Pistol

Do you have that much pull?

Floyd has even played the race card (a term I don't particularly care for but use for argument's sake) against other predominantly African-American teams, coaches, and even African-American officials. That makes no sense whatsoever, but he insists that officials and opposing teams are out to get Vashon before they enter the building based on race. He tries to bully officials, fans, and others into taking his side by abusing a sensitive issue such as race. Not only are his arguments completely illogical, but it demonstrates that Floyd has never in his career coached with class.

When did he cheat? Is misallocating thousands and thousands of dollars to one basketball program cheating? Is reshaping the boundaries of the city (and county) in your favor cheating? I would say yes, but I'm not sure you want Floyd to face any code of ethics here. He bullied everyone in the PHL: every neighborhood where he plucked kids who otherwise could have gone to other schools, every team he buried mercilessly with his starters in the fourth quarter (Central VPA? Come on.), every student and player in his school and others that was cheated out of money toward their education. The PHL used to be a powerhouse. As I said above, the desegregation program did cause a lot of talent to spread out to other places, but Floyd has caused an unnatural imbalance within the league.

Think with your head, not your heart. There is no conspiracy against him. He's been dirty for years, and it finally reached a point where it can no longer be overlooked.

If I have no facts, then you have no common sense. The PHL has the largest disparity of any conference in the state because of Floyd Irons and the way he shaped district boundaries in his favor. Is it just a coincidence that every good player to stay in the city winds up at Vashon? None of the other shools: Beaumont, Roosevelt, Soldan, Cleveland, and so on, can compete with V because of Floyd. Gateway Tech is the only one to put a good team on the floor in the past several years. The PHL used to be the best conference by far back in the day, but a lot of players left for other schools when deseg busing started, and the league was further hurt by Irons grabbing all the talent. A good example of this is a few years back when I was in high school. I had a conversation with a particular player who went to St. Mary's at the time and looked to be a promising high school talent. He told me that he was going to transfer over to Vashon, and I asked him how it was possible because of where he lived. He said that his grandma lived pretty close to where he needed to be and that Floyd told him he'd work it out and not to worry about it. The kid left St. Mary's and decided not to play at V or anywhere else. I just think it's disappointing that this was common behavior for Floyd to fix the boundaries in his favor. You also ask which situation is more harmful, teaching or coaching? In this case: coaching, because as an administrator and coach, he had access to funding. As a teacher, he won't. He still has access to young minds, though, and I hope he's done doing damage at V and in the PHL.

In a school district where every cent counts, where kids aren't getting a decent education, where textbooks are too few, and where funding is slim in every area possible, Vashon has at least 3 to 4 different uniforms each year, with all the other gear you listed. That is absolutely sickening. How can that be justified? The PHL schools need to focus on getting kids to graduate, pass the ACT and SAT, and go to college, not on having the best basketball gear. Vashon is the perfect example of misplaced priorities in education.

I sure hope you're joking, Metz. He shouldn't be allowed to coach at any level ever again. We didn't want him before, and we have absolutely no reason to have him associated with the program in any way.

Even if you think he helped more than he hurt, he just undid all of that and demonstrated that it was a sham. He just slapped every kid he coached in the face. Tens of thousands of dollars in dirty money (yes, St. Louis city taxpayer money) misused in his program, some of which probably found its way into his (and maybe some players) pockets. He had way too much power there. I've always thought Floyd was a good basketball coach to his own players, but lacking integrity for some of his actions, and this proves it. This is disappointing for all local hoops fans. Call him whatever you want VTIME, but he embarrassed St. Louis this time for sure.

A lot of people close to Mo and the program were certain that he was going to make the Kings' roster until he broke his hand. Sadly, he was never able to get back to 100% of the player he was before that. The Kings very well may have had a hidden gem at the end of the draft that year. He wasn't going to be an all-star, but could have been an asset to a pro squad.

Love was the man when Mo Jeffers came in, and he knew that. When it was his turn, he took full advantage of it and was a very good player as a senior. I referred to them both as "instant impact" from a historical standpoint- both were solid contributors in their two years at SLU, and did not take much time for seasoning or to adjust. They were everything you hope for in JUCO recruits. As for Ferg, he was one of those guys who progressively got better throughout his career, and by the end, he would rather have been the man. He had a great senior season, and was our most improved player that year. I think he was even better after he graduated. He played a lot of scrimmages after he was done, and was flat-out dominant. He could bury threes from NBA range with ease, and really spread the floor out well. Sure, those were just scrimmages, but he put on a clinic for guys currently on the roster at the time.

Sure, that's original, but no one would do it or like it. Simple and completely original is hard to do. Might as well find something that the fans will participate in and enjoy.

It made sense to me: just that we haven't had good luck with our most recent JUCOs, in addition to the fact that Brad would rather sign four-year players. JUCOs have to be instant-impact players like Love or Jeffers to be meaningful signings. I think Tom was a good pickup if he could have stayed healthy. Unfortunately, when you're only there for two years and also have health problems, the program is screwed. And VN wasn't the player we thought he'd be.

The opposition from locals for the Creepy Crawl moving into Grand Center irks me. Even if it doesn't fit the profile of what they want moving in, the only way to really revitalize an area is to ensure that you have a good mixture of people going to and living in the area. The Creepy Crawl may not be a ritzy jazz club that will draw a higher-income crowd, but at its old location, hosted punk rock shows almost every single night of the year. How is drawing people to your area to spend money every night a bad thing? The Loop has built its success on having something for everyone, and Grand Center has the opportunity to be bigger in size and broader in appeal. All complaining aside, I'm glad it's finally open and think it will be good for the Grand Center.

