TheChosenOne

Who have we even been linked to in the 2015 class? It has been incredibly quiet.

I can and will do it. I heard from those somewhat connected to Tyler Cook's family, that initially he has a lot of interest in going away to school. Hopefully the coaching staff can sell him on staying home and representing the hometown school. Not to take this completely off topic, but I really do wonder what an elite recruit like Jayson Tatum is offered from these programs or if it is all on the up and up.

When it comes to what you post on a message board, yes. I forgot that you made a similar prediction back in mid-July. You are serious though? "When Tatum is a freshman — and if no current roster player or commitment leaves — there will be only one other player to come in with him, but Agbeko, Lancona, and Crawford will be seniors; Miles Reynolds, Brett Jolly, Malik Yarbrough, Marcus Bartley, Davell Roby, and Austin Gillmann will be juniors (or some of them may be redshirt sophomores); and Eliot Welmer and that notorious stud (player-to-be-named-later) will be sophomores. Even without Tatum, that squad could be better than the 2012-13 and 2013-14 squads and be a serious Final Four contender; Tatum and whoever comes in with him would likely make SLU a serious National Championship favorite." If lacking faith means thinking that this prediction is ridiculous, then yes, I lack faith.

The blue Kool-Aid is flowing today!

Is this a legitimate post?

I understand how good Jayson is and the impact he will have at whatever program he chooses. If his goal is to win a National Championship though, it will be with him joining guys like Harry Giles and Dennis Smith at a blue blood, not coming to SLU.

If he has aspirations of competing for a National Championship, he will not be coming to SLU.

I think people oversold the Florida/Chaminade connection. David Lee and Brad Beal made those decisions on their own with their parents, they did not need much guidance from Kelvin. The rumor is that Kelvin really wanted Brad to go to Kansas (the rumor was a position at KU would have opened up to Kelvin had Brad done so) and was upset when he committed to Florida. I think you can be vaguely optimistic since from all accounts (including quotes from him) it is a legitimate possibility that he stays home and decides to play his one season of college basketball at SLU. Is it a long shot that an elite recruit chooses SLU over Kansas, Kentucky, or Duke? Absolutely, but there is at least a chance and more of a chance than we likely ever had or will.

Rammer also has a radio show with Bryan Burwell and Chris Gardner on 920 from 2-4. I personally have never enjoyed Rammer on the radio beyond doing play by play for the Billikens.

Cassity and Conklin played significant minutes their first two seasons and Salecich and Ellis both played significant minutes as freshmen, so we actually return less experience and production than that team. It wasn't meant to be a passionate take. This year's team is made up primarily of guys who either have not played a game for SLU (6 freshmen and 1 transfer) or have had largely minor roles (Manning and the 3 sophomores) fairly similar to 2010-2011. Thus, this team is largely an unknown heading into the season as was the 2010-2011 team. This year's team returns Austin McBroom (21.5 mpg), Grandy Glaze (12.9 mpg), John Manning (11.9 mpg), Tanner Lancona (8.5 mpg), Mike Crawford (7.5 mpg), and Reggie Agbeko (5.6 mpg) for a total of 67.9 mpg. Those guys also return 19.5 ppg and 11.4 rpg, so there are a lot of minutes and production that needs to be filled and with 7 newcomers and 3 sophomores, those guys will be needed to fill a lot of that. The 2010-2011 team returned four guys who played significant minutes as underclassmen the year before (Cassity, Salecich, Ellis, and Conklin) in addition to Remekun. Those five guys returned 31 ppg and 15.7 rpg, but a lot more minutes (121.5 mpg) due to the youth of the team the prior year, so there were minutes and significant production needed from the newcomers.

I said underclassmen, not freshmen. I think we will have to rely fairly heavily on underclassmen and newcomers (agree, not heavily on freshmen like 2010-2011 when that was our only option). Do you anticipate Manning and Glaze playing more minutes than junior year Conklin (21.4 mpg) and Cassity (31.5 mpg)? I would think we will get fairly similar minutes from underclassmen and newcomers this year as that season.

Did Majerus have any choice during that bad year? I think this season shapes up similarly, Crews has no choice but to play the underclassmen.

