Duff Man

2 NCAA tournament wins. That's more than every other SLU coach besides Spoonhour who also had 2. 2 outright regular season conference titles. That's as many as every other SLU coach combined (Hickey had the other two in 1952 and 1957). 1 conference tournament title.That's as many as every other SLU coach combined. In a perfect world Crews would have just ridden off into the sunset after 2013, but in an even more perfect world Majerus would still be coaching. In reality, we're lucky sh|t didn't completely unravel when Majerus' health declined. Now let the healing process begin and remember Crews for the good times, not the bad.

I'll stand for the coach who has the only 2 regular season conference titles in my lifetime.

The program still has several years of NCAA tournament revenue earned from 6 NCAA tournament games played in 2012-2014. You make a move now. Cut your losses with Crews, and get someone in here who can string some recruiting classes together before season ticket holders start jumping ship en masse. Chris May knows this. The situation will be handled with class, but the dye has been cast for a while now. 99% chance Crews is gone. The 1% is the chance I give them to win the A10 tournament.

The only way you'd give Crews another year is if you think SLU could be an NCAA tournament team by the end of Crews' contract. Does anyone honestly see the core of an NCAA tournament team on this roster? They can't have another season like this. Even if they're worse next year with a new coach and overhauled roster, at least there's some renewed hope that comes with a new regime. That said, I don't think we need to disparage Crews or the players. It just didn't work out. The stars didn't live up to their hype, and there haven't been any diamonds in the rough. You've got a few guys who could have been role players on an NCAA tournament team who are doing their best, but they're never going to be good enough to beat good D1 competition. Let's just try and get through the rest of the season without any ugliness. Stay at home if you want to protest the state of the program. It'll all be over soon.

No. Their 3%es were pretty close - Cassity was marginally better - making 31.831% (113 of 355) to Barnett's 31.7536% (67 of 211). - not exactly the same. But their overall FG% (39.1 to 34.1) is not close at all, and eFG% (48.5 to 46.2) and True Shooting% (49.8 to 48.9) all favor Cassity. Now, if you throw out Cassity's freshman year and compare 3-year apples to apples, Cassity's edge increases across the board. The only real way to argue Barnett was a better shooter than Cassity is to base it on the potential she showed his freshman year at Toledo...which brings us back to the original point that Barnett never lived up to his shooting hype. To suggest he was a better shooter than Cassity is an insult to Cassity.

Cassity was a better shooter than Barnett if you look at the numbers. Barnett's shooting did not live up to the hype. and yeah...the 2010-11 team struggled early, but by the end of the year they were blowing out Dayton at UD Arena on Chris Wright Sr night (the final chapter of Majerus v Gregory)

Pass first wing, always played hard on D, could knock down an open shot, and understood spacing on the offensive end. Underrated player for sure. Wasn't the scorer I think a lot of people (myself included) wanted him to be, but did everything that was asked of him and was a stabilizing force alongside Conklin during the turmoil of the 2010-11 season.

It takes 2 classes. I don't think that 2010 class happens without the Conklin/Mitchell/Reed/Cassity foundation in place. Conklin held the program together during the turmoil of that fall. You need trailblazers like Conklin and Mitchell - fearless underdogs with a chip on their shoulder - to come in and set the tone for everyone else.

The 2 closest officials acted like it didn't need to be reviewed. Bishop started walking towards the other end, and only protested that it was tipped after the coaches on the SLU bench were advocating for a replay. So in all likelihood it wasn't tipped. That said how often do we see officials look for ANY excuse to use the replay technology? The head official - who called Reynolds for the egregious intentional foul moments earlier - wasn't interested in checking the replay - not with Duq covering by half a point...

What about the shot for cash?

Wasn't it Jordair Jett who got Justin Jordan's spot? If you want to make an omelet...

Small sample size obviously from the overhauled backcourt, but we're seeing first hand this season how much better/worse a team can play when you do/don't have a legit PG running a coherent offense.

The Greek

The Orlando Stewart game was 25 years ago tonight...

Just want to make sure I cast my vote against Tom Crean. His entire career is staked on the fact that in 2003 he rode Dwyane Wade to the Final 4. In 16 years at Marquette and Indiana he has made the NCAA tournament 8 times...and only twice - both in 2003 when he had an all-time great carrying his team - has Tom Crean won an NCAA tournament game against a better seeded team...while 4 times his teams have failed to live up to their seed. 2002: 5-seed lost to 12-seed Tulsa 71-69 2003: 3-seed defeated 14-seed Holy Cross 72-68, 6-seed Mizzou 101-92, 2-seed Pitt 77-74, 1-seed Kentucky 83-69, lost to 2-seed Kansas 94-61 2006: 7-seed lost to 10-seed Alabama 90-85 2007: 8-seed lost to 9-seed Michigan St 61-49 2008: 6-seed defeated 11-seed Kentucky 74-66, lost to 3-seed Stanford 82-81 2012: 4-seed defeated 13-seed New Mexico St 79-66, 12-seed VCU 63-61, lost to 1-seed Kentucky 102-90 2013: 1-seed defeated 16-seed James Madison 83-62, 9-seed Temple 58-52, lost to 4-seed Syracuse 61-50 2015: 10-seed lost to 7-seed Wichita St 81-76 If you ignore 2003, he has just 5 NCAA tournament wins in 15 seasons all against teams seeded 9 or worse (9, 11, 12, 13, and 16). In the conference tournaments Crean is just 9-16 with zero automatic bids. This is precisely the type of coach we should be trying to AVOID.

