Duff Man

After SLU becomes the first team since Bobby Knight's 1976 Indiana team to go undefeated en route to a National Championship, KM will be the 3rd player taken in the 2013 NBA draft.

skip to 1:00 yeah, it's an all-star game where nobody is playing D - but at least it gives you some idea of his current* physique *as of last summer

It wouldn't have made any difference. There was no getting through to them. They suffer from selective hearing and selective memory. Michael Jordan could personally lecture Willie about how he's got to work harder and polish his game if he wants to make it, but that advice goes out the window the second some blogger casually includes Willie in a mock draft. Any opinion telling them what they want to hear trumps anyone that dares to tell them the truth. The draft party is just the latest example of this.

While he certainly was disadvantaged without KM breaking down defenses and WR drawing double teams, I think his sophomore slump mostly boiled down to lack of shooting reps in the offseason (due to his myriad of ailments) - and the subsequent lack of confidence after the shaky start. CE is a finesse 4 whose value derives from his ability to shoot from range. No amount of weightlifting is going to change that. He needs to continue to play hard on D (as he did last year), but if the shot isn't falling, his role on this team is dramatically reduced.

at least Willie got some national publicity out of it... http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/32335/draft-parties-go-bad-when-going-undrafted

fixed. There's no way he's going in the first round - even in a weak draft - although it's certainly possible that he impresses a GM enough to take a 2nd round chance on his raw athleticism. There's always a market for athletic power forwards who can play D and rebound, but the established guys also tend to play forever. Willie needs a bit of luck (get drafted, hope someone gets hurt), and also needs to transform (and maybe working out in a professional environment will help) into gritty role player who works his ass off.

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I'd go with the coach who is 116-24 including 10-3 in the NCAA tournament over a guy who coached his team to a 4th place finish in the CAA (behind Hofstra) this year.

Isn't advancing to the NCAA tournament in and of itself the single greatest factor in 'growing the program'? Are all the local media hacks really going to hold their anti-Majerus grudges against the next (more media friendly) coach?

Perhaps your perception of Dayton's home performance is obscured by the fact that they were shittier than usual this year, and that they've dropped 2 in a row to SLU. They'd actually won 14 of 15 home conference games heading into last year's senior night. Gregory's Flyers in the A10 '07-11 2007 H: 6-2 A: 2-6 (2 A10 Bids) 2008 H: 5-3 A: 3-5 (3 A10 Bids) 2009 H: 8-0 A: 3-5 NCAA R32 (3 A10 Bids) 2010 H: 6-2 A: 2-6 (3 A10 Bids) 2011 H: 4-4 A: 3-5 (~2-3 A10 Bids) 5-year totals H: 29-11 .725 A: 13-27 .325 Those home/away splits are hardly 'similar'. Grawer's Bills in the MCC '87-91 1987 H: 5-1 A: 2-4 (1 MCC Bid) 1988 H: 4-1 A: 1-4 (1 MCC Bid) 1989 H: 6-0 A: 2-4 (2 MCC Bids) 1990 H: 6-1 A: 3-4 (2 MCC Bids) 1991 H: 6-1 A: 2-5 (1 MCC Bid) 5-year totals H: 27-4 .871 A: 10-21 .323 Note the conference road winning percentages are nearly identical. Would you take the Internet's word for it? Technically, it never actually went down as you describe it. Here's what actually happened... 1986: SLU finished 2nd to X in MCC, X beat SLU 74-66 in MCC Final, no NIT for SLU 1987: SLU finished 4th in MCC, 3rd place X beat SLU 81-69 in MCC Final, SLU advanced to 2nd round of NIT 1988: SLU finished 3rd in MCC, lost to last place Detroit in MCC Quarterfinal, 1st place X wins MCC Tourney, no NIT for SLU 1989: SLU finished 2nd to Evansville in MCC, 3rd place X beats SLU 79-56 in MCC Semifinal then beat Evansville for the automatic bid, Evansville received an at-large bid having won the regular season and finishing 2nd in the conference tournament, SLU placed 2nd in NIT 1990: SLU finished 3rd in MCC, lost to 6th place Loyola in MCC Quarterfinal, 2nd place Dayton beat 1st place X for the automatic bid, X received an at-large bid having won the regular season and finishing 2nd in the conference tournament, SLU placed 2nd in NIT 1991: SLU finished 3rd in MCC, 1st place X beat SLU 81-65 in MCC Final, no NIT for SLU In order to make the dance, SLU either needed to win the conference tournament (which they never did - losing to X every time they got close), or they had to win the regular season title (which they never did - because they dropped too many road games to bad teams) then win a game in the MCC tourney against a crappy team (which we couldn't do in '88 or '90 when we actually had good teams). You're thinking of 1992 (SMS didn't join the MVC until 90-91 and Spoon went to SLU in 92-93). SIUC beat Tubby Smith's Tulsa twice in the regular season, then lost to them by 3 in the MVC semis. Tough break, but if you look at their schedule that year, they played a cream puff schedule - only had 3 games against quality opponents and lost all 3 (getting swept by SMS and losing 99-98 at Evansville), not to mention they were one of the 5 teams to lose to SLU that year. I don't know about unfair, but they were definitely unlucky. If by 3 to 4, you mean 2 to 3. See above. Grawer didn't just lose to X. He lost first round MCC tourney games to BAD teams in 1988 and 1990 when we had Bonner. I will concede it's probably not fair to Grawer - who revived a comatose program and actually made players better over their careers - to put him in league with Brian Gregory - who inherited an NCAA caliber team and consistently failed to develop his players into something better.

