Pistol

"I'll give you ten million reasons why, Chris. I own you. If I go down, you're coming with me, and you know it."

Oh good grief, we have a game tonight. I had completely forgotten.

Right, I think they were counting on being as good as advertised last season, and everything from scheduling to recruiting going forward depended on that outcome, which didn't materialize. Even if we had the highest NIL budget in CBB, we would be disappointed in the results. If you gave the roster of UConn or UNC or Kansas or Purdue to Ford, he would give you a bubble team.

To be clear, I don't think Ford is staying. I don't see how SLU can retain him or May. Ford has lost the program and needs a total reset in year nine, and hasn't shown that he can actually accomplish that. As shown above, there's noting to point to as a plan in place, either. May can't be the AD to make the next hire. He's 0/2 so far and sounds increasingly out of touch every time we hear from him. He's lost control of his athletic program. He knew how to take care of his one-percenters and got a shiny new building out of them and he has ignored the rest of the fan base in the process. And now his disastrous contract extension for Ford has fractured his beloved blueblood donors as he bid against no one and threw away their money. His (micro)management style has created a climate of dysfunction and distrust among staffers. He preaches gratitude toward the student-athletes that get treated poorly because of his decision making. If either of these guys are still around next season, it will be a disaster. The program can't afford to keep bleeding season ticket holders and casual fan interest. The buyouts are expensive but the downside to keeping them is worse. They have to go.

Ford isn't going to put any of his salary in NIL. (I wouldn't, if I were him.) I expect a relatively high number of outgoing transfers whether or not Ford is fired. I also expect some turnover among the rest of the staff, even if Ford stays.

I don't disagree. Even if there are some talented players in this group, Ford can't get them to play as a unit and he really can't get them to defend. Maybe someone else could. Maybe not. He can't succeed with this group, though. So the question remains: Is his "plan" a total rebuild for year nine? Is he punting on HS/prep recruiting for transfers? Who can you keep, if anyone, from such a toxic environment? How does a successful roster come together? Does he have the NIL bag? How does he sell quality incoming players on a vision? How is he going to catch lightning in a bottle this time when we haven't seen it come together for him in the first eight seasons?

Say what you will about Soderberg but his teams could defend. Watching us routinely give up 80+ points to mediocre offenses has me nostalgic for the days of holding teams to under 55 despite a questionable level of talent and a much harder schedule.

I'm going to take Ford at face value for a moment regarding his "We have a plan in place to turn this thing around" line that he repeated a few times. Recruiting is bone dry. We've offered a few juco guys this season but otherwise have virtually no discernible recruiting activity. We have one player - Ja'Quavis Williford - committed for next season. Meadows and Hargrove are out of eligibility after this season. Jimerson may or may not return for a sixth season. International players are hard to predict but can be difficult to retain. Regarding the others, we'd be crazy not to expect transfers given the current landscape and the nature of the season we're having. In short, retention is going to be a real problem. So if the recruiting pipeline is a trickle at most, if we have one incoming commitment so far, and if we're going to struggle to retain a bunch of players who are visibly upset at how this season has gone (assuming you want to retain all of them), does the plan involve a completely new set of players? Is Ford assuming he'll have enough of an NIL bag to put together a roster as if he's a new coach, and hope for those guys to come together like Utah State (or VCU or George Mason, arguably)? I would just love to hear more about what the plan is, because I don't think it's real.

Rothstein's Twitter is insufferable because it is repetitive, banal, and lame. And his dumb nicknames and catchphrases for every coach get turned into t-shirts that he hawks constantly. Rothstein seems like an AI-generated basketball media figure.

There were no bright spots on defense. Individual or team. They're all bad.

4-4 from the field, 3-3 from 3, 2-2 from the line.

15 runs, most dangerous lead in college baseball. (Just kidding, it's actually 10. 15 feels pretty safe.)

Are you watching on FloSports?

Genuinely curious to see how Sincere follows up compared to last week against a very good defensive team.

Chris Holtmann is out at Ohio State.

