Duff Man

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/187062/austin-gillman

I'll cede authority to anyone who GSTKP, but if he's listed as both a PG (verbal commits, yahoo rivals) and a SG (espn), I'll assume he's a combo guard capable of playing either the 1 or the 2.

I'll sleep better tonight knowing SLU has a PG* for 2014-15 in the bag** *besides McBroom **even if it's just a verbal

Single year APR 2008-09: 933 2009-10: 915 2010-11: 945 2011-12: 1000

My general understanding is that it's more difficult for academically challenged athletes to remain eligible at private institutions as opposed to public schools which naturally offer a wider array of courses to a wider spectrum of students.

Does SLU offer a class called Physics in Sports?

If Keith Carter took his time to think through decisions as Randy O is doing, he possibly never would have come here at all...or maybe he would have come, and not left. There is nothing wrong with Randy O taking his time before he making one of the most important decisions of his life. From the kid's perspective, it's better to avoid signing an LOI. SLU, Miami University, and LSU would all be wildly different experiences, and it really comes down to where he feels is the best fit.

LOL

Does anyone else realize Willie (inactive bench player, sure) is in a playoff series against a player who ended the SLU careers of Claggett, Waldman, and Highmark?

MLB has been (re)selling online broadcast feeds for 10+ years. You used to (c. 2000) be able to listen online to Cardinals games on a non-KMOX member of the Cards radio network, but they cracked down around 2002.

Of course, it's incredibly sh1tty that Jim Crews hung this kid out to dry like this...of course But maybe...it was never going to end well for the kid here...maybe Crews did him a favor by cutting him loose before he wasted another year of eligibility riding the bench. Of course, it's fuoked up that they waited so long to break the news...of course But maybe...there's never a good time to break the news...maybe it's better for everyone that he complete his finals without the devastating circumstances hanging over him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkjmzEEQUlE

Who could resist the urge to play for Rondo? (NSFW audio) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxCvJO0--yk

Agreed. Finding a "kwamain mitchell or a marque perry or josh fisher" is easier said than done. Nobody can predict how these incoming players will pan out. That's why you give yourself margin for error. Remember when Kwamain was our only real PG and he got punked in the eye against Belmont and we almost pissed the game away in the last 4 minutes? I'm sure you remember the next game when we lost at home (sans Mitchell) to Mo State, decimating our at-large hopes? If Jett or McCall gets hurt next season, I'd like to have a PG option besides McBroom.

This weekend is the last proper weekend of the semester in Oxford (Finals start May 6th). The situaish is kinda concerning.

We're going to be good next year without Djambo. The year we'd really need Djambo is 2014-15...and if I'm reading you correctly, you're fine with having McBroom and incoming freshman as the only PG options? How can you be so obtuse? Is it deliberate? I don't care what sport, at any level, incoming freshmen benefit from practicing with/against good upperclassmen players. They are going to have at least 5 scholarships to offer next year. PG is the most critical element in college basketball (like an offensive line in football, a starting rotation in baseball, or a goalie in hockey). You can have talent at other positions, but it all comes crashing down if you don't have the singular critical element. You don't need a star, but you need someone who is minimally competent, and some level of experience. If Jordan Strawberry is nothing more than a backup PG his entire career, he will still be a valuable asset.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-PgpbcLsiU I'd personally like Jett and McCall to train their replacements, rather than enduring another year of freshmen point guard growing pains in 2014-15 (which could very well be our first year in the NBE).

I'm of the opinion that you cannot have too many PGs. Just look how quickly we went from stacked to depleted at the PG position last fall. In a perfect world we could get Onwuasor and Djambo, but I'd have no problem with Strawberry plus one or the other (with Onwuasor being the top priority over Djambo). We NEED point guards. It doesn't matter how much talent you have, if you don't have someone to run the offense, you're an inherently flawed team.

Agreed on all of this. I do see the parallel between Crawford and Evans. There are reasons to be excited, but also reasons to be somewhat guarded about expectations. I just took exception with the way history was being rewritten to make it seem like people here didn't expect Evans to be a good player. Basically you're talking about one clown (BillikenROAR) dogging DE, and a few knee jerk negative reactions to the TLIII comp all in one single thread that was taking place 4 or 5 days after the suspensions of KM and WR - a period when many regular posters were naturally taking a break from the board.

Will Clyburn ended up going to Utah in 2010-11, had a great Jr season on a bad team (17.1 PPG, 7.8 RPG, shot 40% from 3) then transferred to Iowa St (after the Utah coach was fired) where his numbers dipped just a bit (3FG% from 40% to 30%), but he was still the leading scorer on a very good team. You'll remember him as the player that Aaron Craft drew that dubious charge against in the Round of 32. He would have been a nice get (although there's no guarantee he'd have come here) - and surely would have helped during the awful 2010-11 season, but in the end it's pretty clear Evans for 4 > Clyburn for 2.

McCall was definitely perceived as the better recruit, but there was still plenty of excitement about Evans - and I don't ever remember it being suggested on this board that Evans was a "throw in" (presumably a package with McCall ala Tatum with Hughes). http://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17662 http://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17830 http://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18594 http://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=19038 Some raised legitimate questions about his ball handling, his defense (!) and wondered how he'd match up against quicker guards and bigger forwards than he faced in HS. There was even talk that he might not play much early on because of the depth in front of him. At no point were people lamenting the fact that we wasted a scholarship on him - which is significant since we didn't have any scholarships available for the spring signing period until Jeff Reid made his departure official.

From an outsider's perspective, Willie appeared to be very immature both as a student and as a ballplayer during his time at SLU. He saw himself in mock drafts and simply couldn't take his academics seriously. That's not to say he was a bad kid, he just wasn't cut out for SLU. I'm not privy to all of his trangressions while at SLU, but it's my understanding that his suspension had more to do with the grand body of work and his role in the situation was simply the last straw...and even then he was given another chance which he squandered. It's my opinion that he needed to cope with failure (going undrafted, getting cut, toiling in obscurity) before the lightbulb went off that he needed to work his ass off over months/years as opposed to days/weeks if he was ever going to make the NBA. Plenty of kids screw up when they are 20, flunk out of college, face reality for a while, then re-emerge in a career that values talent and output more than academic record. Congrats Willie

Another completely irrelevant post that dismisses the author on the basis of his age without addressing the content of his article. Let me put this another way...why does it fall on the shoulders of an obscure student journalist to articulate that the emperor has no clothes? Could it be that he might actually have a better handle on what's going on at the University in 2013 than professional journalists or random billikens.com message board posters? No one here has disputed Haenchen's analysis. Some have insulted him for being inexperienced or vaguely criticized stuff he wrote when he was even less experienced than he is now, but no one has explained why he's wrong about Biondi. Biondi has survived this long because he insulates himself like a mob boss. The few individuals with first hand knowledge of his bull**** face a highly asymmetrical proposition when it comes to personal incentive to testify vs blowback. Annette Clark was the exception.

Must have been an unauthorized bootleg, since they left off DePaul and called South Florida Southern Florida. TCU and East Carolina were on board for 2001-02. Fuoking football ruins everything.