RUBillsFan

4 turnovers early for SLU. They need to take better care of the ball.

Now 9 - 6 Richmond after BE nailed 2 fts and the Spiders came back with a 3.

6 - 2 richmond with 16:30 to go. Foul on BE.

here is the link to the Richmond radio feed: http://www.espn950am.com/ I have a feeling this is the only way I'll be able to follow the game.

K. Mitchell is currently tied for 4th among SLU freshman in assists. He has a good chance of making it to 1st. 1. Kevin Williams -- 106 2. Josh Fisher -- 89 3. Carlos McCauley -- 83 4. Julian Winfield -- 80 4. Kwamain Mitchell -- 80 6. Dwayne Polk -- 78 He is also 9th in 3pts made as a freshman. He will probably finish at 7 or 8, maybe 6. 1. Kevin Lisch --58 2. Virgel Cobbin -- 57 3. Scott Highmark --52 4. Larry Hughes --42 4. Vincent Smith --42 6. Anthony Drejaj -- 37 7. Erwin Claggett -- 34 8. Jamall Walker -- 26 9. Kwamain Mitchell -- 23 10. Paul Eckerle -- 22 11. Dwayne Polk -- 20 Willie Reed is tied for 4th on the list of most blocks for a freshman. No shot at #1, but he has an outside chance at #2. Brett Thompson should also crack the top 10 list. 1. Melvin Robinson --51 2. Matt Baniak -- 32 3. Darryl Anderson -- 31 4. Tommie Liddell III - 18 4. Willie Reed -- 18 ... 10. 3 way tie -- 11 13. Brett Thompson -- 10 Both Conklin and Reed will likely crack the top 10 in rebounds soon with 98 and 95 respectively. Tony Brown is currently 10th with 104. They could climb as high as #8 and #9 by season's end if they get to 134. Kwamain could work his way into the top 10 in steals as well. He has 25 now and needs to get to 29 to work his way into a 3 way tie with Tommie and Jamall Walker. He could finish as high at 4th if he gets to 36.

Thompson is contributing to the team even by not playing. He contributes in practice and that is where he is going to develop. The team practices everyday and they only play a game once or twice a week. A lot of learning and developing happens in practice. Further, if he were to play against quicker teams and get ran around b/c he is too slow, that would be bad for the team and he would be contributing nothing. Also he would probably lose "confidence" rather and gain it. I think Majerus is doing a good job with Brett right now by only playing him when he has the best chance to match up well and contribute the most.

I think other team's being familiar with Kevin and Tommie now and having a very detailed scouting report on them has something to do with it as well. When they were freshmen and sophs teams hadn't learned how to play them defensively yet. Now the book is well read on what to do to stop Kevin and Tommie. I seem to remember hearing about how with Tommie if he went left he was driving and right he was going to shoot. I'm not sure if this is still always the case, but teams pick up on players tendencies and both of theirs are well known at this point. Obviously if players are able to adjust or defenses can't execute properly than these are moot points, but this year it seems teams just know how to play them defensively and they haven't adjusted well.

I going to make a crazy prediction that Brett Thompson get the most minutes he has gotten all year going against 7-1 Luke Bonner and he makes the most of the opportunity with a double-double (12 points, 10 rebounds). SLU 68 UMASS 63

An A-10 - Horizon League challenge might not be too bad. Playing Butler, UW-Milwakee, or Cleveland St. certainly beats playing UMBC or NC A&T. I also would not mind seeing an A-10 - CUSA challenge. I don't think either would ever happen though.

Based on his weight, I don't think that Ellis would be quick enough to play the 3.

I see next years starting lineup being 1 - Kwamain 2 - Salecich 3 - Reid 4 - Conklin 5 - Reed (possibly Thompson if he puts in the work over the summer) Ellis would be the first big off the bench and could potentially take Conklin's starting spot if he improves. Cassity would be the first guard off the bench. I'll try my hand as ranking the incoming class as well with very little knowledge of them at all. I'm going to go Reid, Ellis, Salecich, Smith, Remekun for 1st year production. I think Smith may be potentially the best in the long run b/c apparently he is the best athlete.

I get your point and agree with you, but I just wanted to correct something. We have 5 freshman coming in (Reid, Salecich, Remekun, Smith, and now Ellis). Remekun will probably red shirt. That gives us with 11 players (including PE) not 10.

I understand that it is better to have a balance of Fr, So, Jr, Sr on the roster, but I really hate having open scholarships. It drove me crazy when Brad "saved" scholarships and our teams had no depth. As we've seen this year with Cotto quitting unforeseen things can happen that cut down on your depth and open up scholarships. Therefore, I think its better to have all of them filled and go from there It seems to me that the best approach would be to try to find Eckerle type players rather than hold a scholarship open. That way the Bills would at least have some kind of depth and bodies for practice, but they would not have to worry about all the scholarships being bunched up, because it would be understood that the player is only there for one year. It seems like a forgone conclusion that Daniel Lisch will be gone next year, but I'd rather have him taking up a scholarship than just leaving it open.

