TheChosenOne

I was just kidding and apologize for the poor attempt at humor.

Clearly liberals if they are able to wait in line for 6 hours in the middle of the day....

Does SLU have any kind of Blue/White scrimmage or anything of that nature that is open to the public? Mizzou had their Black & Gold Game last night.

Well, that gives me two reasons and a less perverted reason to watch Channel 4 in the morning, thanks Box.

Absolutely. Not only that, but this a fall commitment and not a month before the school year gets under way.

I listened to the show on the way to lunch and heard them discuss SLU. They basically expressed their amazement at how little excitement the hiring of Majerus has created for the program. They discussed the lack of marketing and Majerus and the team not doing a whole lot of media appearances. The Mayor described Majerus and SLU being bunkered up in West Pine, now Chaifetz. I completely agree. We make the million dollar hire, but we do nothing to really ride that wave. If you make that kind of commitment to the program you would think you would step up in all areas of the athletic department and unfortunately it seems like things are still jv over there. They concluded by saying that maybe winning solves all of this and that is something I completely agree with. If SLU starts winning consistently the fans will show up and there will be a buzz around the program. Being an alumn and living in the area I am amazed at how little I care about the upcoming season; a season that marks the first in a brand new on-campus arena and a team with a HOF coach and two area studs.

I listened to the show on the way to lunch and heard them discuss SLU. They basically expressed their amazement at how little excitement the hiring of Majerus has created for the program. They discussed the lack of marketing and Majerus and the team not doing a whole lot of media appearances. The Mayor described Majerus and SLU being bunkered up in West Pine, now Chaifetz. I completely agree. We make the million dollar hire, but we do nothing to really ride that wave. If you make that kind of commitment to the program you would think you would step up in all areas of the athletic department and unfortunately it seems like things are still jv over there. They concluded by saying that maybe winning solves all of this and that is something I completely agree with. If SLU starts winning consistently the fans will show up and there will be a buzz around the program. Being an alumn and living in the area I am amazed at how little I care about the upcoming season; a season that marks the first in a brand new on-campus arena and a team with a HOF coach and two area studs.

I am going to take the wait and see approach with this one because I remember people being excited by Justin Johnson and Horace Dixon as high caliber athletes. A 1-star recruit who is not rated in the top 10 in his own city does not do much to excite me on paper. Couple that with the fact that the last time I weighed 195 pounds as a 6'2 gentlemen was as a sophomore in high school and I never had the desire to bang with the Kenny Brown or Tom Frericks of the world.

I have two tickets for the Rams/Cowboys game this Sunday. I will be in Austin for the weekend and unable to use them. The seats are in section 106, row DD and I am just asking for face value ($80 a ticket).

For Mizzou, I know all of their freshmen went to Canada as well. I think freshmen and young teams can really benefit from these trips.

Xavier has the huge advantage of recruiting from a basketball hot bed in Ohio. If you don't think my example is relevant that is fine. Xaiver is certainly a program I would like to be compared to, I just think success in a city like Cincinnati and the talent Ohio turns out makes it a different situation. Regardless it sounds like you are extremely confident that Majerus will turn things around, so we don't really need to look to anyone except bow to Majerus and sit back and enjoy.

I am sure it was hard to figure out what sport I was talking about when I mentioned Pinkel and players William Moore, Chase Coffman, Jeremy Maclin, William Franklin, and Martin Rucker. In case you are not aware Gary Pinkel is the football coach of the Missouri Tigers who happen to find themselves in the top 5 after years of mediocrity. Sure there are plenty of differences, but there are plenty of similarities that can be drawn as well. Especially with respect to how Pinkel built his program from the ground up and had to sell his vision to local recruits and reach for kids from Texas and elsewhere based on his staff identifying kids and getting to them before the big time programs came in. Now the program is rolling and he can have his pick of in-state kids for the most part. This is very relevant. SLU is where the Mizzou football program was 4 years ago. Why not look at the success they have had and use that as a roadmap? I don't care who the coach is, we still lost a significant amount of talent from our own backyard and it is frustrating no matter how you look at it.

What do you think about the kids from Chaminade STLHI? I hear Hannah and Beal put up some numbers as freshmen and is Lockhart a college player? I saw Hannah play football last year and the kid had some size for a 9th grader.

I would like to hear what Nate has to say about your comment with regards to being the first to offer or recruit a kid. I follow recruiting very closely (football) and I cannot tell you the number of times a guy Mizzou is recruiting says Mizzou is one of his top choices because they were the first to offer. I think a lot can be said about being the first in on a kid. Also, just because a kid leaves the area for prep school does not mean he no longer has ties to the area. It would seem to show that individual likely does not put as much stock in staying home, but there is still that sales pitch of playing in your own backyard where you grew up and your family and friends can see you develop. If there are already local kids making a name for themselves at the local program it makes it a little bit easier and appealing to make that pitch. To get back to Lisch and Liddell, these two kids could have gone to BCS programs, but instead stayed home and had far less exposure and never sniffed the tournament, so we really have to start from the ground level. You have to build that base and there is no better example than what is going on at Mizzou.

