mystery_man

"I don't agree with you that increasing student attendence is a major factor in building the on campus arena. I think this arena is being built for the alumni, especially those with lots of money. Let's face it, a student today is at usually 10-15 years from being a contributor to the university, at least with any kind of sizeable donations." I agree with you that increasing student attendance and future revenue streams are not Fr. Biondi's motivation, nowhere did I state a that the current administration has even considered this fact. In fact you just served to emphasize my point. The donors the school is living on now are the people who were here for the glory days, and if we don't intend to rely solely on the city and it's wealthy patrons/ buisnesses for revenue in the future we need to address the lack of school spirit in a hurry. Our major donors as a general rule aren't getting any younger and we don't exactly have a large crop of enthusiastic 20 and 30 somethings coming up on their heals. A school cannot rely solely on local buisnneses and patrons to fund its operations, at least not one expanding at the rate that SLU has. We need to have a healthy alumni donor base and frankly it just is not there. The effects will not be immediate, like I said in my last post "if the arena had been built 15 years ago" we would not be in this situation. There is no quick fix, but before scrapping the idea of the arena because there is another option, even if it is cheaper, we (as alumni and fans) need to look at the long term consequences and consider the big picture, not just a year down the road.

What many people are failing to realize is that an on campus arena will have value well beyond the price of the tickets and concessions sold. Building an on-campus arena will increase student attendance, which should be one of our greatest goals as a university right now. One of our greatest shortcomings is the lack of pride and spirit shown by the students on campus, and right or wrong intercollegiate athletics is probably the major determinant of school spirit in our society. Currently our students have no major sports on campus to support, so they don't. You can argue that our soccer program is one of the best in the nation (and traditionally it is), but trying to argue that soccer is a major college sport is like the NHL players union trying to argue that they are the equal of the NFL, NBA, and MLB. To do so would be idiotic, and while I do love and support our soccer team I'm still objective enough to realize that even when we lead the nation in attendance soccer will never draw out the masses. Now you may be saying that while school spirit is great that it doesn't pay the bills, and that is exactly where you're wrong. Alumni with school spirit donate money and this board is a perfect example. Somehow those of you who post here consistently have overcome the apathy of the student body and given a portion of your hearts over to our Bills, and as soon as they won your heart they had also locked up a page of your checkbook. Don't forget that some of today's drunken frat boys will grow up to be tomorrow's corporate executives. You'd be kidding yourselves to pretend that those students who have fond memories of rushing the court after the Louisville game aren't more likely to give back to the school than those who spent that fine evening kicking back at Humphries. Ultimately it will take winning (which in theory a new arena would help as well) to get where we all want to be, but I guarentee you that if the arena had been built 15 years ago we would not be scratching and clawing to get to a 20% donor rate today. Most bad teams with on campus arenas still have a decent contingent of loyal fans among the student body, and at this point in time even that would be a step in the right direction in terms of trends on campus. Empty Saviss or not the arena is a priority that we must come through on in order to move forward as a university.

"Liddell plays with the ball in his hands. He gets lost of the ball. and operates best from the middle of the court. Playing him off the ball will get him stuck in the corner, where he wont be able to create like he will from the pg position." As people have pointed out over and over again we run a MOTION offense. Nobody stays on the wing, and nobody stays at the top of the key, the three guard positions are fluid and interchangable. If you want to argue Skip that you don't want the speedy Polk bringing the ball up with the taller Liddell filling the lanes then fine, but you're missing the point by saying that having Polk bring the ball up will result in Tommie being stuck on the wing, as five seconds into the posession it will be Polk on the wing and Lisch or Liddell up top. Personally I could care less who plays which position as I think they both have the requisite skills to suceed at either, and I trust coach to evaluate all the options in practice and pick the one in which the team plays the best. If you're going to continually argue a point however, try to counter the points that other people are making rather than making the same assertations over and over while ignoring what others are saying.

"This makes absolutely makes no sense. Would Dean Smith have sent MJ packing because he was dominant in practice, or Carmello Anthony, or Larry Hughes, or ________________(insert name of your favorite dominant player)? How the hell can a dominating player be bad for team Chemistry?" Slu72, Just to answer your question without knowing anything about X specifically, look at Allen Iverson. He is a dominant player who is horrible for team chemistry. He cannot co-exist with any talented, athletic players (see Jerry Stackhouse, Tim Thomas, Larry Hughes, and now Chris Webber) but is at his best when the entire team revolves around him and is composed of role players (ala Eric Snow, Aaron McKey). If you had a team with Lebron James and Kobe Bryant as your backourt you'd be an idiot to bring in Iverson as well. That seems to be the case here. X, according to others on this board, would have added depth and competition but not a clear-cut upgrade. Hence if the issue truly was chemistry I can understand not brinning him in.

