Pistol

Still can! We could hire him, Soderberg, Romar...

He's just going to be a streaky player, not sure there's a way around that. But yeah, you hope over time that his 3P% settles into a mid-high 30% range.

This is the version of Parker we knew existed but just hadn't emerged all the way yet. Cut him loose, give him some run, and let him cook. It helps that La Salle is terrible and left gaping holes for him to operate in, and the pace of this game was conducive to getting him in rhythm. I could see this Parker showing up in more games down the stretch. Maybe even at St. Joe's this weekend. We still have Duquesne, GW, Rhode Island - there are some very winnable games left even if we're not going to be favored.

Drew was recruited by Spoon, knowing there were more behind him. Travis was a top priority for Romar's staff, who thought they had him lined up. He went to Marquette at the 11th hour and they were devastated. We recruited Drake, too, but I'm not sure where we stood in his overall picture before he chose DePaul. We also got Rachel on the women's side and she worked in the MBB office for a while out of school. Drew was a really good shooter and pesky defender but limited athletically. You wouldn't want the ball in his hands for too long on a given possession. Not much of a passer, not going to beat guys off the dribble. No bounce whatsoever. He got a hard time for his lack of a vertical. But he was a great locker room guy. Hilarious. Really goofy.

FWIW, my putting every name on the list is not a validation of a given suggestion as a good idea. There are some very, very bad ideas on that list, and some names that are just not realistic at all. But a lot of really good ones, too. Let me know if I missed any or if you have another suggestion to add.

Bumping this with what is my best shot at a master list of suggestions so far in alphabetical order: Blake Ahearn (Memphis Grizzlies assistant) Mike Anderson (Retired) John Beilein (Detroit Pistons senior advisor) Mike Brey (Atlanta Hawks assistant) Mark Byington (James Madison) Chris Carrawell (Duke assistant) Mick Cronin (UCLA) Darian DeVries (Drake) Bryce Drew (Grand Canyon) Andy Enfield (USC) Mark Fox (Georgetown director of student-athlete relations) Chester Frazier (Illinois assistant) Dan Geriot (Cleveland Cavaliers assistant) Brian Gregory (Retired) Greg Heiar (Mineral Area College) Mitch Henderson (Princeton) Chris Holtmann (Ohio State) Bob Huggins (Retired) Larry Hughes (Retired) Bobby Hurley (Arizona State) Alex Jensen (Dallas Mavericks assistant) Pat Kelsey (Charleston) Dustin Kerns (Appalachian State) Chris Lowery (Northwestern assistant) Paul Lusk (Purdue assistant) Steve Lutz (Western Kentucky) Chris Mack (Retired) Cuonzo Martin (Retired) Ben McCullom (Northwest Missouri State) Bucky McMillan (Samford) Mike Morrell (UNC-Asheville) Porter Moser (Oklahoma) Dan Muller (Retired) Bryan Mullins (SIUC) Ronald Nored (Atlanta Hawks assistant) Josh Pastner (Retired) Chris Quinn (Miami Heat assistant) Josh Schertz (Indiana State) Todd Simon (Bowling Green) Dave Smart (Texas Tech assistant) Nevada Smith (Marquette assistant) Rick Stansbury (Memphis assistant) Justin Tatum (Illawara Hawks) Mark Turgeon (Retired) Will Wade (McNeese State) Brian Wardle (Bradley) Bruce Weber (Retired) Sundance Wicks (Green Bay) Jay Wright (Retired)

Mia Bergstrom and Shun'teria Anumele can both shoot it. Incoming freshmen. The recruit from Ritter, Hannah Wallace, is not a shooter.

That's a really unlucky foul on Simon. VCU's lead is back to 10.

7-0 run to start the quarter. Prove me wrong...

She also took a shot in the side of the head on a rebound after coming back in. That third quarter isn't going to get it done. SLU often has a late run in them but -12 against a better team is too deep a hole. VCU is a very good defensive team. They get their hands on everything. The blocks/steals stats don't do it justice.

VCU is very good. 8-2 in a stronger-than-usual A10 and 19-3 overall. Looks like SLU's cold shooting came back in the second quarter. Can't have two straight quarters like that and win against VCU.

