Trich

For you I hope the Bills make a run and you will be able to see them at MSG playing Mizzou where the Bills win big.

I have not seen anything official about the status of Frericks but I thought I previously heard that he was finished for the season.

I don't think he will. My thinking is that Romar will be sensitive to Soderburg's position and not ask him for any inside information on a sister conference school. Even though UAB has a different coach than when Romar was here, Lorenzo was the only SLU coach who ever had success against them.

The comments regarding the comparison of Yow and Woolard deserve another perspective. I have heard Woolard on several occasions at gatherings at away games. My impression was that he made a smooth presentation but I did not feel he was a cold fish. Concerning Yow, she was not a cold fish either but my impression was that she was very calculating.

Just returned from Cincy. The good part of the trip and tourney was that we went three games this year. The team played with heart and emotion but against Cincy they needed more athletic and physical talents. Whatever you can say about Cincy and their program and their is plenty to say in a negative way, they play hard. They also play with a chippy style. I don't know how many people saw the Cincy/DePaul game but the officials were letting Cincy get away with the chippy style and then DePaul started retaliating. There were a couple of warnings but no action by the officials and then Seals gave Bobbitt a shot in the groin and he went down. At first the officials did not call a foul but when Bobbitt did not get up immediately, they called Seals for an intentional foul and threw him out of the game. Regarding Cincy fans, they have some good people there but based on 12 years of conference tournaments, they seem to have more than their fair share of bad apples. Finallyl, I don't know how many people heard, Vashon won the Mo. state title again and Polk scored 38 points. Twenty-one came in the third quarter after Vashon was down two at half time.

I don't know if this story is apocryphal but this is reminiscent of a story why I heard Ed McCauley attended SLU. His mother told him he could attend any school he wanted as long as it was Catholic and in St. Louis.

I can accept the argument why the P-D gives Mizzou major coverage. What I don't understand the amount of coverage they devote to the Illini.

One more comment to your remark about Romar leaving. I believe it was inevitable that he was going to leave, one way or the other. As you mentioned SLU was a stopover for him in his career. Also, as I indicated previously, my opinion was the teams performance level deterioated each year and also, the attendance was dropping every year, especially season ticket sales were declining. That would have eventually led to his departure.

I am not a Romar hater. I liked him and would have preferred he did better than what his record was. Unfortunately, every year the performance of his teams deterioated and there were too many instances of where his teams did not seem to be ready to play. Georgia Tech and Marquette come to mind immediatedly. Maybe he would have turned SLU around but based on the trend his teams showed, I don't think so. I think his move to Washington was the best for all parties.

but they could not swing the game to Louisville. The call against Diener with 12 seconds left was as bad as any call I have ever seen in a college BB game. Not that it makes any difference but I am glad Marquette won because I would rather see them win than Louisville.

There are several reasonably priced motels in those two cities. All the motels have brochures regarding the shuttle sevice with schedules. I believe the price is $1.00 each way.

There is a very convenient and reasonably priced bus shuttle service from Covingtion and Newport to the arena.

I don't know if it will the last time but future games will be few and far between in all probability. When the Bills and Cards separated from the Metro and before they were reunited in C-USA, they did not play each other during that interim.

We are there every year and I am fairly certain we hve met. If you are who I think, you are there with two friends with whom you went to SLU and use the conference tournament as an opportunity for a yearly reunion. I will make it a point to introduce myself this year.

My wife and I will be there. However, regarding next years tournament site, the location has been selected but Woolard would not divulge which city was chosen at the coaches luncheon. He said the location would be announced at the conference tournament. I commented that we can be sure it was not going to be in Louisville or Cincinnati and that I would not mind going to Memphis again and he gave everybody at the table a knowing wink.

They mentioned Pizzotti was in Chicago on a recruiting trip.

The story about doing enough not to get whacked reminded me of a funny story, depending on your humor. An ESPN guy was being interviewed on KFANS about the Mizzou situation. He was a Mizzou grad. He was not happy at all about the direction of the program and Snyder and gave the following story. He happened to see Lavin in the cafeteria and asked him about the Mizzou situation and Lavin was complimentary of Snyder and how hard Snyder ran practices etc. Lavin then asked this guy what he thought and he unloaded on Snyder and the overall mediocrity during the season and then the great finish at the end to get into the tournament and how this was a recurring problem and they would never achieve a superior program this way. Lavin took this personally and asked if he was making references to Lavin's situation at UCLA. The anouncer/Mizzou grad said something non-committal and walked away.

The Mizzou number was given in P-D article as 36,000. The SLU number was supplied by the SLU alumni office.

You had some interesting comments about lack of coverage in the P-D and the Mizzou following even on the SLU campus. For years SLU was primarily an urban campus and there was not a great amount of school spirit engendered in that atmosphere. Even though SLU has, by far, the largest alumni base in this area (45,000 compared to 36,000 for Mizzou) I know from the attitude of friends with whom I attended, there is no excitement for the school. Most went to school, went home and went to work. Without a passion by the large alumni base in the area, the P-D which is kind of arrogant anyway is not going to give SLU the attention it deserves. I think the attitude that is being encouraged by the administration presently may have a positive effect in the long term but for the present, it is going to take an extremely impressive series of basketball success to establish the recognition the school deserves.

I would like to stay with Charlotte. I got use to playing them and they would have a familiar feel.

Did Seattle come in second the year they went to the final four? They had Elgin Baylor that year who never got the credit due to him. He was one of the great all around players of all time.

I believe you are correct about the other two schools. Loyola Chicago was an interesting story. There win was considered a turning point in the sports civil rights story. They played Ms. St. in one of the early games and of the tournament and Ms. State had to be essentially smuggled out of the state to play a team with African American players. Also, Loyola had several players from E. St. Louis. Finally, their coach (I believe George Ireland) was a fascinating character.

This takes me back 25 or 30 years ago. There used to be a sports writer for the Globe Democrat and one year he speculated about the possibility of four Jesuits schools reaching the final four. His name was Rich Koster (or something similar). He has since died. I don't recall who all the schools were but one was San Francisco who had an outstanding player but, unfortunately, was involved in all kinds of recruiting problems that eventually led the Dons to shut down their basketball program for a few years. Another Jesuit school may have be Detroit when Vitale was coach their. But, alas, none of them made it to the finals that year.

Thanks for the explanation. I am relatively new to the board and really new in posting. I noticed these "UB" references before and wondered how that originated.

It is tough when we have to face the real world.