RUBillsFan

Saw this tweet from Darius Austin. Pretty cool that he is wearing a Billikens shirt in the pic. https://twitter.com/DariusAustin23/status/335237103522807809/photo/1

Seems to me that you could turn the Drew situation into a positive. Abell is transferring from IU because he didn't get enough playing time. Crews did not renew Drew's scholarship because he would not be getting any playing time. Rather than waste his whole career sitting on the bench, Crews letting him know that now and sending him elsewhere where he can get playing time. Had Crean been more up front with Abell about his playing time maybe he would have left earlier.

Thanks. I don't think many people read the comments, but I wanted to at least try to put a different perspective out there. I would encourage you to still comment on the article as well. Strength in numbers!

I noticed this to. I think it is the only thing worthwhile in the whole article. The rest of it is just regurgitating what has already been written by others and short-sighted opinions based on one side of the story.

Jared is a fraud. I mean yeah he really did lose the weight, but the legend of him walking to Subway everyday is bogus. He lived in an apartment literally right above the Subway restaurant. Probably the only reason his chose to eat Subway in the first place is because it was so convenient not because he wanted to lose weight.

I know HusakAttack will be devastated, but it appears that Jolly is going to prep school at Blair Academy in NJ: https://twitter.com/B_jjolly/status/334516152082505729 The good news is that he found his way out of the wash basin.

We should start a game called "6 degrees of Valpo" where bbtds has to connect some obscure SLU (or semi-SLU) related topic/person to Valpo.

Here are some random thoughts: -Drew got 1 year of free tuition at SLU which is what was really all that was promised to him when he signed -Now he can choose a new school at which he will receive free tuition and doesn't have a lack of suitors -He likely wouldn't have played much if at all his freshman year anyways, so he not losing a ton of PT by sitting out an additional year -There are 400+ players transferring this year. This is not just a SLU thing. I feel a little bad because it sounds like he wanted to stay, but I'm mostly with Skip on this one.

This is my main concern. This type of thing happens all of the time, but we have no idea how the team will take it. Drew appears to not be taking it very well which is for not good from a Billiken perspective.

I feel for the kid, but the reality is that this type of thing happens all the time with Division I basketball. I'm really shocked that some of the same people who want SLU to be a big time program and were upset with the Crews hire are now upset with this development. I hope/expect that the coaching staff will work hard to help Drew find a new school that is a better fit for him basketball-wise and he goes on to have a successful career. However, I really don't have a problem with the staff deciding that the kid isn't ever going to play and giving him his release if they have better options who will come in and contribute.

Not arguing, it does have a class project vibe to it, but I thought I saw something that the blog would be doing more documentaries on athletes with a St. Louis connection perhaps including Lisch or Conklin.

I watched this a little while back. I know the guy that runs that blog has caught some flack on here for his being a fan of the state school, but he does a pretty good job covering the Billikens and did a nice job overall on the Femi documentary. My one small criticism that I have is that he needs to work on his documentary voice or get someone else to do the narration. His voice just doesn't have that good narrator quality in my opinion.

I would be curious about the terms of the rent-free lease. My guess is that DePaul would not get any of the parking, concession, or other auxiliary revenues associated with the team playing in the United Center. I also wonder how some of the expenses associated with getting the facility read for games and hosting the game would be covered. On first glance, rent-free looks great, but without knowing the specifics, it is impossible to know if it is really a good deal or a lousy deal.

You could make the argument that the folks in Green Bay are even more fanatical about the Packers than St. Louisans are about the Cardinals. I'm not sure if that makes the city more fanatical overall about sports. I think the argument is very difficult because it is subjective. Who is to say that some town out in the boonies where the whole town literally shuts down on a Friday night for a high school football game isn't more fanatical than Boston?

Now I'm not sure if this is a joke or not. I'm guessing by the lack of an emoticon that you are serious which is unfortunate.

I didn't say they don't know who the Cardinals are. I said they barely know who the Cardinals are. Perhaps it is different in the inner city, but I will respectfully disagree with your assessment based on my personal experience with a large group from the county.

Sounds like most people think that taking a recruit to a Cards game is the best option. I can't think of anything better so I'm not arguing. I have some experience with coaching basketball for african-american teens and many of them barely know who are Cardinals are. For example during the playoffs last year, they asked why everyone was wearing red. I do agree that going to a Cardinals game in St. Louis is a big event and I can see how for someone from outside the area it would be very impressive.

Geez. Lighten up! I was clearly joking and I thought the emoticon was an indicator of that.

I don't want to start a huge debate or make a racially charged statement, but is taking a young african-american basketball player to a baseball game the best way to spend time during a recruiting trip? It's not like there are a lot of african-american fans at the games or african-american players (I think Jermaine Curtis is the only one on the Cardinals and he will be sent back to AAA when Adams comes off the DL). Further, I think it is likely that most of these kids whose passion is basketball are probably bored to death with 3+ hours of baseball.

No idea. But given that it is Rob Loe, I'm guessing it's a "soft" cast.

Obviously we've seen crazy things in the past, but I can't see anyone leaving. I can't see any of the rising seniors leaving (McCall, Jett, Evans, Loe, or Barnett). I can't see Glaze leaving as he was a starter and seems really happy. McBroom just transferred to SLU so he's not going anywhere. Drew is coming off a red-shirt year and while we've seen it before with Tselentakis leaving, I don't see him going anywhere. I suppose Manning would be the most likely, but he got decent minutes last year when healthy and has to expect more minutes with Remekun and Ellis graduating. Further evidence Manning is not going anywhere is the fact that he was one of the guys showing Jesperson around on his visit.

I'm starting to wonder if RO is sort of a tease and is really just holding out for a BCS or higher profile type program. He visits SLU and by all accounts has a fantastic visit. Presumably Crews even expected him to sign an LOI on the first day of the signing period because he said he expected 2 signings and Agbeko was the only one who signed. Then RO visists Miami (OH) and has a great visit perhaps even likes it better than SLU if you glean that from Ben's tweet. However, he doesn't commit. Now there are rumors about RO and Pitt despite it seeming like Pitt doesn't have much interest. While I would like to get RO, I am happy that SLU is looking at other options. Hopefully they have made their best pitch to him and now they are "moving on" to others while still leaving RO's offer on the table.

The teaser on Bens story says something about an interview w the family. I'm guessing/hoping he did an interview and wasn't supposed to put it up until after the announcement was made. Then he saw that verbal commits had tanner listed as committed so he made the story live. However tanner hadn't actually announced yet so everything was taken down. If tanner ends up going elsewhere, it's going to be a kick in the junk and Ben better have a damn good explanation or he's losing at least 1 subscriber.

Tanner, Randy, Hakim, Daishon, Jordan, Brett, Achraf, Larry, JP, Sean, Ike, Malek, Ore, another Jordan, Jayson

Yeah, I was being a little dramatic. He is still only a freshman. I generally don't like the trend of coaches making offers to younger and younger kids. It seems kind sleezy to try to recruit a kid who can't even drive. However, it seems to me that this is probably a special situation. SLU offering Tatum at such a young age, imo, is different than Kentucky offering Tatum because #1 his dad played here and #2 he is local.