Keep him away from any female students related to John Cook....

If Jayson comes to SLU it won't be part of a package deal. It will be tough enough to get a top recruit born and raised in St. Louis with a father and godfather that played for SLU to play for the Billikens. There is no chance elite recruits like Harry Giles or Dennis Smith or Seventh Woods would consider joining him. If he wants to play with those guys it will be at one of the blue bloods.

It would be a monumental upset for Jayson Tatum to pick SLU over those elite programs, but there is at least a chance of it happening. Does anyone know Justin Tatum's opinion of SLU? I know he was essentially booted from SLU, but I imagine he understands it was well deserved and there likely are not many people around from his time there. I think people tended to oversell the relationship between Donovan and Chaminade. David Lee and Brad Beal both made their decisions on their own with little input from those at Chaminade. If Kelvin Lee had any pull Brad would have ended up at KU from all accounts. I am sure Jayson has a relationship with Beal, but Beal doesn't come across as the type of guy that would get overly involved in someone else's college decision.

Not sure Mizzou fans can be overly disappointed. With the coaching change, Mizzou had a couple of months to try to beat out a coaching staff that had built a relationship with the kid over several years. Plus Kim Anderson is an unknown at this point. Kind of similar to Suggs going to Washington to play for Romar. Sure it is tough to lose local kids to a conference school, but it happens. I would think Mizzou will do just fine in recruiting with Tim Fuller and Rob Fulford and with Kim Anderson they should do just fine coaching against Mike Anderson (would love to see JC abuse a Mike Anderson coached team). Whitt does look like a great get for Arkansas. With his length and versatility he should fit nicely into their full court pressure defense and transition offense (not sure Anderson runs any half court offense). I heard with the stuff going on in "Missouri" he just wanted to get out of the state.

One of us should write a preview of the Billikens and see how much better it is than the one written up for us when we finally show up on the list.

I thought this article written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar does a good job of highlighting some of the real issues: http://time.com/3132635/ferguson-coming-race-war-class-warfare/ Do guys like Al Sharpton help the cause of those they speak for and profit from?

Also, it would be nice if the athletic department website provided some of that content as well. It wouldn't have been that hard to do a quick interview with each player and some of the coaches to let us know what the guys were up to this summer. A feature on each of the newcomers would have been nice. Maybe show some footage from practice and workouts.

O.G. Anunoby from Jefferson City has received offers from Indiana, Georgia, and Vanderbilt this summer. Does anyone now our interest level in him? It looks like he played with Team Thad this summer after playing with the Eagles last summer.

Tweet from Earl Austin Jr: "Just learned through a source that Saint Louis U. has offered 6'8 Soph F Wyatt Yess of Parkway West. Ran with the Gateway 15U this summer." Michael Porter Jr. and Jeremiah Tilmon both played with MOKAN Elite this summer and are looking like top prospects in 2017. ESPN has Porter at #5 and Tilmon at #13 in 2017. http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/playerrankings/_/class/2017

I would be.

Montaque Gill-Caesar is a huge get for Mizzou and big time recruit. His signing gives Kim Anderson a top 15 recruiting class and with Tim Fuller and Rob Fulford I don't think they will be hurting for talent. Mizzou and SLU are in very similar positions this upcoming season returning very little production and relying heavily on underclassmen who the fan bases are excited about. Now we just need Kim Anderson and Jim Crews to make magic happen and get the two programs playing every year. A Missouri guy has to understand the huge positive impact of playing that game.

I agree with this and the only thing missing initially you covered in your last sentence. You have to have talent to win at a high level and the past three seasons we have had a lot of talented players. This upcoming team excites me because while we will have growing pains these young kids will be able to play a lot and we could be experiencing the beginning of another nice run similar to 2010 when we relied mostly on underclassmen and juniors Brian Conklin and Kyle Cassity. Having not seen any of the incoming freshmen or enough from the soon to be sophomores, I have no idea what to expect.

I don't know enough to say what our recruiting strategy is or how it should be changed, but based on our recent success and improved facilities I would like to see us land more of our primary targets which we have struggled to do since Crews took over. Looking at our staff, who is sold as a high level recruiter?