TheRaginCajun

Rich, I don't care what you think. I have been to far too many games since Soderberg has become the head coach to put up with this crap any longer. Call me what you want, but one thing is for sure, I am not the only SLU alumni fed up with this BS. I really do like Mizzou at this point, they have a coach who just puts out an unbelievable amount of passion and he has a team of guys who were labeled as underachievers completely selling out for him night in and night out.

My father is a dean in the business school at the University of Missouri. I was suggesting he jump ship and Mizzou would be a system that he could really flourish in and get the exposure he deserves. SLU is a joke and they are completely wasting an extremely talented player. As far as the racist thing, that does not warrant a response.

I did not realize you were his father. I am decent friends with the senior manager on the team, Mike, and he said that Tommie is an absolutely great kid. You should be very proud of what your son has accomplished as an athlete and as a person. Take back what I said about him transferring out, I said that without knowing that you were so close to him. Tell him to keep his head up and keep up the good work, it won't be long before the rest of the country takes notice of your son. If he keeps this pace up, will you sit down with him and discuss the possibility of him entering the draft?

I had a chance to meet one of Tommie's cousins at the game the other week, Money, and he seemed like a really good guy. He said Tommie had heard from some NBA scouts, but that he thought it was something that he probably wouldn't realistically explore till next season.

Skip, that is a flat out lie what you just said about Kevin. You may have heard an interview where he complimented Soderberg, but I can assure you he did not choose SLU because of Brad Soderberg. And if you think Tommie did, you are even further off. The one coach I recall hearing Kevin was a huge fan of was Bruce Webber at Illinois. Obviously, they would not have chosen SLU if they hated Soderberg, but he was not the reason for either one of their decisions and that I know for a fact.

I will say it again, if this is the best that Soderberg and the staff can do, it is time to go. We are receiving zero production from our last four recruits and have no verbal as of January 18th.

I am thrilled to hear this. Do you know if they were planning on showing this in delay and changed once you all voiced your displeasure, a misprint in the programming guide, or was it just a slip up on their part seeing that the game was at noon and not realizing that it was being played on the east coast?

Is it a worthy gamble to offer a kid who you have to pull strings to get in and is going to struggle from day one to stay eligible? This to go along with him being another JJ talent wise. I called it from the get go that it was just a bad gamble. I just don't understand why you are going to reach for an academically challenged kid who lacked any kind of fundamentals and ability.

Brad makes about $700,000 a year when it is all said and done.

Well I figure I deserve to get my due for all of the insults and shots you all took at me when I was raising my concerns prior to the season. It is easy for me to laugh this poor showing of late off: I am young, rich, and don't give a f. I am not the one throwing my hard earned money away to an athletic department that is nothing more than a dressed up dog and pony show. Enjoy Brad Soderberg. I will have no faith in that program as long as he is the head coach. And his son Kramer is an absolute clown: walking around the sidelines with a warm-up on, lining up with the team for the National Anthem, shaking the other teams hands after the game. I am glad he gets to pretend to be a Billiken player now because if he was planning on playing for dad it is going to be for a team like Tennessee Martin.

What track record do we have to go on that would make us think otherwise? Wasn't Vas'Shun Newborne the answer and then it became JJ's job to lose and then it moved on to guys like Obi, Horace, and Knollmeyer having a shot at competing for the spot. We go into the spring once again without any verbals and we are looking to fill some rather large holes, same old story and once again good luck with that.

Because a guy comes into the completely same situation as the prior coach who had us getting embarassed, brings a ton of energy and gets the same players who couldn't win before to play their hearts out and believe in the system. It is more than the budget my friend. The players are not selling out to Brad Soderberg and it is obvious to anyone who goes to a game. I am tired about hearing you blame it on the budget. It looked like their budget was in the top 3rd and I would be under the impression Soderberg has the power to allocate that budget where he sees fit and the fact that the recruiting budget is in the bottom third would likely be a decision he has made.

I don't think anyone is taking joy in the turn this team has taken since beginning conference play. However, I think that those of us who did not have our heads up our ass saw this coming. Some of us chose to look beyond Ian, Tommie, and Kevin and had a lot of concerns heading into the season. We saw that we had not done anything recruiting wise to put around those three. We found it comical to hear posters say how JJ and Bryce would prove me wrong and become solid contributors. I have been questioning Brad ever since he took over and I felt like Tommie and Kevin really bailed him out. Soderberg and his staff have not gotten it done period. Also, where does this notion that Brad is a great game coach come from? I sure as hell have not seen it. He sure as hell better thank kids like Marque Perry, Kenny Brown, Josh Fisher, and Chris Sloan for getting him that nice contract extension. Brad, your time is up.

