kmbilliken

She may not want to stick around to take all the heat for the PSLs and increase in ticket prices that will be coming our way.

Those areas are certainly substandard, but would largely become nonissues if we put out a top rate team. The seats will be filled and publicity will follow.

If nothing else, maybe he'll at least make Boiondi aware of the upgrades necessary for this program to have a better chance to compete.

I agree. If we can't get RM do a real search and come up with the best guy for the job. I don't think that's FF. If you can't get RM or Gillen find the best up and comer that will take the job.

I'd love to have him, but I hope they're actively pursuing other options. He's been too close with other jobs and backed off to put all your eggs in that basket.

We probably won't know the exact scenerio for a long time , if ever. I can't imagine Biondi or Levick giving much more detail than they already have, that they did a thorough evaluation of the program and felt a change was in the best interest of the program. When pressed about whether it was recruitng, not getting to the tournament or that the university may be able to hire a better coach, I imagine they'll respond that all those things were considered.

ok, one in 5 years, kudos to Brad.

I don't recall him having any other offers. Who did Brad beat out for him?

Brad was always positive about recruiting, but he rarely delivered. He never won a recruitng battle for a nonlocal kid. In five years he convinced two highly regarded kids to stay close to home, three if you include Meyer. There was no indication that was going to change.

I hope they're not pulling a Brad and spending too much shooting for the stars and not enough time working on the attainable candidates.

It never hurts to find out what outsiders perspctives are of your program. Gillen is a knowledgable guy who has been in two similar jobs. He could provide good insight. I've got no problem with the meeting. If during the course of it he tells her I could turn it around, I've got no problem with that either.

Those are legitimate concerns for any coach taking this job. I remember Kevin Stallings say one of the most important things to him is coming up with good salaries to hire good assistants, something SLU wasn't willing to do. Cutting Cheryl out of the loop was stupid. Biondi's autocratic style may cost him here.

Maybe somebody told him we didn't make the NCAA tournament?

Did Brad meet with Boindi? I thought Cheryl delivered the message.

If thorpe is the head coach next season I'll take my brick back. Hmmmm....what could I do with a Billiken brick???

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

In the past I always recall there being a search committee to hire a new coach. Has anyone heard any rumblings about putting one together or is this going to be a committee of one?

How can you think Alexander was going to come here? We've been on him since last fall and he never committed. Illinois pops up in the last few weeks and suddenly they're a favorite. When did Brad ever win a recruiting battle for a kid from out of the area? Never. Alexander had visions of big time and we were just a backup. The only recruiting battles Brad won were for local kids that wanted to play close to home. The rest were all other programs discards, damaged goods or players no one else was interested in taking. Many gambles of which only a few paid off. Regarding the 08 class Brad would in all likelihood followed his prior MO and chased the big boys until it was too late, miss them and be stuck with 3rd tier guys. Face it, the guy was the worst recruiter we've ever had and it cost him his job.

AJ When I first heard the news I figured the perception on Cheryl's part would have been the opposite, that there would be no additional signings and Brad blew his last chance to save his job. I still doubt there would have been any, just by his track record. If your theory is correct why keep him around this long? Why not terminate a month ago? Did it take that long for the boosters to get to Biondi? Maybe the report on the status of the baketball program sat on his desk for a month and he just read it on the plane to New York so he calls Cheryl and says fire him.

Don't you think Biondi's going to tell Cheryl to go out and find the guy that's going to lead us to the promised land. Here's your budget, $450,000 a year. That's a $50,000 raise over Soderberg. Now go get it done.

Look at Brad's track record. He wasn't going to land any of these guys. He's never won a recruiting battle for any nonlocal guys. All he's managed to do in five year's is get a couple a very good players that wanted to play close to home to stay home. Besides Kramer why would you expect him to have a better success rate with the 08 class. Sure, he might have lande a couple of 2nd or 3rd tier local kids, but that wasn't going to cut it. His firing was only a year away at the most.

Come on? You think Brad was actually going to land those recruits? You think there was a chance Pettigrew was going to choose SLU over Xavier? Alexander was going to choose us over Illinois? This is Brad we're talking about. He never won tough recruiting battles. Lisch and Liddell were the only exceptions and we won those because they wanted to stay close to home. He never won battles for players from outside the area. In five years he managed to get three good players(including Meyer here)in a major metropolitan area to stay home and play local. The timing is awful and the way it's being managed is embarrassing, but if it didn't happen in three weeks we would have sitting here with two recruits in hand talking about why we finished in second place with the rest of our potential recruits and hoping the fact we then would have 7 scholarships for the fall would allow Brad to pull off a recruiting coup in the fall and carry us to the big time. It wasn't going to happen. He couldn't land any when he had two open last fall signing period. He landed two when he had five open in this spring. More dissapointment was on the way for the fall. This firing was going to happen next year if it wasn't done now. Even though Biondi created a public relations disaster, the good news is we now have a shot to bring someone in that may be able to pull in some good local recuits out of the upcoming class that is supposedly loaded. The biggest danger here is Levick will start to look elsewhere for a job. She's too good to put up with Bioni's stunts.

Bernie is usually clueless when it comes to Billiken basketball. If it was the big boosters that pulled this string I hope they're going to pony up big bucks for a good coach. Pete Gillen would be my choice. His first year at Xavier he took a bad team from the year before and started out 20-2. We could use some majic like that here.

The timing makes no sense unless Cheryl waited to see if he pulls off a good recruiting spring class. She sees he signs one decent recruit and a project. She asks him who else he expects to sign and he says he's not sure if anyone else will sign. Given his prior recruiting track record, with that reply she decides to pull the trigger now rather than wait for the next recruiting dissapointment in the fall and set us back another year.

Besides Reggie Bryant have we had any other transfers in Brad's 5 year tenure? It used to be kids would go away, decide they wanted to come home and transfer to SLU(Peewee Leonard, Jim Roder, Ted Mimlitz, Jamal Johnson). That doesn't seem to happen anymore and we're not attracing any other transfers so why hold the scholarship? We need to use them on guys like Mitchell and see if develope them into players.