TheChosenOne

It is good to see us hanging tough on the road against one of the top teams in the league.

Jimbo, I appreciate the updates, at this point you are the best I got. Does 101.1 not stream?

You are putting lipstick on the pig. I guess a lot of it depends on what kind of expectations you place on the program and its million dollar coach.

And all of these stats are against the 210th ranked strength of schedule.

I do not disagree, I just expected him to have some kind of an offensive game based on what we heard about him coming out of high school. His shot beyond 5 feet has looked terrible, although some of that may be nerves. I love the effort and tenacity and for a freshman to have that kind of toughness is extremely nice to see, I just wish he could knock down some shots for us.

Isn't that what fans do though and especially the more passionate fans that post on message boards? Fans do not want to hear about what we can do in four years, they want to know why we are not winning now. There are legitimate concerns with the current squad that at least bring some question as to whether or not it is a certainty we are headed for big time success. One would look at the seemingly downward trend of Kevin Lisch and Tommie Liddell since Majerus took over and question why these guys did not develop and continue to improve to the level we had all anticipated, which would be all-conference players. Will the current freshmen develop and reach their potential under the same coaches? Regardless of what people think of Tommie and Kevin they are still by far our two best players, what happens once they are gone? There are a lot more question marks than I had hoped after two seasons of the Majerus era. I have gone to almost every Billiken game over the past two seasons and I cannot tell you with certainty what it is a Majerus coached team will be able to hang its hat on. I look at the recruits Majerus has brought in and it does calm my anxiety a little bit, but there are still a lot of question marks in my opinion.

Well last year when we were a similarly lousy road team we got beat 63-36 in Dayton. I guess the one good thing is that Brian Roberts no longer plays for them.

I would tend to agree with that. I think Mitchell has really elevated his game and has proven to be a fine point guard extremely early in his career. Willie has certainly exceeded my expectations, but I would agree with Roy here. I recall him being fantastic against UMBC and a number of other nonconference games and then during the majority of the conference games I have seen he seems to be overmatched. I think he provides a ton of energy and is extremely fun to watch, but I do not see much improvement with regards to his play now as compared to a month ago. I am still extremely excited about his potential. Brian Conklin is the guy that frustrates me. Where is his offensive game?

I think a surprise would be for us to not immediately bend over and drop our drawers and actually make them work for it.

Record wise we are right where I thought we would be, but the way we have lost on the road is very concerning. I had picked us to lose most of our road games to this point, but thought we would at least be competitive. We are getting smashed on the road and lost to one of the worst teams in college basketball on the road. If you just look at 11-8 I would assume most people would have predicted a fairly similar record to this point, but the individual games have left much to be desired (not being able to easily dispose of bad teams at home and the embarassing road losses). At this point I think it is impossible to be overly content with the Billikens this season. We are 11-8 against the 208th ranked SOS.

But the Patriots were one missed sack away from winning that game.....

I agree, I thought Richmond had a nice team and played a very nice 1st half. I thought in the second half their point guard started forcing bad shots and spent too much time with the ball. I told my friend that the only reason we were still in the game was because of their point guard. They had three kids that were able to pretty much get their shot whenever they wanted in #5, #15, and #32. In the 1st half you could really see their version of the Princeton style offense working. I did not expect much from them without Geriot, but they surprised me. Defensively it is tough for me to say much about them since we did a lot of standing around and when we did take the ball to the basket it looked like they played defense like a defensive back jamming his man at the line of scrimmage, but the referees did not call anything. Probably the worst officiated game I have ever seen. Overall though I was fairly impressed with a Richmond team playing without their best player. They are going to be a very quality team next season.

Courtside, did you get a pink slip in the mail box at work on Monday? What is with all of these ridiculously long and obnoxious posts? I am sure Rick would hire you to put his shoes and socks on for him.

I guess that is technically correct, but Xavier has had some big time players recently. David West was an All-American and National POY in 2003 and went on to be the 18th pick in the 2003 NBA Draft and was an All-Star last year. The following season Lional Chalmers and Romain Sato led Xavier to the Elite Eight and both were 2nd round picks in the 2004 NBA Draft. They have had some extremely talented rosters of late.

Thanks for the link, I look forward to your thoughts on Cory when you see him play next month.

I would agree with that. It is just when you hear these stories about him being a bear to work with you certainly give him less benefit of the doubt. It is good to hear that Coach Majerus is going out of his way to promote the program.

But they can contact Coach Lee or go to a Chaminade game or visit Coach Lee, correct? This would be the type of thing that if coaches from KU, Illinois, Florida, and UNC are doing I would hope the hometown Billikens are doing. The fact that he was a little upset Majerus had yet to contact him would make me think he is at least somewhat interested in SLU. Majerus going to the game last night is good to see.

I did not mean it as such. The Beal twins are 8th graders at my alma mater and could potentially be playing varsity football in the fall as freshmen. I am sure they will be anchoring the offensive line at Chaminade for years to come.

The two younger brothers are butter balls and will likely be making their impact on the football field and not the basketball court. Someone raised an interesting point about what coaches are allowed to do with regards to recruiting sophomores and that has made me cut Rick some slack. I guess visiting a high school can be considered indirect if you are visiting the coach? The calls I was referring to most have been going to Coach Lee. Regardless, I am happy to see Majerus putting in the time to let Beal know he is inerested.

What was said on this board was that up to a couple of weeks ago Bradley Beal had not been contacted by Coach Majerus. That was definitely the case. I am glad to see that he is starting to get out to watch Beal and hopefully showing him some love. Beal was a little upset that coaches from KU, Florida, and UNC were visiting him and he had not heard anything from Coach Majerus.

It is good to hear the freshmen are taking care of business in the classroom.

Romar was a game below .500 his final season at SLU. Obviously he would have been fine the following season with Marque Perry, Josh Fisher, Kenny Brown, Chris Sloan, and Ryan Hollins as the core of the team. The following season is where things would have gotten dicey. Edwin and Pulley both had their academic issues the summer Romar left and I don't know enough about it to say whether that would have really changed whether or not Romar was around. I know Sodie was not a fan of either of those guys so who knows if he just encouraged them to move on. Obviously he would have brought guys in like Soderberg had to, but who knows who those players would have been. Wasn't there rumors that Taj Gray would have been a Billiken? I know from conversations with Kalen Grimes' mother that he likely would have been a Billiken had Romar stayed. Gray, Hollins, and Grimes in the frontcourt would have been pretty good in the A-10 and I know Romar was a huge fan of Tommie Liddell. It is really hard to predict what would have played out though so I will just stop there. I am happy with the talent level we have in the current freshmen class and the recruits we have coming in next year, so I don't care to dwell on it too much more.

Hollins was also playing for UCLA which is at a completely different level than SLU. I will take UCLA's mediocre players any day since we do not have a single player that a team at the level would have any interest in.

Thanks for the link.

Anyone notice his sweater could use a few more inches?