Gregory's failure to develop his players is where the Grawer comparison fails - agreed - and yes, the Billikens have thumped them at home on Senior Night 2 years in a row - which never happened under Grawer - BG has had better recruits, yet none of them have developed into NBA players - no doubt Grawer did better with the hands he was dealt How are those not BG's problems? 2007: 2-6 on the road in the A10 lost to X in A-10 quarterfinals 2008: 3-5 on the road in the A10 lost to X in the A10 quarterfinals 2009: 3-5 on the road in the A10 lost to Duq in A10 quarterfinals received at-large bid toNCAAs as 11-Seed 2010: 2-6 on the road in the A10 lost to X in A10 quarterfinals won NIT 2011: 3-5 on the road in the A10

Matt Dickey and UNC Asheville were the first team to qualify for the dance.

The field expanded to 64 in 1985. Grawer's best teams (the Gray/Douglas/Bonner years) were after the field expanded.

Stop repeating the lie that the MCC was a one-bid league. It was for a while in the 80s (for good reason), but Evansville received an at-large bid the year we had our best team (1988-89). We could have gotten one too if we didn't 1) fail to get a single quality win away from Kiel 2) lose those games at Dayton and Detroit and 3) lose by double digits to X in the MCC tourney semis. I'm not faulting Grawer for failing to win in the early 80s. I'm faulting him for failing to get to the dance even once during the window of opportunity he had in the late 80s. You don't think those teams should have done better than 1988: 14-13 regular season (5-5 T3rd MCC), lost to Detroit (6-22, 2-8 MCC) 66-63 in MCC 1st round 1989: 22-8 regular season (8-4 2nd MCC), lost to X 79-56 in the MCC semis, NIT runner-up 1990: 17-9 regular season (9-5 3rd MCC), lost to Loyola 67-58 in MCC 1st round, NIT runner-up Do you remember us losing to Grambling St at home in 1987? The comparison doesn't correlate game for game, but in each case you have a coach who is by all accounts 1) a nice guy who 2) advanced the program in the right direction (i.e. boosted attendance), and 3) got a free pass for underachieving from fans who can't see past 1) and 2).

Grawer's teams missed out on the NCAAs because they couldn't win on the road, and never got past Xavier in the conference tourney. Those are precisely BG's problems! http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/SLU/1989-schedule.html http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/SLU/1990-schedule.html Just look at those backbreaking 2pt losses to Dayton (12-17, 6-6) and Detroit (7-21, 4-8) in 1989. Without those losses, we're 24-6 and co-MCC champs with Evansville and possibly avoid X in the MCC tournament. If that team had won @SMS or @Colorado (or beaten a good Iowa team on a neutral court instead of losing by 3) they'd have been 25-5 and almost certainly in the dance. Don't use Upchurch as a blanket excuse. That team had Bonner, Gray, Douglas, Newberry - a good coach would have had them in the tournament.

