, the exposure is going to be incredible this year. Every BE confrence game is on an ESPN network and most of the schools will have every game or almost every game televised this season. I still think the schools split, but I don't see it happening for 7-10 years. Further, it may not be a full split. The rumor last year in the MU athletic department was that the conference may scale back to 12 eventually, with 3 bball schools, ND and the 8 football schools.

Very few non-conference rivalries left nationally. Scheduling concerns have ended some pretty good long term rivalries. For example, BC ended its home-home with Holy Cross last year. I would think UL-UK is the biggest. UC-X, MU-Wisconsin and UI and Mizzou are big too. There are some that have potential, e.g. Creighton and Nebraska, but the teams haven't been playing very long. There are a whole list of little brothers who want to have a rivalry with big brother, but big brother isn't willing to play (or won't play regularly). Memphis-UT, UAB-Bama, Tulane-LSU, etc I don't think you can call these rivalries, since they are one-sided. I don't know who SLU has a long history with. Is there anyone that SLU has played on a continuous basis for the past 80-100 years? I think MU has 3 schools it considers as true rivals (UW, ND and DePaul) are the schools that it has played the most and the longest and two of those are in their conference now. Scheduling limitations has caused long term rivalries with Loyola, Creighton and Detroit to pretty much die.

Yes, thanks.

Definitely. Look at USF. In ten years, they went from starting a 1-AA program to being ranked. Joining the BE really moved them up the pecking order. VT basketball program has improved significantly since joining the ACC. If you are committed to succeeding, stepping up is a good thing. Some schools have moved up to stronger conferences, but never made a commitment to improving so they continued to struggle. Lets look at USF again. They haven't put any money into their hoops team or their facilities. Hence, they have struggled.

I have the exact opposite opinion. You want to be in the strongest conference possible. SLU has been making a push to upgrade their athletic programs (not only basketball) and playing in a tougher conference is in line with that goal. Its hard to explain an exact reason, but being a Valley school alum and an MU alum who has watched SLU for 20 years, its seems to me that SLU would be a good athletic program fit with the Valley schools. (BTW, except for hoops, I think MU would be a good fit athleticly in the Valley, culturally, not so much) The football thing doesn't matter. There are what, 7 A-10 teams playing football? Duquense, La Salle, UMass, Temple, Dayton, Richmond and Fordham. The Valley only has 6, Drake, SIU, ISU, Missouri State, UNI, and Indiana State. I understand why SLU picked the A-10. The goals and values of the member schools more closely mirror SLU's. In addition, all colleges want to tap the market for potential students in the northeast. Being in the news in the northeast also enhances the academic rep of a school.

Nope. If you look at the notes from the BE meeting (still posted on the BE message board) to decide on candidates, Memphis was summarily dismissed in the initial meeting. Memphis does not appear to have a lot of support among the BE schools, but for UL and UC. I think it has more to do with history and academics than location. They obviously could have chosen Memphis to replace BC when they left a few months after VT and Miami . However, the BE chose USF within hours. Athleticly and geographically, SLU fits in the Valley. In most other respects, it fits in the A-10. The problem with a new conference is, you still have the same problems. SLU, Creighton, Bradley, Butler, X and Dayton make a decent core, but who else do you add? The remaining schools are either 1) competitive public schools that play football (SIU); 2) non-competive privates (Drake, Detroit) or 3) Geographically distant and/or some combination of 1 and 2 (UMass. Temple) Things will be shaken up again, that is for sure. Maybe SLU will end back up with MU and DePaul. Who knows?

>cheeseman, i have long thought about this very issue and >originally i was thinking the same as you. however the way >it was explained to me is that your previous total points >dont go away so for significant number of fans to surpass >you they would all have to pay substantial amounts of money >to the billiken club. the point is as unsettled as this >sounds, the likelihood is that if you continue to give you >probably wont feel much difference in priority. at least >that is the way i am reading it. You guys will probably implement a system similar to Marquette. You get X number of points for the number of years being a season ticket holder (per seat up to 2), X for lettering (10 points, I believe), and X for donations. You get a point for each $100 donated for new donations to athletics and 1 point for each $250 donated for old donations to athletics or for donations to the school. New donations become old after 2 or 3 years. In addition, every season ticket in the lower bowl has a mandatory donation associated with it. Most are $50 or $100. A few rows are reseverved for major donations. When all is said and done, there has been very little movement over the years. MU started with reseating every 3 years, I believe. I think they moved it up to every two years. There are simply not that many bigtime donators that contribute enough to bypass longtime season ticket holders.