Would he be eligible per the new age requirement? The other thing that I find interesting about that is going into the draft after a year without playing competitively. No matter what kind of training schedule he's on, there's no substitute for that. He might want to get a year under his belt somewhere after this sit-out season.

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...D=2006307100013 Here's a link to the article from the Cincinnati Enquirer. He seems to have had an "extra" freshman year from another high school, and has thus exhausted 8-semester eligibility by playing 6 semesters at NCH. It will be interesting to see if he winds up with OJ at USC or if this affects him negatively. I still don't think any high-majors would want to pass on a talent like this, though.

It's actually Wendell Bennett, but that might change if Teresa Lisch is as good as everyone says.

Agreed, Skip. As much as I have disliked Mizzou for a number of reasons over the years (the biggest being that they won't play SLU), Anderson hasn't given us any reason not to like him, and hopefully he can turn the program around and help them win again. That said, I still want to keep all the best local recruits away from him (Griffey doesn't really want to play 40 minutes of hell, does he?)

Polk's shot may be broke beyond repair, but if he can get it back even a little, it could help. You're right about his role to come in, push things uptempo and put some pressure on the other point, and I think at this point, regaining his shooting form would be a plus. I know high school is a different game, but the kid could score. Ian wants to be the star now: he's a senior and did all the pre-draft stuff, so that's going to be in his mind all year. Tommie and Kevin have a leg up in the sense that they're local kids and guards, who play a naturally more fan-friendly game. Ian should still lead the team in points, blocks, and FG percentage (and hopefully rebounds), and won't go under-appreciated for it. He might not be the fan favorite, though, even if he's your favorite, FGWL. It's going to be an interesting year as Ian finishes his career here while making a push for the NBA and Tommie and Kevin develop the next generation of SLU basketball.

I am very excited to see how these three guys step in and try to fill the gaps from last year. Without letting my expectations get too high, I think they all have the potential to be very nice role players on this team. I also know that we have a good group of personalities right now, and that everyone has managed to become good friends without any egos messing it up, and that the new guys fit in the mix well. Hopefully because of that, things will click and this team will go places. I would hope for a reasonable improvement from all returning guys, but the one guy I hope that really takes off (and who really has the potential to) is Dwayne Polk. I am holding on hope that this year will be his year to take off. He has it in him- we all saw what he was capable of in high school and in the local hoops events he played in, and he's also got the ability to be a great leader. If Dwayne really starts to get it together, he has the ability to make everyone else better, and we'd have a great squad this year.

Couldn't agree more, Nark. This arena is a massive step in St. Louis' Midtown redevelopment project. It affects the city on a number of levels outside of the University, in addition to being a gigantic step for the athletic department and SLU as a whole. With any luck, the P-D will have a big feature on it in the near future, and discuss what it means to the SLU community and to the City of St. Louis and its residents. There should already be discussion in the paper about the arena's events, naming rights, traffic/infastructure, etc. Realistically, it will go virtually unmentioned in the pages of the Post until it opens, when they'll do some small feature with a few photos and quick facts. Of course, as a SLU alum and major SLU basketball fan, I am biased, but how can the city's major newspaper almost completely ignore the building of a 10,000+ seat arena in the middle of the city? An event like this should be relatively big news in any city. I hope they prove me wrong soon, but I've been reading the P-D as long as I could read, and am naturally skeptical.

I don't think college is going to bring him back down to earth. A place like USC is just going to make this kid even more of a star. I don't know exactly what his situation is with beating up a woman, but memories are short and women in LA love anyone with status.

Look at how feasible 20 wins was last year- there's no reason we shouldn't do it this year, barring serious injuries. We have a shot to win the A-10, outright or conference tournament, and finally get back to the tournament. Anything short of 20 wins and a tournament berth would be a disappointment to me. I think a lot of other posters will be in agreement with you, Tonka, but good luck finding a taker on that.

He wants the treatment that Bush and Leinart got at USC- easy academics, under-the-table perks, huge exposure in LA, and all the beautiful girls he can handle. Any winning at USC is all going to be credited to him. He's right- if he went to UNC or Duke and they didn't win it all, he'd be blamed, whereas winning a Pac-10 championship and making a splash in the NCAA tournament will be to his credit. Mayo obviously isn't interested in being a student or a respectable citizen, he just wants a good time and a ton of exposure before he jumps to the NBA. He might not have the most honorable reasons for his choice, but who can blame the kid?

I would find it hard to believe that our staff would recruit another JJ. Even if he's similar in stature, his game and mentality are probably much different. You can make a recruiting mistake once, but not twice.

Marketing a high school basketball team or a small college team works when you're trying to sell an inspirational sports movie like Hoosiers, Remember the Titans, etc, etc. However, FGWL is 100% right when he says that NBA marketing is about the individual, and based on that individual's talent and personality. Whether right or wrong, that's the way it is. Morrison is perfect because he's got loads of talent and personality, and he's even a team player (some may argue against that, but he motivates and elevates a team like few other college players did). I don't see how he's a crybaby, either. There's nothing wrong with playing with emotion- not everyone has to be Tim Duncan.