satrap

I have a hard time objectively evaluating Majerus in light of my favorable disposition toward ex-coach BS. Perhaps he is everything the press clippings that preceded him advertised him as; however, reading the PD story today, one is left with the impression that he was simply mentally unprepared for the obvious challenge he would face. And by challenge, I mean simply running a major basketball program that is not a self sustaining style power. Two full (!) paragraphs in Tom T's article on page C2 of the PD today refer to absence of practice time. I know we are relatively young, but I have never seen such a continued drumbeat on such a prosaic topic: all teams are getting similar practice time and we have two very experienced seniors and Barry to bring at least some semblance of order to this parade, along with the knowledge that we are relatively younger than we had to be considering the exodus of players last summer. Perhaps I'm overstating it, I don't know, and I'm not really dissatisfied with the results in terms of being surprised by them- I'm shocked we beat BC. I am just wondering if we've settled into something that is really "top 50" rather than the top 80 I think we generally would be with any of our previous coaches, given the new arena, etc.

On a related note, the radio broadcast and related feeds are unbelievably clear. It's simply a miracle to listen to them. During the postgame, Rammer was interviewing Moser and there was this machine of some sort that kept turning on- it sounded like a giant fan- which was incredibly easy to hear. FM is simply a great way to hear games.....

Guys, I'm not "hating" on him or attacking him. Nor am I suggesting he is not a DI quality player. I am only suggesting, albeit very early, that he will not be an upper level A10 guard. This is the point of boards such as this: observation without character assassination.

We are going to struggle this year and mightily. It's going to be a bitter blow to Liddell and Lisch the older, since they deserved better. None of the freshmen are close to being as good as they were at that point in their careers. Mitchell could be solid this year, but he will have his major slumps. Cassity is interchangeable with hundreds of DII and DIII guards. This is not a slight on him or any of them- they're good, just not A10 upper division guys. It's going to be tough to watch this team get absolutely mauled in it's first five games and on the road this year.

206 E 19-20. Still in a state of mild shock my seats are so high. What a difference from the Scott- but it's worth it.

As a historic critic of Majerus, I find this laughable. Nobody who knows Majerus, or has observed him for more than a few hours, thinks he pays any attention as to what the AD does at SLU. What would he control? Meetings with the woman's soccer trainer?

Indeed it does sound familiar. And why are these scout services so clueless when it comes to knowledge of the sport they actually follow? University of St. Louis? Sheesh. University of Syracuse? Charleston State University? North Virginia?

I think my check got there yesterday: 2 upper level tix for a total of $905.00. This will be my third year of season tix; I requested lower level tix in the new arena but they all sold out. I was shocked, but happy for SLU and all of the pointholders that got better seats than me. As far as the schedule, I am mostly interested- almost completely, actually- in the conference season anyway and so I don't care whether we play MSU or IL State or UMKC, amongst the Harris Stowe's of the world.

Because Shimmy is gorgeous and in life that gives one at least a few degrees more latitude, minimum. This board is one of the most Women's BBall accomodating of all message boards, even in the face of general enormous apathy.

I laughed out loud.

That is compelling on it's face, but not true in the sense you mean. The City of St. Louis and the metro area are collections of citizens on one hand and government entities on the other. The latter are notoriously bad at predicting economic trends and betting on them and shouldn't do so. They should enact a pro-business agenda which respects small and medium sized businesses actively and behemoths as much as they can. They should increase the freedom of their citizens and limit as much governmental interference as they can, while providing rational services. If you're talking about how the average citizen has not been entrepreneurial enough, you may be right, but AB has zilch to do with it. If they are bought and their corporate face changes, it will impact the average citizen zilch. Perhaps AB rested on it's laurels to be outsized and outflanked by a competitior, but I have no knowledge of that industry.

This is very true. Municipalities are usually dreadful predictors of economic development projects - you guys can probably come up with a huge list of city of StL boondoggles alone- and the Rams were unfortunately sold as some type of massive economic engine, when really they are none at all. That doesn't make them less fun to root for, but I would say they are a net loss for the region in terms of forgone tax relief for actual city residents that would go into real businesses and not subsidized monopolies. The US urban north/northeast has a real problem with conflating it's image with sports, which constantly makes it prone to poor governmental decisions regarding these economic lightweights.

^^^Hilarious.

No. This country is a country of "laws, not men," or so it is said and should be. The fact that men promoted and countenanced slavery against it's universalist founding creed says alot about the potential of men unmoored from the law and with the "best intentions" in mind. It can only be profoundly against the law to redress the crimes of long dead people, against long dead victims, where proxy victims and, by extension, proxy criminals are the adversaries. Also, it is impossible to calibrate a system wherein everybody is brought whole. At least the governemental instrument to do so has not invented yet outside a strictly socialist system where everybody is either very poor or very Swedish. Black Americans have the unenviable position at the bottom of the world mercantilist system- with no significant representation in the world's business class in the manner of Jews, Armenians, or Greeks, etc., so no money in the diaspora. You are neighbors to the richest black African cohort in the world- the same one which is also really poor, relative to all other peoples. We can have, and do have, a limited system of redress based on income inequality. It has had very limited success on it's own and perhaps none at all. We could do "more" but only with the erosion of freedom of some other economic group-namely non-black ethnic groups that drive the majority of this country's economic output and the worlds. That is politically impossible. Beyond impossible.