Nobody is saying we should expect to sign every local kid, but the fact that we let a huge class completely leave the boarders is a little upsetting and from all accounts SLU didn't exactly finish a close second for any of these kids either. I think the whole point of the recent messages is that there was a heck of a lot of talent in the class of 08 in the state of Missouri and this was one of the more talented classes the area has seen in a while. We missed out on the top tier of those guys. I think the best example of what I would like to see from SLU is to take a look at what Pinkel has done at Mizzou. He has had a strong core of players from Missouri and plucked guys from Texas and other areas to add to that core. Now that they have had success and had success with local talent all the top kids in the state are giving Mizzou a hard look and the majority of them are committing to the Tigers. I think Lisch and Liddell could have had that impact, but they have not had the success (as a team) many would have anticipated with two cornerstones to build around for 4 years. If we had gotten some guys to go around those two and had some success local guys would have seen Liddell and Lisch doing big things in their own backyard and said why go somewhere else when I have this at home. Instead we have two local seniors who can't wait to get out and the program is no better off than when they came. No inroads have been made and local guys will continue to look for the school that gives them the best chance to play at a high level and have some success since SLU has not proven to be able to do that. This is where Majerus and his staff have to share their vision with these kids and get them onboard with staying home and playing for the local school and building something special here. Pinkel did this with in-state guys like Franklin, Rucker, Coffman, Maclin, William Moore and others. He got them to want to make that vision a reality and they have done that.

This really was the local/area class that if we could have gotten to Saint Louis U could have done some special things in my opinion. Tommie Liddel and Kevin Lisch could have been playing their senior season with a crop of talented players with local ties and it could have really gotten the community on board with this program. To date Majerus has been a swing and a miss in my opinion with the local sports fans (non-SLU alumns). There is still no excitement around the program, but that is not what is being discussed. You are talking about national recruits in our backyard in Scott Suggs, John Brandenburg, Anthony Booker, Torres Roundtree, and Jared Swopshire (local ties). That is a heck of a lot of talent that grew up in the city where you are the only Division I program. Granted we did get Cotto and John and I think they are nice players, but there were some guys who you can honestly say you could have built a program around. Throw in guys from KC like Marcus Denmon and Steve Moore, George Goode from Raytown, and Johnny Coy from St. Joseph and you realize there was a heck of a lot of talent in-state in that class and we did not get any of those top tier guys. Kramer Soderberg and Jesse Perry are two other area kids from 08 who could compete at a high level. And then in the following class you have Tyler Griffey who is another big-time national recruit who can pick his school and he gets away to the Illini and then you look at the KC area and they have a couple more high level recruits in Michael Dixon and Travis Releford. Obviously KC is closer to KU and Mizzou so I don't expect a real shot with those guys, but if we could have built some excitement with these local studs committing maybe kids on the other side of the state become interested. This was a huge class and the key gets all got away. If only Romar did not get swept away by Washington maybe he could have gotten these kids on board. If Suggs commits to SLU, maybe these guys would have taken notice and seen SLU as a more legitimate option. Instead we will be checking up on the Internet in a couple of years to see how these kids turned out. I left out Brett Thompson who I think was a nice signing and I would consider an area kid. Is Bryant Allen the only other guy who could be considered a high-level D-1 recruit from the area? Do we have a shot with him or is he going to go with football at the next level?

This is an outrage, Declan O'Neil better cook me up a hot dog before every Billiken game this year or I will raise hell.

I was just curious, not attacking. Obviously the smart money would be on nobody since our entire team didn't even score 40 in a couple of games last season. I did some quick research on the two guys who I knew went for 40 last season and found that Michael Beasley scored 40 twice (Mizzou and Winston-Salem) and went for 44 at Baylor and Stephen Curry scored 41 in a game and of course in the NCAA Tournament scored 40 against Gonzaga.

Does anyone have an answer to how many guys went for 40 in this past college basketball season?

[deleted for lies]

Who are the recruits we are targeting? I have not heard many names mentioned and the names that have been mentioned have not really been strong SLU leans. It is important to follow what would seem to be a strong recruiting class by A-10 standards with another strong class. We will be losing Tommie and Kevin so there will some key spots and playing time to fill.

I completely agree with that. I honestly do not know one person who listens to that show and the times I did flip to Slaten the only people who called in were black gentlemen and hoosiers. I feel bad for a guy like Slaten. He gets paid to basically be a raging ######. He has such a negative outlook on everything and has to constantly spew venom. The guy can't say anything positive about anything and has to be so extreme on the negative end of everything regarding St. Louis sports. Not only does he have to scream and yell about everything, but the guy does not even know sports. Any intelligent person is not going to listen to Slaten beyond a couple of minutes and certainly would not waste their time calling in. I just wish the King had the sack to take Savard up on his offer to box for charity. I remember in 5th grade having Mr. Slaten run onto the court at Priory to yell at the officials until my dad and others had to physically remove him from the gym. It does not take much to realize that if you are physically going after grade school referees and screaming profanity in front of 5th graders that you have serious issues that need be taken care of. I remember asking my dad who that guy was and that is the first I had ever heard of Kevin Slaten. What a loser. And just because people have negative things to say about him does not mean they listen to show. Far from it for me and pistol who do not even live in the area and surely did not listen to him when we did. His act is so stale and really difficult for anyone with any brains to listen to.

I think Mizzou does have a more competitive non-conference schedule than SLU with the possibility of it being much tougher due to the quality of teams in the tournament in Puerto Rico. I think the big difference though is that when Mizzou gets to conference play they play teams like Kansas twice, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M and Baylor. A team like SLU needs to schedule tougher because they are not going to be playing the big-time top #25 teams when they get to conference. BCS schools can schedule very differently than an A-10 team like SLU because they competition within the conference is so much greater.

The problem is the guys returning have that attitude towards Majerus. Maybe he won't be as insufferable with guys he actually recruited.

I never heard that part of it so I can only speak to what I heard and from what I heard Bernie and Strickland defended their source and the information at the time it was reported. I think once Ruben and Willie are cleared Bernie and Strickland should report that information. With all of the things going on in sports right now SLU comes in at #27 right behind the recruitment of Ronnie Wingo and where he will be playing his college football.