TEE

you can thank the Hermann family for that wonder facility, plus we are blessed in this community with great soccer people, as Rammer calls is the soccer mafia. I wish we had something like that for basketball.

fine I'll bit, Boston College can thank Doug Flutie and his heroics for helping turn B.C. from a commuter school to a school where kids from all over come to study. I am not saying SLU should just screw academics and use all the resources for athletics. I am saying you get what you put into it and right now that ain't much. For example down I-70 is a state school that used to have great football, but is an absolute joke right now. For example the asst. coaching staff budget at Mizzou for Football is somewhere around $1.2 million, that is nice but a school I am very familar with is Univ. of So. Cal. and their asst. coach budget is two times that, they might have the highest paid coaching staff in the history of college football, USC's academics are amazing and thanks to sucesses in football, baseball, water polo , volleyball, golf, (you name the sport and chances are they may have won a national championship recently) kids want to go to school their. I don't want to hear the Paige Laurie crap, the Lauries are an afterthought at SC.

can you imagine those two coming down on the break, wow !

OK, athletics is a great way to sell and promote a univeristy. In SLU's case they actually have student athletes. The deserve the best. I always remember the line from the movie "The Program." "when was the last time 80,000 people turned up to watch a chemistry experiment." A good athletic program can help the overall image of the University. Keep in mind it must be done the correct and ethical way.

Taylor's, Jack no way, Andy probably not, ERAC President Don Ross would be a logical choice, family involved in one Jesuit school in town, DeSmet. But Father would have to really develope a strong relationship with someone from ERAC, or similar companies in town. St. Louis has maybe about 10 or 12 people/families that have net worths of $100 million and above. If I were Father Biondi for a day I would go out of my way to develope some type of relationship with those people, because many of those people/families like to donate money to worthwhile causes. Plus I would have jumped through burning hoops to keep Fr. Reinart's relationship with Bob Hope. Side note: when I had a good friend at Loyal of New Orleans and we played pick up bball at their Rec Center, and wouldn't you know, it was a carbon copy of Simon and guess what it was the home of the athletic dept., it makes you wonder when that school has better facilites.

Roy, I think you missed my point, I don't want to get into a pissing contest about RPI's etc, the have's vs. the have not's. SLU has the financial resources to get the athletic department out of the stone age. Father Biondi also can open the purse strings to, if and when it happens, keep coaches from leaving, he will always choose not to do so. This is an example of Father Biondi's treatment of the Athletic Department, A few years ago, can't remember the exact date, but I was on the golf course with my Dad, Doug Woolard and another man, Doug got a call from Father Biondi on his cell phone, it was about the new floor for the court at West Pine, mind you that Father Stark had already signed off on the cost, gave the ok etc.., but Father Biondi decided to look into the matter and wanted a meeting with Doug immediately, keep this in mind, Father Biondi earlier had no problem when the courts were changed to wood from rubber at Simon Rec Center, but all of sudden when West Pine needed a new floor Fr. Biondi, lets his super ego go mad, decides he needs a meeting to discuss God knows what. What I am saying is that until Father Biondi realizes that athletics are just as important as everything else, SLU will continue to tread water. The other thing is that Father Biondi will not develop a relationship with people that can give big money donations, his ego gets in the way. On top of that do you realize that no one from Enterprise Rent a Car sits on the Board of Trustees. A multi BILLION dollar company!

In all honesty what Bernie wrote is mostly true. Until the University, Fr. Biondi, decides that athletics are as much as a priority as everything else than SLU athletics will continue to lag behind. If a mediocre Division 1 athletic department is acceptable than either stay the course or drop down to Division 2 or 3. I am not knocking SLU one bit, I am stating a fact. I really enjoy when you get to see almost the entire student athlete corp represented during halftimes at basketball games for their academic achievements. I always say to my dad, how neat would it be if Farther Biondi gave a damn and spent some money on these kids and gave them the facilities that they deserve because they are real student athletes. The real problem that SLU has is that Father Biondi, I don't think, sees the issue that athletics is just as important as a naked man statue, an art gallery or even a state of the art lecture hall. SLU needs to make a statement that they will retain coaches by paying them well, not letting coaches leave for greener pastures, having budgets for each sport that allows those teams to excel at a very high level and have very savvy marketing people to help sell the programs. SLU has a great product to sell, the campus is beautiful, the academics are great, but the athletics are like the read headed step child. SLU doesn't need great facilities, but they need good facilities. That starts with an ON campus arena that houses the athletic department, traing facilities, student athlete study centers and sports medicine. You have actual student athletes, SPOIL THEM! SLU needs to be in THIS Century. I am sorry but West Pine is a dump, the place is dreadful. It is like when you disembark an airplane in a different city with a better airport than ours and you realize the first impression of that city is better than St. Louis. What is an recruits impression of SLU when he sees West Pine to that of any other program that SLU fans aspire to be like. It starts at the top, Father Biondi needs a kick in the a$$. There are building blocks in place, there are resources, USE them.

