RUBillsFan

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.

Sometimes Ash does some pretty awesome/amazing things that make you wonder why he doesn't dominate most games.

On TV it doesn't look nearly as sparse as I expected for a weekday afternoon game.

I'd still blame him. A minimal amount of prep work would be reading through those things and then peaking at the schedule to fix it. The original mistake by SLU is bad, but not finding it in advance shows how little Gus does besides show up, read his script, and wing it.

IMO San Diego State is the best team to watch that could hold an opponent below 20. They play at a slow pace, are excellent on D, and aren't great on offense. There are a few other teams in the MWC that are pretty bad and play at a slow pace that are candidates such as Nevada, Wyoming, and Air Force.

This is why I'm not so sure about including teams playing Kentucky. Kentucky plays at a faster pace (although looking at the #s not as fast as I would assume) and these games are going to be extreme blow outs. I can't imagine the pace being slow enough, a lack of fouls, and Kentucky keeping their D intense enough for an opponent to score less than 20.

Analyzing SLU's 20 point game made me realize that there are a few factors we should consider when looking for a game that has potential. 1. Obviously a lack of 1st half scoring a good indicator, we've already been tracking that here. 2. Lack of fouls called in a low scoring game should also be watched. Less fouls = clock running more & less FT opportunities. 3. Relatively close games should be watched more closely than complete blowouts. I'd imagine a game that is with 20-25 points has more potential to remain low scoring than a game that is 52 to 7 or something. 4. Winning teams # of players used. If the winning team goes to it's bench warmers early rather than keeping the starters out there, you've got more potential for points to pile up. 5. Presence of "black holes" (see Dwayne Polk above), guys who are eating big minutes for the losing team, but contributing next to nothing in the box score in terms of shot attempts or rebounds.

Yeah. That GW game had a lot of elements that contributed to the low scoring and a lot of things break the wrong way for the Billikens. Here is the box score for anyone wanting to re-live the horror: http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=280100045 -There were a total of 21 fouls called in the game (8 on SLU, 13 on GW). Granted GW's zone probably contributed to the lack of fouls and maybe in a blowout game refs swallowed their whistles a bit to get home earlier. Still I have believe that with today's freedom of motion rules more fouls would have been called. This year's season low # of fouls for an opponent is 16 (twice). To only have 8 fouls called on a team seems extraordinary. The low # of fouls on SLU prevented the clock from stopping late in the game that would have given them more opportunities to score. -Kevin Lisch & Tommie Liddell III went a combined 2-21 (9.5%) from the floor. Two 1,500+ point scorers who rank #6 and #8 on the career scoring list combined for only 4 points on less than 10% shooting. Lisch shot around 40% from 3 for his career and went 0-5 in this game. -Freshman (supposed to be walk-on) Paul Eckerle took 8 shots (1-8) and played 19 minutes. Senior Dwayne Polk took 1 shot (0-1) and played 21 minutes. 6 of Eckerle's shots were 3 pointers and I wonder how many of those were at the end of the shot clock. That senior Polk only took 1 shot (a 3 pointer) while a freshman took 8 in less minutes tells me that at this point he had either given up or was afraid to shoot (because of not understanding Majerus offense, having been such a black hole on offense in his previous years, or a combination). -Polk also only grabbed 1 rebound in a game with a ton of misses (Lisch had 6 rebounds). You can probably glean a lot from the effort players put in based on rebound per minute totals. Tommie (normally an excellent rebounder) & Polk combined for 4 rebounds in 57 minutes. Lisch, Eberhardt, & Husak combined for 18 in 70 minutes. -GW blocked 11 shots. SLU blocked 0. This goes back a bit to the low # of fouls. I wonder how much contact there was on some of those GW blocked shots. -In the last 3 minutes of the game, the only Billikens mentioned in the play by play are Anthony Mitchell and Adam Knollmeyer. The roster was pretty much a wasteland in terms of talent outside of Lisch & Liddell. In those 3 minutes, SLU only attempted 1 field goal. SLU didn't attempt to speed the game up and chuck up some shots and/or GW continued to play tight D. -In a game they were winning 25-7 at half, 38-10 with 10 minutes to go, and 47-16 with 4 minutes left, GW still basically played 7 guys the entire game. 4 of their starters played 30+ minutes. They played 11 guys total, but the bottom 4 had 7, 4, 2, and 1 minutes played respectively. A lot of these games with a low scoring 1st half wind up with much more scoring the 2nd half because the winning team (understandably) lets up a bit in a blowout situation. The coach subs in some bench warmers or the starters play lax D and focus more on offense. I suppose it reflects well on Hobbs that he kept his guys focused, but shows poor sportsmanship not to play the bench warmers much. Seems like this was a case where Hobbs wanted the record and Majerus didn't care / wanted to prove a point (or more likely didn't realize it was a record). Mix in a few guys under a new coach who had either "checked out" a bit or were afraid to shoot (Polk & Liddell), a bad shooting game from Lisch, several guys who had no business playing extensively at the D-1 level (Knollmeyer, A. Mitchell, Peyton Jacks, Eckerle) and officials who were "letting them play" and there is your recipe for a 20 point game.

