RUBillsFan

I followed Zeke (and his dad) on twitter earlier today before an announcement was made, so I'm gonna take full credit here.

No prob. I just searched twitter for "Stallworth" and "SLU". Aside from your excellent updates, searching twitter is my go to source for SLU recruiting news. I assume you do something similar, but I basically do searches like this: Billikens/SLU/Saint Louis/St Louis + 2016/2017/2018 Billikens/SLU/Saint Louis/St Louis + PG/SG/SF/PF Jim Crews Calbert Cheaney Tanner Bronson Billikens/SLU/Saint Louis/St Louis Coach etc. Some are noisier than other, but you can usually just scroll through and there will be some recruiting nuggets in there. The typical recruiting tweet seems to be like this "2016 sg players's name, name of HS, is hearing from SLU/Saint Louis, other colleges". Therefore, you can usually pick them up with those types of searches. Sometimes they'll say something like "Jim Crews was in to see player's name today" so you can pick them up with coaches names sometimes as well. Another decent way to pick out recruits on twitter is to just look at who Tanner Bronson is following. The list of guys he is following usually matches up somewhat with the lists you've put together.

The seeding is based on fan votes not necessarily the talent of the team. Unfortunately, SLU Crew's draw in the bracket isn't great. They have a chance, but it will be tough for them to get past Ants Alumni which is made up of players from an NBA D-League championship team. IMO the most likely result is that they win their 1st game and lose the 2nd. The X factor is that you have no idea how much preparation each of these teams have done. Based on the PD article, we know the SLU Crew has at least practiced together and played pickup games. If they Ants players haven't actually played together since winning the D League, that could be an advantage for SLU Crew. Here is an article about the Grantland team that was fairly loaded and lost. The article makes it sound as though lack of practice was a major factor. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/grantland-the-basketball-tournament/

Rochester 2017 PF Collin Stallworth

In 2014-15 Duke played one true non-conference road game - at Wisconsin. They also played UConn at the Izod Center in NJ, Michigan State in Indianapolis, and a tournament in Brooklyn. In 2013-14 Duke played zero true non-conference road games. They played UCLA in NY, Kansas in Chicago, Elon in Greensboro, NC and a tournament at MSG in NY. In 2012-13 Duke played zero true non-conference road games. They played Kentucky in Atlanta, Temple in NJ, Davidson in Charlotte, and tournament in the Bahamas. After Tatum's last game with Chaminade will likely be his final time playing in St. Louis. Coach K is the master of playing at neutral sites and avoiding road games. I actually wouldn't be shocked if Duke played a neutral site game at the Dome or Scottrade against Kansas or Kentucky or something. Although coach K seems to maybe play these games in cities where he is targeting recruits (Okafor - Chicago) rather than giving his players a chance to go home.

I'm really looking forward to this as a nice distraction.

CBC hired Justin and Jayson stayed at Chaminade. I don't think hiring Justin necessarily lands his son. Most reports are that mom pulls the strings.

Based on the rosters of the 2 teams competing to play Majerus SLU Crew (after their bye), I think it is safe to say that "Houston Live" will advance. The other team "Brick Squad" seems to be composed of mostly players with only HS level experience. Houston Live has a lot of guys who played college ball at the low/mid-major level and a guy named Mike James who went to Duquesne and played in the NBA on and off from 2001 to 2014. He is now 40 years old. Majerus SLU Crew should be able to handle them. A potential match up in the next round with Ants Alumni will be the first real test. Their roster is a lot of high-major guys (some with NBA experience) who apparently played on an NBA D-League championship team together. Very interesting how mismatched some of the 1st and 2nd round games are likely to be. After that most of the teams appear to be at least somewhat on the same level.

Dave Duncan's binders make so much more sense now. Actually, I believe MLB rules prohibit any technology in the dugout beyond the antiquated bullpen phone.

SLU gets VCU today in the tournament at 12:30pm. According to this, it will be streamed for free: http://www.slubillikens.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=27200&ATCLID=210100288

http://www.foxsports.com/midwest/story/majerus-slu-crew-seeks-1-million-prize-and-a-chance-to-honor-their-coach-051515

Do we know for sure this is actually Crews and not a fake account set up by a fan? Ben seems to be indicating that it is actually Crews, but I'm not sure. If it was a fan, nice work. Also, I don't think the whole staff is on twitter because I don't think Jim Platt is on there. For reference: HC Jim Crews - @CoachJimCrews (fake?) AC Jim Platt - ? AC Tanner Bronson - @TannerPBronson AC Calbert Cheaney - @calbertcheaney DBO Charles Nishida - @c_nishida (protected account) PDC Danny Brown - @DniceGoHAM VC Marcus Wilson - @CoachWilson5

Bump for the last day of the auction. It ends at 6pm.

Looks like Willie Reed is also participating in this thing, but he's on a different team: https://www.thetournament.com/teams/teambdb

I thought this was kind of funny given this thread:

If anyone wants to book the Billiken for their kid's birthday part or bid on some other items: http://www.32auctions.com/organizations/13836/auctions/22204?reset_filter=1

They put out a tweet that Jett would be on the team, but he isn't yet listed on the official roster. Not sure if he will be or not. There was also a tweet about former SLU walk on Grant (Gus) Gehlen joining the team.

I'm kind of surprised this isn't getting more play on the board. Jett, McCall, Evans, Danny Brown & others. https://www.thetournament.com/teams/majerus-slu-crew If you haven't already, go register as a fan.

I think this is the problem actually. Stu does only what the PD asks of him in terms of Billiken hoops coverage. He writes up the post game recaps and the requisite number of other articles, but does nothing above that. Unfortunately, he falls very short of providing the kind of coverage that today's media (twitter & blogs) allows for, but might not be required by the PD. Stu certainly could tweet more about the Bills or do blog posts about them. I doubt the PD is stopping him, but because (I'm assuming) they don't require it, he doesn't do it. IMO a young reporter (or perhaps a fanboy *cough* Dave Matter *cough*) who is ambitious would provide this type of coverage without being required. Old sports writers (Stu and to some extend Timmermann) are just going to do what is asked of them in terms of print media and be content with their 5th tier sports reporter status.

IMO Timmermann was much better than Durando has been so far. That says a lot about how terrible Durando has been.

Maybe we could have won in 2012 or 13, but can you imagine if we had lost to Louisville in the tournament 3 years in a row? How much (more) hatred would everyone have for Pitino?

Yep. Arizona had brought along their mascot and maybe even a couple of cheerleaders which I remember thinking was really odd for a road team, but I guess that's what the big boys do. Josh Fisher & Chris Sloan were also key members of that team which was SLU's last NIT team.

I unless my memory is failing me, on December 6, 2003, SLU lost to Arizona by 1 point (68-67) at Scottrade (Savvis?) when Reggie Bryant made a 2 pointer with his foot on the line.