Isn't that what they said about the early Crews era Billikens? That they coached themselves...and then this past July we saw them get bounced from The Basketball Tournament as an undisciplined mess... now let me get this straight... Crews up by not punting the UMass game....which clinched the outright conference title and certainly helped their NCAA seed? so that they would be better poised to make a run in the A10 tournament - which people forget they got totally fuoked against the Bonnies by a no-call when Jordair had his wrist grabbed and was taken down - and remained down creating a 5 on 4 which led to a wide open 3 which went in and ultimately swung the game - which would have boosted their seed to the point of not having to play an elite team in the round of 32 bull****. Having a short bench and a star player with a knee problem, they were better off losing at the buzzer in the A10 quarters than playing another game or two that weekend and risking further injury to their best player. They ended up as a 5 seed...if they lost to Umass and won 2 games in the A10 tournament they probably would have still been a 5-seed...maybe they'd have avoided Louisville - who shouldn't have been a 4-seed anyway - but you can't blame Crews for the NCAA serving them a sandwich of a draw. The Dayton home loss on senior night was with a compromised Jordair - and Dayton went on to the Elite 8 remember. The loss at VCU was expected as VCU was nearly unbeatable at home during the Weber/Graham era. They came out flat against Duquesne...that's the one game you can point to and blame Crews for...for not having them motivated, for underestimating the A10 bottom feeders, for not having a plan to contain Micah Mason...but that was their first loss in 20 games FFS. All season they won close game after close game. You want to give Jordair and the players all the credit and none to Crews...fine....but the A10 voted him coach of the year back to back years for a reason...because on paper SLU was not the best team, but 2 years running they won the conference outright. I'm as disappointed with Crews as anyone for his lack of recruiting and player development - going back to not getting Crawford into the rotation his freshman year so he could hit some motherfuoking 3s against Louisville, but let's not just rewrite history and pretend he didn't coach the sh1t out of this team his first 2 years here (or 3 if you count 2011-12). Crews was a major part of the best 3-year run in school history - let's not completely lose sight of that just because he's failing now.

I'm evaluating Crews. Not defending. I thought he did fine given the circumstances with the 2013 incoming class. That said, it was the 2014 class with the full year of recruiting with 6 spots to fill that absolutely had to include the future stars of this program - ala Majerus' 2008 class that included Kwamain, Conklin, Reed, and Cassity - to be the springboard going forward.

I give Crews a pass on that class since he was not named permanent coach until very late in the recruiting cycle.

You really can't evaluate a recruiting class until the 2nd year. Say whatever you want about red flags being there while Crews was winning back to back outright A10 titles with Majerus' players, but the incoming 2014 freshmen was the first class Crews was able to recruit as the permanent coach. Bigs can take longer to develop - but your 'star' guards and wings usually identify themselves by this point of their 2nd season...and who of the Reynolds, Roby, Yarbrough, Bartley crop look poised to challenge for all conference recognition? At points during last season, I'd have said Yarbrough and maybe Bartley for his outside shooting and passing vision...but neither of those guys have progressed and have seemingly regressed. Roby and Reynolds each bring different things to the table as combo guards, but neither look like the starting point guard of an NCAA tournament team - nor do they look capable of shouldering the offensive load. To me Reynolds is backup who can come in and make things happen in spurts, but so much of his game relies on drawing fouls...he needs to be able to absorb contact and finish because he's not getting those calls against good teams on the road. Roby is intriguing as I do think he could be part of the rotation on an NCAA tournament team, and I do still like his upside...but offensively I'm not sure he's ever going to be at the level of a primary scorer or playmaker for a good team. The verdict on Crews hinges on whether that 2014 class can get their sh|t together over the next few weeks and turn in a competitive A10 season.

According to Basketball Reference, Willie is the 15th former Billiken to play in the NBA...*or ABA D.C. Wilcutt Marv Schatzman Ed Macauley Bob Ferry Bevo Nordmann Richard Parks* Barry Orms Rich Niemann Gene Moore* Harry Rogers* Robin Jones David Burns Anthony Bonner Larry Hughes Willie Reed http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/colleges.cgi?college=stlouis *ABA

I've long subscribed to the theory that in the 4 major sports, you absolutely need quality at Football: offensive line Baseball: starting pitching Basketball: point guard Hockey: goalie A point guard needs to be -fearless -capable of creating his own shot -capable of drawing help defenders and finding open teammates -capable of hitting open 3s -adept at navigating full court pressure -solid defensively If you don't have someone to fill this role, you will not be successful against good teams not matter how many other pieces you have. If you don't have at least 2 guys to fill this role, you will be extremely vulnerable (see: the Mo State game when Kwam was out).

"Just hours after leading an honesty session with his teammates the 26-year-old import was told via text message to skip a planned school clinic and instead head to the club’s base in Currajong for a meeting." When keeping it real goes wrong. Now that the Tatum ship has sailed, I'm pretty comfortable saying without question Brian Conklin is the former SLU player I'd most like to be a future head coach.