Pistol

From what I've seen and been told, Hannah generally starts at the 4 and the tall, skinny kid (Gross) starts at center. Hopefully Hannah recovers quickly so Chaminade can lock up its third straight MCC title with his help.

I think the report on Temple is shut down Dionte Christmas and you'll have a chance. He's averaging almost 22 PPG, and the next guy averages about half of that. He looks like a heavy favorite for conference player of the year (I am not sure about his NBA prospects). I just don't see it happening tonight. We're such a poor road team that even if Lisch is able to shut down Christmas to any degree, I don't see us getting enough done on the offensive end to win.

Apparently at least one writer from the Cincinnati Enquirer thinks it should be Xavier: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2009012...30005/1055/NEWS

http://prepsports.stltoday.com/ssi/prep/st...AA?OpenDocument Sounds like it was a good one. It says Hannah is out two weeks with a sprained ankle- when did he sprain it?

Oh yeah, the Chicago Invitational Challenge. It's at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, about an hour from downtown with normal traffic. Xavier actually won the 2007 version of that, with wins over Kent State and Indiana. Dayton won this year over Marquette in the final. Seems to have a pretty decent field every year- and the A10 dominates. If history means anything, then we should top ND for the 2009 title, right?

Anyone else watching this? Also, Northwestern pulls off a huge upset at Michigan State.

http://goxavier.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/s.../011909aaa.html Looks like they're already announcing early-season tournaments for next season. Any word on if SLU will be in one? By the way, Xavier is also currently demolishing St. Bonaventure up in Olean. It's 68-40 at the under 8:00 media timeout.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/statistics?s...&league=nba 4 of the top 10 FT shooters by percentage are foreign-born. 10 of the top 50 are foreigners. I had some trouble finding a percentage or number of foreign-born NBA players this season, but I found that there were 76 on active rosters in April 2008, or about 17%. So I guess the math says that the foreign guys are bringing the average up a little bit.

Just bring home a win for the Red Devils for me. And a rundown of what you see tonight would be nice, too. Too bad Majerus and the boys will be up in Philly so he can see Beal and Co. and I know he's made comments in the past about always paying attention to "wherever Luke and Paul came from."

So there you have it. Nice work, kshoe. I think we can all agree that Kevin is a great kid, hardworker, is tough and has played through injuries, and an outstanding student. I think we can also agree that he's had a nice career here but has regressed (for one reason or another) a little bit this year and hasn't played well in our losses. I don't think these facts are mutually exclusive, nor do I believe his regression is related to effort. A strong finish to get the numbers back on track and a lot of conference wins for the squad is not out of the question.

No, you must be mistaken- I wasn't trying to get through the drive-thru at Del Taco, we were in line at the Good Pie and also considered Vito's, Triumph, and Buffalo Brewing. I think I saw some Larry the Cable Guy fans eating fried chicken in the back of a truck and chasing down a stray dog.

I wasn't trying to sway anyone's opinion with the anecdote about his driving around the gate to get into that lot. I was just telling what I thought was a funny little story. If anyone takes it to be an extra insight into his complex character, that's fine, I don't care either way. I'll put it this way- I'd rather have a good coach who makes the occasional jerk move like that instead of a mediocre coach and poor recruiter who doesn't.

Possibly, but the commenter on Timmerman's blog pointed out that we don't have a natural backup for Mitchell next year. I love Mitchell's game and want him to play as many minutes as possible, but who gets the PG job done if he goes down with an injury? That would have been Cotto but now looks to be a backup-PG-by-committee deal.

Did anyone else have trouble getting a table at any of the restaurants close to the arena? We showed up at the Good Pie at 6:30 expecting a relatively smooth meal with plenty of time to get to the game, but they had a 45 minute wait. So I told my family to wait while I checked out the other places; Buffalo Brewing had at least a 45 minute wait, Vito's was 40 minutes, and Triumph was an astounding 90 minutes. I guess this is good for the area, but it was damn frustrating when we've never had to get to the dinner spot more than 90 minutes before tip. Anyway, after waiting for three older couples to sit and talk for a half hour after finishing their food (some people can look so nice and be such jerks), we sat down about 7:25 and got to the arena with 19:20 left in the first half. I never thought I'd miss the tip.