It has been said that Salecich can play the point as well. As long as Mitchell is healthy I don't think there is a problem. He will likely be playing big minutes next year and the backup will only have to spell him for short stretches. Now if he gets hurt there would be a big problem, but you could say that about any position if the starter gets hurt.

I've noticed that SLU's freshman inexplicably shrunk from their heights listed on scout.com to their current heights on SLU's official roster. Player / Scout.com height / SLU's roster height Kyle Cassity / 6-5 / 6-3 Brian Conklin / 6-8 / 6-6 Femi John / 6-4 / 6-2 Kwamain Mitchell / 6-1 / 5-10 Willie Reed / 6-11 / 6-9 Brett Thompson / 7-0 / 6-10 It seems that all of them lost about 2 inches from HS to college. Is this a case of their HS heigh being fudged upward or college heigh fudged down or a little of both? I does not appear to be a trend because here are previous year's heights at scout and on last year's official roster. Marcus Relphorde / 6-7 / 6-7 Anthony Mitchell / 6-5 / 6-4 Dustin Macguire / 6-5 / 6-5 Adam Knollmeyer / 6-8 / 6-9 I also noticed that between last year's official roster and this year's Barry Eberhardt has shrunk from 6-7 tp 6-6.

Ian played in 110 games during his career and had a total of 135 blocks which is good for 1.22 blocks per game. Now Willie has 13 blocks in 13 games for 1.0 block per game. However, his freshman year Ian had just 0.14 blocks per game. Therefore, I think Willie is well on his way. Now Melvin Robinson who is #2 on the blocks list had 127 in just 69 games for 1.84 each game. Therefore, he was obviously a better shot blocker than Ian. I used this site (http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/saint-louis/ian-vouyoukas) to find some of the info and compiled other info.

I've been doing some looking into the record books and trying to compile more comprehensive lists than those in the media guide. After pistols numbers the list goes... 23. Jeff Harris 1,037 24. Bob Cole 1,018 Then as far as I can tell (with limited access to statistics going back past '82) 25 (tie). Donnie Dobbs 965 25 (tie). Josh Fisher 965 27. Justin Love 931 28. Rich Niemann 928 29. Harold Alcorn 910 30. Quitman Dillard 851

Porter's official title is not assistant coach, head assistant coach, or assistant head coach; it's "associate head coach". The different titles may be meaningless, but I believe he will take over when Rick decides to hang it up.

Among other recent players, Josh Fisher just missed with 965 career points. He probably could have broken 1000, but was more about giving others opportunities to score as he leads the Bills all time in assists with 436. Still 5 out of 22 players in the "recent" period is just under 23% meanwhile the list goes back to a player who played 60 years ago. Therefore 23% of the players on the list have come from the "recent" period which is only 16.7% of the list's history. I would say that it says more about the overall state of the program then the recent state. The fact that the Bills only have 24 guys who have scored over 1000 points is sort of disappointing. Another fun thing is to predict where the current freshman could finish on the scoring list or other lists (assuming they all stick around). I think Kwmain, Conklin, and Willie all have potential to break 1000 points. Willie or Brett could probably break Ian Vouyoukas's all time record for blocks at 135. Kwmain probably has a shot at Fisher's assist record or maybe Bonner's steals record of 192. Conklin and/or Thompson could get pretty high up on the rebound list as well.

I didn't read any of the posts in this thread as though they were talking about pulling scholarships. I think rather they are talking about situations where you have player at say PF who is starting and then you recruit another PF who steps in and starts. IMO this is completely acceptable. Take UNC for example, Bobby Frasor started at PG as a freshman and the team went to the tournament. Then Roy Williams brought in Ty Lawson who took Frasor's starting PG job. Basically if you have good players with good attitudes these things work out because they are willing to accept a lesser role to better the team. Also usually when kids aren't happy about losing playing time or a starting job they transfer which is their own decision.

According to this site http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/saint-louis/rank , the last time SLU was ranked in the FINAL AP poll as #24 at the end of the 93-94 season. As far as being ranked during the season, I'm not sure. When was the last time we even got any votes?

Lisch made both FTs. 56-52 Bills win.

54-52 bills. Bills trying to inbound with 5 seconds left. Now Lisch to the line with 3 seconds left.

52-50 bills. Kevin at the line with 12 seconds left.

We're gonna need someone (read: Lisch) to nail some threes against the zone.