Early start time + Xavier home game = I'm screwed. I will spend a large portion of this game trying not to drop my phone in a bathtub. The last half hour will be spent trying to keep my daughter from being distracted by the light from my screen. I won't be very active here, on Discord, or on Twitter tonight, @billikenfan05.

The battle for 14th place commences. Significant pillow fight tiebreaker implications. The loser will be the odds-on favorite to finish last in the league. This is why we watch.

Yes, we had no plan in place if Fordham scored.

So our players were just gonna settle for a heave and not consider a timeout?

Got it, just curious. I figured you wanted to retain Ford and May given how annoyed you seem at the "Fire Ford" posts. I feel like given how much of a disaster the season has been, an avalanche of that is going to be happening everywhere SLU fans are talking. I don't even know what "hire Heeke" is in reference to, but you say it in every post now so it seems like you're doing the exact thing you're upset about. When all else fails, the Ignore function works really well.

Real question: What would you do if you could call the shots for SLU?

Odd recording schedule. Three episodes in the past week after over three months without one.

So many red flags for both Ford and May in 2016.

I actually think there's real value to be had in the NIL age by signing the second tier of HS recruits and then spending to retain them. There's an opportunity to build a more stable program with guys that have careers at your school instead of one-year wonders, and those are the guys fans connect with. It doesn't have to be either-or. I just don't think we should be overlooking the guys we can train up and build around.

Big Tuna was my exact thought, as well.

It will be no fault of his own if he doesn't end up here. I actually think he's a pretty nice looking prospect. It just depends on what the next coach wants to do.

No. These places are designed to meet NCAA requirements. Plus, how many guys have you seen be academically ineligible out of HS anymore? It just doesn't happen like it used to. A lot has changed since Reed's time; his school that was shady at the time is now the norm. State government agencies are barely paying attention to the schools they're ostensibly overseeing. The NCAA is toothless. If a player can get into a given college, he'll be eligible. If it were a normal HS, it would be covered by local news (like the stat pages in STLToday - not perfect, but they try to record what every regional HS is doing). Social media is going to vary by program no matter what kind of school it is. But for prep/charter schools, lack of information is often the point. I don't know where Middlebrooks falls on the spectrum. They may be doing right by the kids or they may be unscrupulous actors squeezing money out of the system. There are plenty of examples of each.

The other thing these threads reminded me was that the process was excruciating for us. It dragged on, went through ups and downs, and had a total lack of transparency. We were worried about the warning signs for Ford but ignored that the search/hiring process was loaded with red flags for May.

I have also been frustrated by the lack of information about Williford's final prep season. He attends Middlebrooks Academy - a charter school named after its founder and head coach. The address of the school per the California Department of Education is a one-story home in Alhambra. The mailing address is a mail center between a dog groomer and sushi restaurant in a strip mall in Studio City. Middlebrooks' website lists Cathedral High School under the facilities, but I can't figure out if Middlebrooks students actually use the physical classrooms at Cathedral, or whether they attend classes with Cathedral students, or if they just use the gym and weight room in off hours. A lot of schools like this just use online classes. Cathedral is located just across the 110 from Dodger Stadium, just north of downtown Los Angeles. Middlebrooks does not update its social media accounts often. The schedule on the website has not been updated since after their win on 9/30, the first game of the season. If the schedule is correct, they just had "Post-Grad Nationals" this past weekend. From what I can find on Twitter, this is not a tournament but a weekend showcase event. Middlebrooks played Ascending Life (AZ) on Saturday and Grand Canyon Club (AZ) on Sunday. Middlebrooks competes in the PEC-6 Conference, which was "established in 2013 to create a credible, NCAA-compliant governing body on the West Coast for post-grad basketball programs". The PEC-6 has its playoffs on March 16-17. Per Middlebrooks' website, they have PEC-6 games at Cathedral this weekend. Per the PEC-6 website, they don't have conference games again until February 16-18. Williford also doesn't post often, but he will repost SLU-related things in his Instagram stories. He has a current one, so it seems like he's still engaged with the program. If you can't tell, I'm mildly annoyed that so many players have shifted toward the "prep" schools from traditional high schools. These range from perfectly legitimate institutions that in some cases offer a fifth year to Bishop Sycamore-type "schools". It's really hard to say what's what, and information is often hard to come by.