that has to be one of the ugliest games I have seen in a long time. Ian looked good, IO played great, "The Kids" looked solid except for DP lack of FT's(practice). VN and JJ looked good. Here it comes, I am gonna hammer this guy till he graduates, AD for the few nice plays he makes, more times than not he is a liability. you might be able to hide him when you have 4 better players on the court and if you keep him under control. his player control foul in the 2 half was the dumbest thing I saw tonight, why drop your head and shoulder are we trying to get a first down? dribble around the guy. other than my rant, there are some real positives for next season. QUESTION: for anyone who follows STL prep hoops, did DP ever in his career have to make FT's late in a close ball game, because I would think being ignorant that Vashon would have been up late by many points in most of DP's four seasons.

their previous head coach only had two years before purdue went ahead and hired him, albeit to sit next to Gene Kady(sp?) for a year, just some ideas, oh well

if and when mizzou makes a change/goes in a new direction, i think you could see a guy like Gregory at Dayton, he is from a very sucessful program at Michigan State or maybe the young guy at SIUC, but whomever it is, i can bet it will be someone with prior head coaching experience.

it is easy to kick someone when they are down! for some reason i think this is a good thing for Billiken Nation to go through, hell were gonna start going against the teams in Philly next season, gotta get tough, maybe we should all go to Penn Station and get a cheesesteak! :-) for some reason the valley is the sexy pick right now, most likely they will go back to some type of obscurity in the near future. i am excited to play Dayton and XU in the future, IMHO those schools are a better crowd draw than SMS/SIUC. What all the bandwagon fans, BM clones in this town fail to realize is that when our new arena is completed and (fingers crossed) playing top 25 ball each season that it is gonna be hard ticket to get. Just let these hacks say what they want, be polite and smile, this time next year things should be very different around here. hey Roy you forgot to mention Even Pederson, our 6'8" non dunking center on the 93-94 team, what a lineup that was!

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guys we are comparing two different types of players, both play different types of games. i am beginning to think that a great role for Luke would be something in the mold of that bench player that good big ten teams have/had, a guy who plays 15 plus minutes a game maybe scores 10 if it's a good night, the guy who gets a big rebound, a steal, takes a charge and plays late in tight games because of his ability at the line. a good hard physical energy player. Danny on the other hand is a very fluid player brings so much to the table, he can be a go to guy, he should be a 12-15pt a game player for us. don't jump all over me, he has a physical resemblence to Dwayne Wade, 6-4/6-5 200lbs very smooth, maybe that is where ends. last night Danny really picked up the DEFENSE on UAB's leading scorer #1, AD couldn't check that guy at all, in contrast Danny did solid job guarding him. Both Luke and Danny bring exciting posibilities, each can do something different which should give us hope! in terms of next season: guys I could really give damn that AD plays hard with effort. this is Division 1 basketball and when there are players on the team who are better and work just as hard it is time for all of us and Brad/Staff to understand that the litte engine that could is not the answer. AD is too much of a liability, on the drive home Rammer made a comment about AD's ball handling and savvy? are we watching the same game? IMHO AD would be at the bottom of the depth chart of scholarship backcourt players next season. people need to realize that AD is not going to take us anywhere, if he is playing big minutes we are in big trouble.

folks we're just gonna have to smile and take it, thank God we are leaving this confrence. steve welhmer needs to do a better job with his crew, it is hard to believe that from 50ft away and 19,000 fans you can hear what a coach says, bush league!

i think you are missing my point. we are adding two guys to a very crowded backcourt/wing that is becoming pretty talented and when you get right down to it we are not going anywhere with AD playing heavy minutes. AD can be a real liability too many times. AD gives a great effort, but when it becomes a mumbers game i think we all want the best players out there. Apparently DP/LM/DB have earned the staffs trust and are all playing a substantial amount of minutes now and when you add two very talented players to that mix, it becomes apparent that those guys are our future and our best chance to win regardless of the fact that AD will be a senior. i am bagging VN/JJ yet, heck i think JJ needs more minutes, although i am curious to know what we will add up front. at this point you can only look to next season.