Three possibilities. 1) Perhaps at SLU our coaches just don't make the distinction between which rules are important and worth following and which rules aren't. 2) Another thing to keep in mind is that the players can comment all they want. The types of players Louisville and Kentucky recruit are typically big name players that get a lot of national pub. I.E.- everyone knows who's recruiting them because they're being interviewed constantly. The reporters there don't have to get their info from the coaches like they would here. 3) Finally, when you're constantly looking for that diamond in the rough I'm sure the coaches don't want other people to know who we're recruiting. Especially for guys like Izik, Ian, and Danny Brown who may be located in obscure places or have slipped under the radar, do we really want to bring attention to them and risk other schools evaluating and recruiting them?

I was looking for you as well but obviously missed you. You are correct that I was in the lower bowl, actually pretty close to the DePaul bench.

Go to arena.slu.edu, then click on the link along the left hand side of the page that says Billiken Brick Program.

JJ, I'm not sure Luke getting his shot blocked at that point in the game proves your point. The poster who argued with you earlier simply stated that while he may have a slow release, he realizes it and knows when he has the space to get his shot off. In an end of the game situation he was forced to take a shot he normally wouldn't have taken. It proved you were right about the slow release but nobody argued that fact, and in fact the coaches themselves have even pointed it out at Billiken Club meetings.

Starting with the Iowa game, which was the 1st Tom didn't play in Ian is averaging about 8.4 pts and 7.2 boards/game (assuming my math was correct, I didn't think it was important enough to double check).

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Chronologically, that first year he signed JJ, followed by Reggie, then Izik, and finally Drejaj. I think.

From the page Nark Linked: d. Graduation Rates of Those Exhausting Eligibility (Student-Athletes # entering during 1988-89 through 1997-98) Number Exhausting Eligibility = 401 Graduation Rate = 88% I took that to mean graduation rates at the times eligibility expired. If the page you linked is correct neither Hughes nor Tatum should be included in the statistics as they didn't exhaust their eligibility here and one of my major gripes with the statistics is null and void. I know for a fact that Baniak and Heinrich have graduated, I thought in 5 years. Perhaps it took more than two extra years due to the fact that they were playing overseas and could not continue as full time students. In any case my second main gripe stands, as I don't think students leaving to take advantage of their capacity to make money playing overseas while they're still young and able (which would seem to preclude them from finishing their coursework if they haven't already done so) should reflect poorly on the school so long as the players eventually return and recieve their degrees. In terms of the statistics, however, the situation I just reffered to clearly does.

Nark, Here's in short what the report you linked says. In terms of men's b-ball SLU graduated 27% of four year players and 67% of transfers in four years which is slightly better than Mizzou's rates of 25% and 50% respectively. In terms of women's b-ball SLU graduated 67% of four year players and 50% of transfers on time, while Mizzou had rates of 83% and 33% respectively. That being said, these rates are essentially meaningless because they only reflect students that graduated in four years, and with the busy schedules of student athletes it is very typical (and in my opinion perfectly acceptable) to take five years to finish up. Also the rates only reflect a four year period meaning probably 15-20 student-athletes total. That is far too small a sample set to genuinely reflect the academic attitude and success of a school as a single recruit can swing the statistics by 5% or more. The better way to look at things is to recognize that we have won the institutional excellence award for best academic achievment by our student athletes in every year of C-USAs existence (9 years). So without specifically comparing ourselves to other schools we're doing quite well. Taking the '97 class as an example, Heinrich and Baniak both graduated in five years, Tatum graduated from McKendree, and Hughes went pro. We did our job that year, helping all of our students to either attain college diplomas or make millions of dollars (which I don't think should reflect poorly on the program.) That being said the statistics show a 0% graduation rate for that year. Clearly the statistics do not reflect the true standing of the program in terms of academic success.

In the halftime interview with Rammer, Cheryl mentioned that she's currently been having about four meetings a week focused on the arena and fundraising efforts. She said that major fundraising efforts would be made within the next three months. Pure speculation, but it sounded to me like some annuncements may be made within that time period.

SLU leads 2-0 at the half. Both goals scored by Will John and assisted by John D.

If the rumors of the Kevin Lisch visit this week are true. What would you, the most loyal of Billiken fans, like to say to Kevin to encourage him to come. Let's flood the board with our best-written, properly-punctuated encouragement and hopes for the team. Perhaps someone will read the board and the content will get back to Kevin. You never know.

While I agree with everyone that the current C-USA is a better conference than the A-10, I thought the post season stats were interesting. Current C-USA: 6 NCAA Teams, 2 NIT Teams. Future A-10: 5 NCAA Teams, 4 NIT Teams. Obviously both us and Charlotte got into our respective tourneys having played C-USA schedules, but I still think it bodes well for the potential of our future conference. Even A-10 wannabe Boston U. got an NIT bid. As a side note you may want to check out this great story on Marque. The author traces his story back all the way to his high school days. http://www.nba.com/nbdl/inthepaint_perry_040305.html Go Bills!!!