>>OK let's just say for arguments sake that Coach Majerus did >>discuss with Fr. Biondi his desire for SLU to leave the A10 >>for the MVC...does anyone have an idea how long this process >>could take, and how much money SLU would have to cough up to >>extricate themselves from the A10??? >> >>I'm still not certain it is a good idea, but who knows I >>guess it could happen. I might be able to warm up to the >>idea better if Xavier and Dayton decided to make the move >>with us. > >I just don't see Majerus prefering the MVC over the A10. I >think with Majerus being a national name, his recruiting >sizzle would be served better in the A10 than the MVC. I >know you want to build mostly with St. Louis kids, but there >aren't that many most years and so does MU, Illinois, SIUC, >MSU, etc. I would think a guy like Majerus might actually be >able to pull in some name recruits from some of those >eastern markets. I will say this, I have heard Majerus say a number of times that you never want to be the school that defines the outer most edge of a conference. He was against MU joining the BE for exactly that reason. He pointed to a school like Penn State and how they have struggled in the Big Ten. However, in all the times I have heard him talk, I have never heard him say that SLU should be in the Valley over the A-10.

>Pecking order of who would help christen the Fetz... > >1) Marquette - old rival and Majerus connection >2) Georgetown/BC - big name Jesuit connection in an A-10 >city >3) Univ of Washington - Romar connection >4) Kentucky/Duke/UNC/UCLA/UF - the crown jewels of college >bball FYI, MU never played Utah or Ball State when RM was coach. Utah did play Cardinal Stritch (D-3) and UWM (in Milwaukee), though. I can't imagine that MU would play at SLU, simply because MU is only going to play 1-2 road non-conference games a year, since the BE is going to 18 games next year. Plus, MU plays at Wisconsin every other year and has a 4 for 1 with UWM. That really limits their options. The same is probably true for Georgetown. 18 conference games at a non-football school really limits their options. I would doubt Romar (or anyone) would be interested in coming back to their old school. The crown jewels are a possiblity, but they usually don't play road games, except at other crown jewels or in one of their players hometowns. Maybe a second tier program like Wake, Illinois, etc. Rick is friends with Bobby Knight, so maybe Texas Tech is a possibility.

I haven't seen this posted before. Writer claims Majerus wants SLU in the Valley. http://pjstar.com/stories/042707/KIR_BD23QDLK.073.php

>>Huh? No the rule should be taking everyone at face value >>for their own merits. JT-3 is doing just fine, thanks. > >JT III went elsewhere to prove his meddle first before >taking over at GT (success at Princeton), unlike Joey and >Murray, who were handed their jobs without prior head >coaching experience. Of course, there's Tony Bennett who in >his first season inheriting a program from his dad was >incredibly successful, so there isn't really a hard and fast >rule regarding this. I would not have hired JT III or Bennett. JT III still has some proving to do. He did not recruit Hibbard or Green. Joey Meyer had some initial success when taking over the program too. Longterm, Depaul took a major slide. Look, there are some kids that do okay. Drew at Baylor appears to be a decent coach. Bennett comes from a family of coaches and I think he is the real deal. One Sutton has done well, while the other had major struggles in his first season. However, as a whole, don't think hiring sons of famous coaches is a good idea. There are some retreads that have done okay too. Ronnie Arrow just got rehired at USA. But, I don't like the odds.

>>My top choices are Groce and Martin. Throw some money at >>them and their assts, pay their cell phones and watch them >>build a winner. I fear a Gillen hire, he is a retread hire >>and on a similar path that Charlie was on. The Redhead >>would just be another band aid for the program, not a cure. > >Why do you fear a path that Charlie was on? Do you not like >to see SLU going to NCAA tournaments? Right now, I would do >backflips to see Pete Gillen. I remember him taking Xavier >to the NCAA tournament every year for say 10 years straight. > I remember a great coach and recruiter. He did have >problems in the ACC, probably b/c he has to compete against >NC, Duke, Maryland, etc. > >And what is the deal with this board and it's disdain for >Charlie? It seems regulated to the board, not to the rest >of St. Louis, at least the fans I talk to. Did he mistreat >all you Bill club people? Not that I think it that matters. > It seems to me, the fan base in St. Louis figured out there >were hard times coming after Spoon left and stopped coming >to the games. > >I think SLU made a mistake when it did not hire the proven >coach in Stallings after Spoon left. I do not want to make >the same mistake. Not that I am going to root against a >young assistant hire, but I just do not think you are giving >enough credit to the Gillens, Spoons, Bennetts (he did take >Wisconsin to the final 4) of the college scene. But I would >love to see the coach from Wright St. in here. Huh? Gillen recruiting went downhill when Bobby G left for Manhatten. He really struggled without him at PC and Virginia. That said, the rule should be never, ever, hire retreads or sons. How did Rollie do at UNLV or Cleveland State? How about Dr. Tom at Drake? Retread rarely succeed. Sons are usually worse. Bartow, Meyer, etc were flops.

