RUBillsFan

Interesting that you could make a good argument that Ford best "coaching jobs" in terms of available talent / depth would be years that he was forced to play a limited rotation because of injuries and...er...other circumstances. He couldn't necessarily have a quick hook because there wasn't anyone else available. 2017-18 team finished tied for 5th in the A10 despite losing several players who were expected to be major contributors after situation 2.0. This team played 7 players most with Rashed Anthony on very limited minutes. 2018-19 team finished strong after the departure of Gordon & nagging injuries to Wiley, Jacobs, & Hankton limited the rotation to just 6 players. 2019-20 team finished strong after losing Thatch to illness & Jimerson to injury.

My expose on Jalen Johnsons last year is some of my finest work on Billikens.com

You struggled through Ekker, the end of the Grawer years, middle Sodie years, early Majerus years, later Crew & early Ford years, but you are deciding that NOW is the time to stop going to games? That is crazy. This team is disappointing compared to expectations, but it is still a well above the average Billiken team of the last 40+ years. It also has some wildly entertaining individual players / skillsets (Yuri - passing, Jimerson - shooting, Hargrove - dunks/athleticism, etc.) & plays at a decently fast / entertaining pace compared to Billiken teams of the past (see Sodie era). I totally get being frustrated & disappointed. I get that leads to less enjoyment of the games. I just don't see why after putting up with Billiken fandom for so long you'd choose now to give up.

You never addressed my post earlier where I pointed out that playing off-ball at SLU HAS helped him be more successful in the NBA. I'll also just leave this here. This is Goodwin's 3pt % during his SLU career: Freshman: 23.5% Sophomore: 26.3% Junior: 28.2% Senior 31.4% He's improved his shooting even more in the G-League & NBA, but that undoubtedly started at SLU. Goodwin is a guy whose primary asset is effort. SLU/Ford certainly didn't give him the motor. That's all him. However, saying that his NBA success is ALL him and no credit to Ford is crazy. You can try to argue a different coach would have better prepared him, but there is really no good way to determine if that's true.

Yep. Totally glossed over him / didn't even check the SLU teams because I had it in my head that Rickma didn't have an NBAer at SLU. Will edit my post accordingly.

We have more data than just their time at SLU though: Travis Ford (8 NBA players in 23 season coached): Jordan Goodwin (SLU) Jawun Evans (OK State) Marcus Smart (OK State) Markel Brown (OK State) James Anderson (OK State) Terrel Harris (OK State) Gary Forbes (UMass) Stephane Lasme (UMass) Rick Majerus (10 NBA players in 25 seasons coached): Willie Reed (SLU) Andrew Bogut (Utah) Britton Johnsen (Utah) Lance Allred (Utah) Hanno Mottola (Utah) Andre Miller (Utah) Michael Doleac (Utah) Keith Van Horn (Utah) Josh Grant (Utah) Tom Copa (Marquette) Not much of a difference overall. I'm not sure you can argue having Majerus or Ford as you college coach makes it more likely for you to get to the NBA.

NBA teams often have multiple guys handling the ball. A guy who is billed as the "point guard" in an NBA lineup is often times not the primary ball handler especially on a team with Bradley Beal. Goodwin learning to play off-ball at SLU was a positive for his NBA development even if it may have hindered his ability to put up eye popping stat lines that may have gotten him drafted instead of having to go the G League route.

I'm not sure if this has been posted here, but it gave me a much needed laugh after last night's debacle. Make sure to check who specifically who replied here. Can't get the link to work, so I'm positing as a picture: Only thing more hilarious would be for one of Jett, Evans, McCall, etc. to have replied with Jim Crews

I think when it was originally announced there was speculation that it would be played in Brooklyn or MSG because Iona had previously played a lot of non-conference games against bigger opponents away from their home arena. It was never officially announced as such, just speculation. When the schedule for this season dropped, it was always going to be at Iona. Doesn't SLU have a decent size alumni base in NY? Kind of a bummer for them that they don't get a game at a larger venue, but if they have a decent sized crowd in a 2,500 seat gym maybe they can have an impact?

Love how this entire discussion was basically rendered moot because Japan lost to Croatia and Spain lost to Morocco. Didn't see that coming.

Looking at the numbers Slazinski isn't really an inside presence. Last year he shot 106 3 pointers at 34% and 134 2 pointers at 40%. This season he's at 14 3s at 36% and 16 2s at 44%. Nelly Junior Joseph is their inside guy. 6'9" 240. Almost never shoots 3s. Okoro and Forrester need to make him work and/or get him in foul trouble. Their other inside guys are 7 footers (a senior & freshman) who don't play much. Refs calling this game tight especially on the perimeter would be really beneficial for SLU. They are a Pitino coached team, so we know they'll be pressing / clutching & grabbing. They have a big drop off on offense if we get some starters in foul trouble.