I'm too young to really remember Grawer, but in my opinion a good way to judge his contribution to the program is to look at winning percentages compared to his predecessors: The 3 coaches before Grawer (Albrecht, Coleman, & Ekker) coached a combined 8 years. They had a combined 76 wins and 138 losses for a winning percentage of 35.5%. Grawer then coached 10 years and went 159-149 for a 51.6% winning percentage. This was a whopping 45.3% improvement over the dregs before him. Spoon took over for Grawer and went 122-90 over 7 years, 57.5 winning %, only an 11.4% improvement over Grawer. Brad look the program down a notch over his 5 years, but still had a 51.9 winning %. Majerus (95-68 over 5 years, 58.3 winning %) improved by 12.3%. Even Eddie Hickey wasn't taking a huge leap ahead of his predecessors (Duford & Flanigan) who went 42-25 over 3 years, 62.7 winning %. Hickey was 211-89 over 11 years, 70.3 winning %, 12.1% improvement. The winning percentages actually dropped under Bennington and Romar compared to their predecessors (Spoon & Hickey, respectively). Even if you look at the raw difference instead of % improvement, Grawer still wins at +16.1 (Hickey: +7.6, Majerus: +6.4, Spoon: +5.9). Obviously this analysis isn't perfect nor am I purporting that it means Grawer was the best coach. It certainly may be easier to take a team from bad to average than average to good. However, being too young to remember, I still find it kind of stunning to look back at how truly awful the Billikens were before Grawer.

I think it has been rumored that Rotnei was interested in SLU, but Mike Anderson put SLU on the list of schools that Rotnei was not allowed to transfer to.

I can agree with this. The comparison to completely worthless Justin Johnson rankled. No one deserves that.

I'm not saying I necessarily want an extra year of Grandy, but I think you are short selling Grandy quite a bit by comparing him to Justin Johnson or Husak. Justin Johnson was truly worthless. Never in 4 years did have average more than 2.9 ppg or 2.7 rpg. He played 98)(!) games scored just 230 points shooting 41% from the floor, grabbed just 211 rebounds and had only 18 blocks. He also played on pretty mediocre teams. Husak was a bit better. After 3 awful years, he had a mediocre senior year where he averaged 5.5 ppg and 4.3 rpg while blocking 32 shots. In total Husak played 84 games, scored 250 points on 49% shooting, grabbed 218 rebounds, and blocked 59 shots. Husak's teams were also bad and perhaps worse than Johnson's. It has also been reported that Bryce was one of the nicest guys ever if that gets him any sympathy. Glaze meanwhile maxed out at 3.8 ppg and 4.5 rpg last year. In total he has played 68 games, scored 209 points on 48% shooting, grabbed 223 rebounds, and blocked 13 shots. Grandy also did this for 3 NCAA tournament teams. None of the 3 contributed much to speak of in terms of assists or steals (though Grandy's #s look best) and all were mediocre to poor FT shooters. Aside from Husak's ability to block shots his Sr year, neither he nor Johnson contributed anything to bad teams. Grandy's rebounding was a much greater contribution than anything either of those guys did. Grandy was/is a useful piece as an energy guy who can rebound on a team that has other guys who can score. If you are generous, you can probably make an argument that without the shoulder injury his numbers would have been better. I don't recall any such injuries limiting Johnson or Husak. I won't touch on Manning other than to say that his only contribution like Husak is blocked shots. Grandy was a better rebounder and scorer despite giving up 5 or 6 inches. Semi OT: Researching this post has made me realize that Justin Johnson might take the crown for the worst player in Billiken history to have gotten any decent amount of playing time. This may be a good topic for an off-season thread if anyone is feeling masochistic.