We may not even be able to field a team in 5 years if we continue to recruit like this.

AJ, that was kind of what I had warned about prior to conference play. I had seen the majority of the games and after each game I came away thinking that we just were not a tournament team. I was happy as hell that we were finding ways to win games, but I realized that we were escaping with wins against teams that really were not very good. I mean we were getting these close wins while getting blasted by the only real quality teams we had played. Everyone pointed to the fact that we were winning and I was willing to accept that for the time being, but now all of my fears have been realized. We just aren't a real good team. I remember everyone saying that Loyola and Houston were good teams and I have a friend who lives in Houston and he tells me that they were without an all-conference player who is out for the year and had a trasfer from Texas sitting out the first half of the season to go along with the fact that he did not feel they were good at all. You look at their record and they are not. Loyola had high expectations, but certainly has not lived up to to them and we barely pulled that one off. Every game I posted concerns and people called me a hater and to just enjoy the fact that we were winning, well winning impressively may not always be important but I saw a lot of holes in our game that is now being seen by everyone.

Roy, what was your expectation heading into the season? I don't recall you throwing out these excuses when I was calling out the legitimate power forwards we have recruited. I recall you saying how Soderberg did a great job of getting Obi and Horace and did an even better job developing guys like Bryce and JJ. We can go back and see where I laid out all of these questions and you all continually bashed me and did not offer these profound excuses.

So, since you predicted the Billikens to be 18-12 it is acceptable to lose to two of the worst teams in college basketball?

You commented about the key of having seniors, well look at the top 7 teams in the country and you will see few of those teams being lead by seniors. Florida play 2 seniors, starting one of those guys. UCLA does not even have a senior on their roster. UNC has two seniors who get minutes, one of those guys is a starter and the other plays a little over 12 minutes a game. Kansas has no seniors on their team. Ohio State plays two seniors. Sounds like these teams are doing alright without being led by seniors.

That was a separate point. We were outworked.

I predicted us to win 19 games this year, but that does not mean I am at all accepting of what is going on here. I think the expectations were understandable heading into the season. We returned three all-conference caliber players and three quality juniors. Many anticipated at least something from guys like Bryce, JJ, and Obi and at least one of the recruits to be serviceable. I was not one of those, but I know many were under that belief. With that team in such a weak conference I can definitely see where having us over 20 wins was by no means unreasonable. I mean we were on pace for that prior to conference play having only lost 3 non-conference games. Heading into season people were talking about Ian being one of the best Billiken center of all-time and the tandem of Lisch and Liddell having the potential to be one of the best tandems this program has ever seen. Going 2-3 to start conference play is unacceptable, especially when 2 of those losses are against bottom feeders.

I apologize slu72, I am just so angry right now. This is completely unacceptable.

The free throw discrepancy was also a pretty big factor in this game. It sounded like we were outworked tonight. Where is the desperation with this team?

My biggest complaint with Ian is the overall lack of intensity he plays with. He has no heart and that can be seen by anyone who watches him on the offensive and defensive glass. Luke is fighting like a bandit to get rebounds and you have Ian playing like a nancy out there. Show some damn heart Vouyoukas.

Is it too early for me to start telling Roy, Rich, and the boys that I told you so. Everyone jumped all over me when I said that that recruiting class was a joke and Bryce and JJ were garbage. I predicted little to nothing from our legitimate bigs of JJ, Bryce, Obi, and Horace and everyone said that JJ and Bryce had really progressed and Obi and Horace were great talents. Well look at them now, an absolute joke. We have 6 legitimate players on this team, why isn't everyone on this board up in arms. We have two guys who could end up being two of the better Billiken players ever and we are completely wasting it. We recruited a bunch of guys who had been passed on and now have no verbal going into the spring this year. Come on, this is unacceptable. Brad went with Jeff Coffey in this game, what the hell is that. Bring in some new blood to this program who are going to be tireless workers and pour their heart and soul into this team. No excuse for the train of clowns we have lined up on our bench.

It is beyond me. This game basically showcased all of the things I had questioned about this team.