I've spent the almost 2 decades of my career looking at risk mitigation for private individuals all the way up through some of the largest companies on the planet. In pretty much every instance, taking a smaller, manageable hit up front to remove a larger unknown downside is the way to go. It doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. It doesn't matter if their numbers are meaningful at all. It doesn't matter if their reasons are pure or flawed or whatever. What matters is the ongoing financial health of the institution. "Shutting them down" puts you at risk of taking a beating in the press (and among your own students and faculty) and going to court with the people asking for reparations. A smart leader works to avoid those outcomes.

Maybe SLU understands that banning them from campus or forcing them off campus could do major damage to SLU's case. If SLU wants to get off on the right foot with this group and limit its financial downside, they're doing the right thing by letting them use campus for this. You don't have to like it to be able to understand the optics. It's not a question of strong vs. weak leadership, it's smart vs. stupid. Meanwhile, I'm looking at how other colleges have responded when faced with the same or similar circumstances. There's a wide range: Virginia passed a law requiring 5 public universities (including VCU) to "make reparations through scholarships or community-based economic development and memorial programs". Georgetown created a $400,000-a-year reparations fund. Harvard set up a $100 million endowment fund for slavery reparations (Harvard's primary endowment is estimated to be near $50 billion). UVA set up Universities Studying Slavery (USS), a consortium of over 100 colleges sharing best practices as they work through dealing with slavery in their histories. SLU is one of the schools participating. SLU is one of many schools facing pressure from what is a national movement. I haven't been able to find any legal precedent that suggests SLU would actually be on the hook for a large amount of money. More likely, SLU will work with this group to address it in a way that involves a financial commitment, education, and memorialization, and it won't be anywhere near the numbers we're seeing in the headlines. If SLU actually does become the school that has to work through the legal system for this case, the current judiciary is going to be friendlier to the defendants than the plaintiffs. If it goes all the way to the top, I don't think the people who just killed affirmative action are going to open the door to broad-based reparations. SLU will be fine.

I'm way late on this because I haven't been keeping on top of recruiting for obvious reasons, but here's the last juco offer from a couple weeks ago: Jeff Nwankwo - SF, 6-7, 205 - Oklahoma City, OK (Cowley College, KS) - Twitter: @NwankwoJeff Offers: Saint Louis, Tulsa, Valparaiso, Texas-El Paso, Oakland, IUPUI, Samford, Stony Brook, Texas State, Coastal Carolina, Austin Peay, North Alabama, North Dakota, Oral Roberts, Montana, Weber State, Stephen F. Austin, Southern Utah, Abilene Christian, Radford, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Nicholls State. Interest: Massachusetts, George Mason, Utah State, Temple, East Carolina, Cornell, Illinois State, Toledo, Green Bay, Robert Morris, Hampton, Northeastern, East Tennessee State, Georgia State, Arkansas State, UMBC, Kansas City, Stetson, Le Moyne, Texas A&M-Commerce, South Carolina State. Latest News: Nwankwo received an offer from SLU. (2/13/24) Scouting Report: Nwankwo is a versatile, athletic wing who can score on three levels and rebound. He originally went to Tulane as a wide receiver on the football team but transferred to juco to play basketball. He missed half of his first season with an injury, signed with Marist in the spring, but got out of his LOI and returned to Cowley for a second season.

Thanks, I missed that. Did a lot of skimming after not being around much this weekend.

I heard Rammer said Meadows is out for the year - Did anyone listen to the Sunday/Monday shows that he might have said that on?

It would be fitting, given how Steve rules this message board with an iron fist.

When's the last time we had both a men's and women's POW at the same time?

Also promising about that 2-0 start is that freshman Lily Strand got a save in the first game and pitched a 2-hit shutout in the second. She's looking like a viable replacement for Chloe Wendling. The whole 3-game series at Louisiana Tech was washed out by rainstorms. Doesn't look like they're going to reschedule it, either.

Right. The last time SLU scored over 100 was against Lincoln earlier this season (102). The last time SLU scored over 100 vs. a D-I opponent was against UAPB on 12/5/2020 (107). Scoring over 100 in conference is what makes the La Salle game unique.

102 is a record in A10 play for SLU. 103 is the all-time record for a conference game, set vs. Wichita State in 1956.