Very tough to narrow it down to only 5 players. Maybe they should have gone with 1st, 2nd, & 3rd teams? I could have gone a million different ways, but voted Macauley, Bonner, Ferry, Claggett & Highmark. Claggs & Highmark are probably the hardest to justify, but my 8 year old self wouldn't allow me to not vote for them. I voted Grawer based on your suggestion. Tough to choose between Hickey, Majerus, Grawer & Spoon. Hickey probably has the best argument on paper in terms of success. My 8 year old self wants to vote Spoon. Majerus is coach I would choose right now if I wanted to win. As you pointed out Grawer probably meant the most to the program.

OT for sure, but more interesting stuff from former Billiken Redditt Hudson. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/i-was-a-st-louis-cop-my-peers-were-racist-and-violent-and-theres-only-one-fix/

I'm grateful that we're actually 3-1!

Despite posting a comment in the last several pages, I am on board with this.

Not sure if this is a joke or not. I don't think 2018 is necessary yet. 2018 would be HS freshman who have barely played at the HS level yet if at all. I think we started the 2016 recruiting thread so early mainly because of Tatum. Unless 2018 has a potential lottery pick that is closely connected to SLU, I think it can wait til spring.

I'm in agreement with hsmith19's comments here. -One could easily classify Sharpton as a racebaiter or profiteer, but he's not the reason people are protesting. Most of the people protesting don't care about Sharpton and consider him irrelevant. Nothing he says can calm or incite these people. -There are certainly out of town communists who are causing problems. I don't think they are the only outside group and they certainly aren't the only ones causing trouble. However, they are here and have bad intentions. Here are some articles about it: http://themissouritorch.com/blog/2014/08/17/meet-greg-joey-johnson-an-opportunistic-communist-revolutionary-agitating-in-ferguson-video/ http://themissouritorch.com/blog/2014/08/19/antonio-french-catches-communist-agitators-including-greg-joey-johnson-arguing-with-other-protestors-video/ http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/press-ferguson Now, I know the Missouri Torch is probably not a very reputable news source. However, the fact that the managing editor of the St. Louis American (about as far away from the MO Torch as you can get) is also acknowledging the presence of these outside communist agitators tells you that these people are here and that they suck at life. Apparently these people are now handing out inflammatory flyers near SLU (http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/20212/). -If you aren't in Ferguson, Clayton, downtown, and I'll add the Shaw neighborhood, you are likely perfectly safe. You should still prepare in whatever way you deem necessary, but please refrain from spreading fear & rumors. Given the fact that that law enforcement has had months to prepare, I will be sorely disappointed if things get near as bad as the days immediately following MB's death. To tie this back to the game on Sunday, I'm not worried at all about violence erupting on SLU's campus on a Sunday afternoon. Anything bad is likely to happen at night. Protests during the day will be more organized and focused at a specific target (Ferguson PD or McCulloch's office). The only qualms I would have about going to the game Sunday if the GJ announcement is made would be travel related if a Hwy is blocked. However, there are multiple different ways to get to/from SLU & I'm fairly adept at all of them, so I doubt anyone could prevent me from getting there.

I think you can attribute the lack of fast break points to guys not being familiar with one another. Orchestrating a fast break requires guys to be on the same page while running full speed. Like you, I'm expecting us to run more as the season goes on.

Bummer that it is during the week or I might try to make the trek.