watching tonights game got me to start thinking about next season. assuming we are to go with a five man rotation with the backcourt hopefully consisting of Dwayne, Danny, Luke, Kevin and Tommie we should be pretty darn solid in that department. we have an above average center who is developing nicely and 7ft of potential, like what we have there. we need to seriously address what will be done with the power forward postion. going with ian/bryce and the 5 listed backcourt/wing players we might be ok with VN/JJ/?/? at the 4, but could really use some help there. the question I have is where does that leave DC and AD? talent wise/ability AD shouldn't even crack that five man rotation, hopefully he stays on the bench, DC????

some of st. louis' wealthiest individuals have no relationship with SLU, other than they know that it is a university in the city they call home. some of these folks are capable of making a donation that would at this point easliy surpass the $35 million goal, the catch is that Fr. Biondi(big ego) would have to essentially kiss some a$$ to receive a large gift around $20-$40 million and he won't/doesn't feel comfortable doing that. i know that cheryl is trying like heck to engage all types of people, there have been some private functions with potential donors. the major problem that i see is that the board and Fr. Biondi are all not on the same page, not all of them realize the positives to an on campus events center.

oh no!, i knew that looked strange when i wrote it! :-) rough weekend

that man is a classless moron, he exchanged words with a gentlemen sitting in front of us, couple of rows behind the bench. his team is a reflection of his lack of class, he and his team ***** about every call. i just wish the officials would put a stop to coaches all over the court. with how obnoxious he is, i wonder what type of child he was? nice rug bobby!

it is my understanding, per my dad and folks in the administration that nothing will happen in terms of ground breaking until the research building is underconstruction as to not have a revolt from the faculty. my dad has told me that the board of trustees is going to have to make the decision to be fully behind the project regardless of the status of fund raising, ie: realize that the university needs the building as much as other physical structures and go ahead and build it. also i know for a fact that father through back channels has been approached to start relationships with some of stl's more wealthy indiviuals who like to give money away, folks with big egos that need to be stroked and father has refused.

that is a great way to put into perspective of how our upperclassmen and underclassmen seem like oil and water.

great effort despite the loss. at this point when you are looking for positives the effort especially from our young guys was great. i sure hope ian realizes with what is left of this season and the next two he is going to live at the line, he makes his ft's we might have won today. great to see luke play as well as he did, great energy. i just got a good feeling today watching how well the new starting 5 moved on offense, guys were not standing around like the old starting 5. DP's confidence was there, he looked great. TEE

i have not posted on this board since we hired Brad. at first i was very disappointed that we hired Brad and not Brian Gregory. i will be honest that i have been very impressed with Tom Izzo and his coaching staff and coaches that have gone on too their own programs. trying to be the eternal optimist that i am, i looked at it from the standpoint that if Father/Doug would have hired Brad following Wisconsin's final 4 year we would all be excited, so it took me some getting used to, i met the man, and jumped on the bandwagon. even with the poor results of this season, i am still on the billiken bandwagon. 1. this team lacks a leader(s). fish and sloan's leadership is missing and none of our upperclassmen vets have stepped up and assumed that role. 2. i as well as many others expected big things from dwayne polk, my personal opinion is that we are having a young man who has grown up in uptempo basketball playing a flat stationary halfcourt offense. brad and staff have to take the cuffs off and let dwayne run. it was evident against marquettes press, dwayne was the fastest player on that court, he has most likely seen more full court pressure in one practice at vashon and especially in summer games that if you put the ball in his hands and let him fly chances are not too many guys are going to stop that, unless they foul him. 3. reggie is out of shape, his physical condition is lacking. he takes so many defensive sets off, he can't guard his man unless his guy is in worse shape than he is. plan and simple he needs to score more than he gives up, and he isn't doing that. 4. our upperclassmen vets are mostly late recruiting class fill in types or transfers, they do not blend in well with our young guys.... 5. keep starting ian at the 5, he has some potential, really excited about what he potentially could be, have bryce spell him when needed, i like bryce's future. if we can develope these two, wow look out. JJ needs to start at the 4, sit him down tell him that he is the 4 and he needs to work like there is no tomorrow, rebounds, put backs, tough points in the paint. he has the ability, someone needs to get in his head. let IO spell JJ, we are not going anywhere with IO as our go to guy in the post. we need to go with DC, DB and DP as our backcourt. as i have stated take the cuffs off DP and let him fly, he has the game. DC can play, time to let him play. DB might be something special, his first step is so explosive, he needs to be our lead scoring option, he can shoot, drive, and wow even defend. this guy and tommie are going to create some future problems for the a-10. can't say anything about VN other than his light is fading fast, get your head in the game. 6.i have no paticence for our upperclassmen, they are doing a horrible job this season. it is time for a youth movement! -TEE still on the bandwagon, can't wait for next October!