This, I think is the core idea within most of the affirmative action movement and the like. It actually might work, in some limited way, to decrease the disparity between blacks and all other racial groups, although I have my doubts. Have any of you ever been to Conakry or Dakar? Chaos, Inc. Anyway the interesting point moytoy makes is that there is an explicit acknowledgement that to get to a certain end, we need to act in a distinctly un-American way i.e against the creed of this nation. This would be a devastating phenomenon, not because it was the first time that such acts were done by government, but because those former acts (slavery, company stores, etc) were seen as an evil betrayal of this nations founding creed that all men are created equal. This new discrimination would, somehow be seen as a salutary act, by those who are advocating it, thus being by definition a salutary betrayal of the nation's founding creed- if such a thing could exist. This would be exceedingly dangerous, as it would sanction differential treatment based on whatever notions might be at the whim of the populace at the time and would also retrospectively sanction slavery and other human ills in the name of the end justifying the means. Nobody who has thought this through wants to see such a system implemented

I don't necessarily agree with the sentiments quoted above, in terms of the impossibility of non-blacks making a difference at predominantly African-American schools. In fact, there are not enough black professionals- not even remotely close- available for such a state to exist. I think non-blacks can make a difference and fault is not always laid at the feet of the dominant (white) culture in our society. That being said, the black community, while not monolithic, is far more homogeneous than nearly any racial group- generally poor, single-parented, undereducated, and massively unprepared for a first world economy. It's actually morbidly interesting that African-Americans, who have been residents of this country if not citizens, for far, far longer than most of us, have now been utterly eclipsed by Hispanics as the most influential (numerically) minority, without ever having collectively consolidated the gains expected after the 1960s.

Well, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

My high school Jr. took the test on the same day as RC. I got an email this AM from the ACT. Perhaps the online results were available last week, but it looks like the great majority of people will have been notified by this e-mail or by the snail mail official results, which they'll probably get by Monday.

OT: FYI. ACT scores transmitted today from the April 2008 test. I assume that means RC will know either way and the staff/we will know soon as well.

^^^ This I agree with. I never had much use for Josh either way, after the completely false and pathetic "Josh as Patriarch" story that Miklasz bungled through in his column. But he would be a stud if he came here in the eyes of SLU fans, and he's a bum now that he's going to UK. I think he is NOT a difference maker- emphatically- at UK (as it applies to the SEC in general) but certainly would have helped SLU. There are a ZILLION JH's walking around. He will not be missed.

Nobody bought the family crisis story. Not WIU, not SWIC, not Josh, not the family member in crisis, nobody except for maybe Big Bill Fan and Bernie Miklasz. Go back to the thread about Bernie's Saturday morning 'expose' on Harrelson, read it again, and laugh away- like I did that morning. Who the hell is Josh Harrelson anyway? Believe me, you won't here much about him in the coming years.

Sam Smith, the NBA guru for the Sporting News Radio Network said basically the same thing, though slighly more politic, either this AM or yesterday. One is actually forced (!) to root hard for Kobe and the Lakers. Gulp.

That's simply an asinine comment. Asinine. There is no coach, anywhere, worth a damn who plays a style that overrides personnel. If Derek Kellog wants to run and gun with one or two passes / posession and do it when he has a dip in talent, I hope he loses 20 games. Hell, I hope UMass loses 20 games anyway. Asinine.

Why are you arguing this endlessly? Ugh. There's no dishonor in not liking RM. Lord knows, he's only likable to the desperate. "Master tactician" we shall see. I don't believe in the species.

Having lived in Cleveland for six years in the 1990's, I can offer some insight into CSU basketball. It has historically, like SLU, been considered a potentially much better program than it always is in the present (save for the years about CSU discussed above). CSU also, interestingly, hired a coaching legend- Rollie Massimino- to bring the program to the promised land during that same time period. It, of course, didn't work as I think they are on their second or third successor to him. The basic idea is that these large Midwestern urban zones produce enough good hoops talent to keep a team at or near the top of their mid major conferences. While that may or may not be true, it seems like they never CAN generally keep upper level talent consistently home and/or that talent is overrated/ academically limited, etc. etc. SLU, by comparison, though, is a much better potential place given the far greater interest in the program i.e. yearly attendance figures (no Cavaliers to compete with), we have our new arena today (they have had a nice facility for probably 20 years), and the beautiful SLU campus is much nicer (if that is any factor at all in a recruit's decision). Congrats to Josh, though.