Originally I viewed Gregory as a poor man's Calipari (talented undisciplined teams, wears expensive suit to overcompensate for lack of coaching ability), but lately I see him as a rich man's Grawer (nice guy, lands talented local players, gets credit for advancing the program, capable of losing to anyone on any given night, makes deep NIT runs, fails to get the most out of talented teams, drives fanbase nuts). Soderberg was a good coach that just couldn't string enough strong recruiting classes together.

In hindsight, maybe we shouldn't have give our most (only) productive offensive player the toughest defensive assignment during crunch time.

Would it kill Rammer to ask Porter why our best rebounder and most effective defender of James was on the bench for crunch time? That game changing 3-pt play never happens if Evans is on the floor. The only thing I can figure is that Majerus is using FT% as the basis for crunch time minutes...

This is true...however, the majority of SLU's sellouts that season came AFTER the lockout ended - and the Blues were a hot ticket that year (Mike Keenan's first year). Not to mention the 15-18k+ SLU crowds from the year before at the Old Barn. When the team is good, people (alumni, casual fans) start to pay attention. They will typically wait for a game that looks good on paper (i.e. vs a team they've heard of) to stick their toes in the water, and if all goes well they buy into the program and start attending games regularly. It doesn't matter how (un)friendly the coach is, or how well the other STL sports teams are doing. A winning SLU program will have no trouble selling out the bulk of the season schedule.

Your assertion that SLU cannot duplicate the ticket scarcity they had in a building twice the size of Chaifetz is laughable. First a history lesson: The Billiken scalpers were certainly not overworked in Nov-Dec 1995 (the dawn of the Corey Frazier era). I'll assume you meant November-December 1994. I don't remember those early season games against the likes of Bethune-Cookman selling out. After the run in of sellouts to close out the Arena, I expected it to carry over into the following season, but that was not the case. I remember the first sellout being vs Austin Peay on December 28th. Realize they averaged 17k playing in a 21k arena - if they were selling out the early season crap games, they'd have averaged 20k. But that's beside the point, since they no longer play in 20k arena. This year, they drew 5,384 fans for Tennessee St. That's our rock bottom the plane has hit the mountain number. Last year, they drew ~6,500 for Mississippi Valley St and Kennesaw St. If they make an NCAA tournament run in 2011-12 and have the nucleus coming back, I'm pretty sure they can win over 3,500 new 'die-hard' fans from a metro area of nearly 3 million people who prefer the college basketball experience to NFL games which are more expensive in both money and time. re: playing games at Scottrade or the Dome If that's what it takes to get a game against Mizzou or Illinois, I think they should do it. I know we lose our home court advantage, but it would still be good for the program. I'm not sure the 1997-98 team gets an at-large bid without that win over Illinois at the dome.

There are plenty of minutes to go around...here are the MPG for the guards this season KC 29.9 MM 29.5 JJ 27.7 PE 15.0 CS 13.8 MM, and JJ will see their minutes-per-game drop closer to 20, but they'll still be major contributors on a NCAA caliber team as Sophomores. KC will play fewer minutes, but will be more fresh when he's in there. PE and CS probably won't play much, unless there are injuries.

CS is old for his class. He's not going to get any quicker, and he's already improved defensively as much as he's going to. Unless he can find his 3pt shot, he's not going to significantly improve over what we've seen. CR is young for his class and could very well mature into a valuable low post presence. Neither of those guys is going to suddenly become a major contributor this year. Ellis is the sophomore whose development (or lack thereof) we should be focusing on.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc The 92-93 team struggled because they only had 3 good players, not because Claggett and Highmark were underclassmen. 'The Big 3' were able to keep them in most games, but usually games slipped away in the 2nd half.

You questioned whether or not this years team (w/ KM and WR) was more talented than the mid 90s team(s). In comparing this year's team to those teams, I pointed out that it's difficult to compare a team that relies heavily on freshmen (read: undeveloped talent) to teams that didn't rely on freshman at all. Yes, Harris was on one of those teams when he was a freshman, but he was not counted on for much. He played a major role the following year after Dobbs was gone. So, sophomore Jeff Harris - the guy who helped SLU win an NCAA first round game - is more seasoned than freshman Dwayne Evans. The point is that we don't really know what we have until the players get a full season of D-1 experience under their belt.