Danny Mac is a phenomenal baseball announcer & really great at basketball too. Seems like a nice dude, but clearly struggling with alcohol issues. Really sucks because it seemed like he turned things around after the 2nd time. He absolutely needs to face real consequences this go around instead of just a slap on the wrist and the possibility of losing his job. Cardinals, SLU & Ballys need cut him loose. He should do jail time. Hope he gets his life together after. Crappy way to get the job, but I hope Colin Suhre gets call to do play by play alongside Highmark. He’s young & needs polish, but the effort is clearly there & I think he’s got potential to be really good. Working alongside a guy like Highmark who has a lot of experience would be good for him.

I don't think 1 more loss is fatal to at-large hopes, but right now it probably means we have to go 15-3 or better in A-10 play which seems highly unlikely. What really sucks is that this shouldn't be the case. At the beginning of the season, if you told me SLU went 10-3 in non-conference, that's probably what I would have expected & would assume they're in good shape for an NCAA bid. Most of the rest of the expected top half A-10 teams (Dayton, VCU, Loyola, Davidson, Richmond, Mason, Rhody) all underperforming has killed SLU's margin for error despite SLU pretty much being as expected as far.

I do expect these individual A10 rankings to change wildly from now to February and especially by the end of the season. What worries me, however, is that there isn't as much time left for the A-10 to improve the rankings in aggregate. All A-10 teams have played between 7 and 9 games so far. I'm assuming that means they've got anywhere from 3 to 6 games left on their non-conference schedules. SLU has played 9 and has 4 left. Once non-conference play is over, there is very little A-10 can do to improve the league's ranking as a whole. The only movement would come from how nonconference opponents fare the rest of the season. As A-10 teams beat up on each other during conference play, one team goes up and another goes down, but as a whole it doesn't change. This is very bad for SLU because they are ahead of the pack by a good margin and in the NCAA bubble range so any slips losing or underperforming against lower ranked teams could cause them to miss the tournament. Next 3 games are huge for establishing SLU as a firm NCAA team so that the inevitable stinker or 2 during A10 play won't sink our NCAA at-large hopes.

Perk was using the band thing at halftime of Paul Quinn as well.

Nice crew of former players and staff on hand to honor Coach Majerus Since Adam Knollmeyer wish one of the former players in the photo I’m legally obligated to also post this:

Jett & McCall going to be in the house today!!!

FIFA rankings are in parentheses below. Obviously these rankings are flawed, but it seems clear to me Spain's path is easier. Up for debate if they purposefully engineered it or not. Avoiding Brazil in the quarters is a pretty big boost to their ability to make a deeper run. Japan's(24) most likely path is now Croatia(12), Brazil(1), Argentina(3), then France(4) or England(5) in the final. Spain(7) has Morocco(22), Portugal(9), England(4) or France(5), and then Brazil(1) or Argentina(3) in the final. Germany(11, but under ranked IMO) being eliminated is pretty big as well because they were a title contender that Spain now doesn't have to worry about.

College basketball writer tweeting about the World Cup that fits right into the discussion here. I'm not super knowledgeable about soccer, but the theory here looks sound:

Yuri is up to 11.6 assists per game this year which would be good for 3rd all-time for a single-season.

It'll be really interesting to see what happens with Goodwin's playing time when Delon Wright comes back from injury in a few weeks. In my biased opinion, he's played well enough that he should continue getting regular minutes even ahead of Wright, Monte Morris and Will Barton. However, the Wizards may not want to sign Goodwin to a regular contract until they have to (last day of regular season to be playoff eligible & that's assuming the Wizards make the playoffs). Therefore, they may use Wright's return to give Goodwin more off days (or a stint in the G-League) so they don't exceed the 50 games he is able to play on his 2 way contract. He's already at 14 games (out of 21 team games). He's played in 12 of the last 13 with the only one missed due to injury.

You are giving Mizzou too much credit here with their schedule. KenPom has their current non-conference SOS as 361st in the nation. That's 3rd from the bottom as KenPom lists 363 teams.

You’re seeing something I’m not with Parker & assists. He only has 2 assists all year. 1 came in the game last night. There was one play in particular where Forrester was wide open under the basket and Parker didn’t see him. Even on the coast to coast slam, he had Jimerson open in the corner & called his own number instead. He’s a scorer first & has shown flashes of brilliance in scoring the ball. I like having a guy like that though. Microwave bench scorer. There was a play toward the end of the game where Parker passed to Cisse and started to cut, motioned to Hughes & Thames as though they weren’t doing the right thing of offense so he got the ball back from Cisse himself & just nailed a decent look from 3 with the shot clock ticking down. That’s what I like from Parker. He was the ability to make something from nothing (for himself) on offense if things don’t go right.

Attendance was announced at 5,343. It felt like more than that in the arena, right? Definitely wasn’t packed, but seemed more than 1/2 full.