Its doubtful Rick would be interested. His mom is elderly (and sick, I believe) and he moved back to Milwaukee to be close to her. He just bought his first house (about a year ago) in a suburb of Milwaukee. He seems to be really enjoying living in Milwaukee again. My buddy saw him at the Angels-Indians game last week with Dick Vitale. I have seen him at a few MU alumni events. If you want to know if Rick would be interested, send an email to Homer at ESPN1510 in Milwaukee. Homer is the MU play-by-play guy and Rick is a regular guest. Rick is usually on a little bit before 5 at least once a week, if not more, if you want to listen (its streamed). Homer may ask him about the job online or he may even email you back with an answer. BTW, Rick has put on a substantial amount of weight. He appears to be bigger than ever.

Brownwell would be a terrific get. He is a very fine coach.

>o'neil doesnt fit the last sentence of that paragraph. they >do not want a slickster. biondi wants it both ways. > >i am not that enthused about pete gillen. a man who time >has passed by. O'Neil is not a slickster. He is foul-mouthed, SOB. His biggest problem is that he doesn't do well on the chicken and rice circuit. He is great one on one with the average alum. Great defensive coach. He has a great eye for talent. His teams played hard all of the time. On the negative side, he does lack imagination on the offensive end. He is very abrasive. When all is said and done, SLU would win with Kevin as coach. You would go to the NCAAs within 3-4 years. Isn't that what you want in a coach? Montgomery would probably want around $2 million per season, and I still am not sure he would take a job this far east even for that money. I would be shocked if he is the next SLU coach. Chances are your next coach is either a head coach at a low major, an assistant at high major, or an assistant in the NBA looking to get into college coaching.

>Stallings? I know he's a local boy...maybe he would want to >be close to his ailing mother. Stallings makes over $1.3 million per year and coaches in the SEC. Be realistic. Montgomery is a west coast guy. No chance. Too bad Marshall was hired by WSU. He would have been a good pick. O'Neil, Mike Dunlap, Nuggets assistant coach, and Sutton would all be good selections.

St. Louis sent an assistant likely to see DeMatha’s DJ Kennedy.

>Illinois State and Loyola and the announcers said Marquette >just entered the picture.....he would be perfect for SLU. I am not sure about that. MU didn't just enter the picture. MU was recruiting him last year. Although, I don't think he is a priority. Maybe he will walk on. Its close to home. Jordan almost bought the Bucks a couple of years ago. Loyola has been heavily recruiting him for years. Check out the Bullseye brothers webpage (Illinois recruiting experts) for more info.

Interesting discussion debating the status of MU and SLU in the mid-90s. A few points. When O'Neil took over the program, it was a mess. He likea to point out that MU didn't even have an inflated basketball in the old gym. There was little talent in the program. What the program did have is a strong fan base. MU has averaged under 10,000 fans once since the mid-60s. MU fans are very passionate. That said, O'Neil did a terrific job at MU. Yes, he was a big pain in the butt. But, he was a great recruiter and defensive coach. He took a program that did not have an inflated basketball and had antiquated facilities to the Sweet 16 in 5 years. I think MU would have been a much stronger program at this point in time if Kevin had stayed. As a side note, Kevin regrets leaving. MU matched UT's offer at the time ($400,000), but he believe that MU was destined to be a second class program in the future because of its lack of a football team. (I used to get my tickets from His attorney.) He may still be right. Deane was a great coach, but a poor recruiter. The thing that caused Mike to get fired was an interview he had on a local radio station. In summary, he basically said that what MU should hope for is a team that makes the postseason each season (whether it be NIT or NCAA) and every once in a blue moon, make a little noise in the NCAAs. The administration and the fans took this to mean that he did not think MU could compete nationally anymore and that the school should be happy with a team in the NIT. This caused some friction with the AD and some large boosters. Mike was let go in a move that divided the MU community. However, in the long run, it has proven to be a wise decision. What SLU need to do is find its Kevin O'Neil or its Tom Crean. The school needs a guy who can excite the students, fans, alumni and community. I was against hiring Soderburg at the beginning. I think he is a bad fit for SLU. I think if continues as coach after this season, he will hurt the longterm viability of your program. You have a new building. You need to generate excitement to fill the building and pay for the structure. Excitement will bring recruits. There are guys out there that will embrace the students, play nice with the media, and recruit the heck out of St. Louis. Start winning and the whole thing can steamroll. Finally, I really don't think you should compare yourselves to any other program. While on-the-court, two programs may be similar, there are so many other outside factors that make such comparisons inaccurate. For example, contrary to what a lot of people believe, it wasn't on-the-court factors alone that got MU into BE. In fact, Wade and the Final Four played only a small part in the BE's decision. Relationships and a commitment to having a successful athletic program where much larger factors. (Few realize that MU was almost admitted to the BE with ND in the mid-90s. The BE offer was the culmination of long term plan at MU.) If SLU makes a long term commitment to these factors, on-the-court success will take care of itself. Right now, I don't see the commitment. I think the arena is a start. But the arena alone, without a total commitment by the administration, will be fruitless.