I don't think it was made clear that it is a different person from the official scoreboard operator. I know the guys that run it and they get tired of people criticizing them for something that they're not even doing.

I posted this a couple weeks ago when people were unjustly going after the scoreboard and shot clock guys for this, but the scoreboard operator does not do the lineup changes or points/fouls for each player. The official scoreboard operator only handles the clock, team points, team fouls, time outs remaining, and horn. There is a separate person who does lineups, and whoever it is hasn't been very good this year.

I had this conversation with a few friends after the game- what exactly happens if that had occurred? We agreed that it would not count, but would the ball be live since it would be in the court of play after going through the hoop? That was my guess- I don't think it would be dead. We speculated what would take place if it happened, and there would be a lot of chaos since it's late in a close game. A SLU player might see it go in, then take it out under the hoop to inbound it, in which case he would have taken a live ball out and therefore turned it over (just a guess).

I'll give you that. And p diddy, thanks for listing the guys Romar had waiting in the wings. I forgot about Jamaal Tatum. He and Grimes had some off-court issues in college but since we're playing a game of 'what if' anyway, you never know how those kids turn out differently with a different coach in a different school. His player relationships were so good that I'd be surprised to see guys act up to a serious degree on his watch.

I thought Holder did a decent job, which is all you need from a PA guy. I can't think of other places where the PA guy tries to make it his own show, like Guy does. Fans don't want an obnoxious PA guy telling them what to do; it comes off as bush league when he tries to pump people up. A good product on the floor and good attendance in the new arena will help build a good atmosphere, and we'll get there. It's one of those jobs where if you don't notice him, he's doing well. It was Holder's first time doing it, and he had 2 'corrections' that I can remember, which is a lot less than Guy has each game even though he's been doing it for years. I hope the rest of you season ticket holders out there who got an online survey from SLU's athletic department last week used the opportunity to voice an opinion about the PA announcer- there were a few questions to rate him. I gave Guy the lowest score possible and said he's the worst of anyone I've heard in any arena I've been to.

Splendid in the classroom? You must have him mixed up with someone else. Tatum was a nightmare in the classroom. His last year there he was still taking a freshman math class, and on the rare occasions he showed up, he spent the whole class hitting on the young grad student teacher in front of the whole class. His attitude and poor work ethic caused issues with Romar, a guy who could keep a lot of other less-than-perfect students at least somewhat in line.

They are each about 6-0 and north of 200. They're looking like a ready-made offensive line for Chaminade in a couple years. I laughed when I saw you write 'butterballs' because that is not the least bit inaccurate. It's unlikely they'll be basketball players unless the freshman coach just wants some big bodies in there next year.

I don't appreciate the sarcasm when I choose to disagree with you on something and feel I am fairly arguing my point. Check your PM.

Taj Gray was supposedly going to walk on his freshman year and have three years on scholarship after that. Had Romar stayed and Kern likely wouldn't have been admitted, Gray would have gotten his scholarship. In hindsight, it's amazing that Romar had an arrangement like this with a guy who turned out to be an absolute stud in the Big 12.

Nothing's a guarantee. I'm just surprised that so many on here have such dismissive attitudes about Romar, especially a lot of the same people who defended Brad for so long. I obviously can't state that it is a fact that Romar would have brought a lot of success to SLU because he left and we'll never know. But I strongly believe that he was the right guy and would have gotten it done. We had 5 stagnant years after him, and Brad's most loyal supporters can't argue that.

Okay, so your definition of "Winning Big" is 30 wins or 3 consecutive Sweet 16 appearances. It's settled. There are very few coaches that "Win Big" if that's the case.