Duff Man
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Posts posted by Duff Man
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BG is a rich man's Brad Soderberg.
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.
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BTW, I thought the decision to have Jett guard James was interesting. I don't think he did a bad job. He stopped his dribble penetration and forced him to hit some very tough fade-aways.
In hindsight, maybe we shouldn't have give our most (only) productive offensive player the toughest defensive assignment during crunch time.
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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...
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Not much to quibble with here, but the NHL was locked out for the first part of the 1994-1995 season until early Jan 1995 (the 1st in the new Kiel Center).
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.
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Adman no bet because I said above we will get back to the 10k point and a big demand for the big games. But the scalpers won't be overworked in nov dec vs tennessee state. In 95 they would have been. Now the casual fan will say oh well, we got tix for the rams tomorrow anyway
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.
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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.
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Not saying CS, CR, etc. will be as good as Highmark and Claggett, etc. Instead, though, we remember how good Highmark, Claggett, etc. were but it is fact that their Freshman team won only 5 games (and our Frosh sat the bench for most of the until the defections occurred) and then they won only 12 games their Soph year. Don't get me wrong. We saw flashes or glimpses of what these guys could do their Frosh and Soph years. Will we see enough of the same from CR and CS by the end of this year? I hope so.
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.
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It's not difficult, at all, to compare a team which relies heavily on freshmen to a team which is junior- and senior-dominated. The results we've seen speak for themselves. When Claggett and Highmark, the foundation of the mid-90s NCAA Tournament teams, were underclassmen, the team struggled. Similarly, this year's team, sans two star juniors, is also struggling.
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.
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Why should I "give it up" when now you're reversing field and agree with me?
You said: "The latter 2 were essentially more seasoned variations of Dwayne Evans." You included Jeff Harris as a freshman. So, since Harris's freshman contributions were less than Evans's this year, how was he a more seasoned version of Evans?
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.
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Reminder: most NCAA players are not really good their Frosh and Soph years. Highmark, Claggett, Sloan, Heinrich, Voyoukas .... all were not that good their Soph year.
I don't even know where to begin describing what's wrong with this sentence.
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You could also refer to the italicized traits as talent and depth. Experience also helped them — and Majerus's teams have lacked experience — but to say that Jeff Harris is a more season version of Evans this year is not really accurate, because in 1993-94 Harris was a 6'4" freshman, just as Evans is this year.
Just give it up duder...
As a freshman, Harris only played 8 minutes per game averaging 1.46 rebounds and 1.54 points. He became a major contributor his second year, essentially filling the rebounding gap left by Dobbs.
Evans has been a major contributor as a freshman and I would expect him to take a step forward next year.
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I wasn't a fan then, but would you really say our roster is more talented than the teams in '94-'95?
It's hard to compare a roster dominated by upperclassmen to a roster dominated by underclassmen that's missing its 2 most talented players, but with Willie and Kwamain, this team is more talented than those vintage Spoonball teams. Those mid 90s teams overachieved thanks to the 3pt shooting of Claggett/Highmark/Waldman, trademark Spoonhour defensive intensity, and the craftiness of the undersized frontcourt - specifically 6'3 Dobbs, 6'6 Robinson, and 6'5 Harris. The latter 2 were essentially more seasoned variations of Dwayne Evans. Dobbs was a freak, but no one would argue he was more talented than Willie. Claggett and Waldman are the standard by which all SLU backcourts should be judged, and while none of the current batch of guards can pass like H or shoot like Claggett, none of the guards on those mid-90s teams had the all-around tools that these current players (KM/Jett/McCall) have already demonstrated.
While no one on the current roster has matched what Scott Highmark brought to the table, Cassity isn't that far off, and between Loe, Ellis, and Barnett - someone should be able to fill that role - the talent is there.
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Why do people love Carl Turner? Undersized 2 guard, 3 point specialist who wasn't a great 3 point shooter and couldn't defend at all, he was a worse defender than Erwin Claggett. His career FG% is lower than Dwayne Polk's and he shot better from 3 than from 2. If anything I overstated him being average.
All that matters is that he filled a role on teams that got to the dance. He was the only legit 3pt shooter coming off the bench on a team that lived and died with the 3pt shot. He was the ying to Carlos McCauley's yang.
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For our program JUCOs are not a consistent answer to our talent deficit. Majerus hasn't really recruited JUCO players in his career so we would be at a disadvantage there. We've had coaches who specialized in JUCO players and what did it get us?
Our first NCAA tournament birth in 37 years!
3 of SLU's 4 NCAA teams in the modern era have had major contributions from Juco transfers - and who knows if Hughes even considers SLU if not for their back-to-back NCAA teams in 94-95. We could very well be at 52 years and counting if not for the contributions of Donnie Dobbs, David Robinson, "average" Carl Turner, Justin Love, and Mo Jeffers.
They may not be practical anymore due to the semi-recent NCAA rule changes Roy alluded to, and it sounds like RM stays away from them precisely on those grounds, but just because the majority of them flopped under Soderberg doesn't mean we should just abandon the idea outright.
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Grawer had 1 team that went 25-10, and another that went 27-10. He had 3 NIT teams, and 2 teams that lost the NIT Championship game. I always thought several of those Grawer teams should have been in the NCAA Tournament, but SLU was in the MCC then, the MCC was a 1 bid league, and SLU could not get past Xavier.
The MCC sent 2 teams (Evansville and Xavier) in 1989. Evansville as an at-large. SLU finished 2nd in the league (behind Evansville) but lost to Xavier by 23 in the MCC Tourney semifinal, and that was that.
The Orlando Stewart game.
I posted that to youtube to rally the base following SLU's 20-pt game in 2008. Subsequently one of Orlando's ex-ladies started talking trash in the comments, and before long one of Orlando's friends asked me (on 'Lando's behalf) to delete the negative comments. I hope one day I get the opportunity to do such a favor for Dan Patrick...
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1:50-1:53
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On every one of Guy's 'corrections', my fiancee turned to me and quoted the Mad Real World sketch...
"Correction: I had sex with Katie."
If only she knew...
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You don't even want to know the scandal behind the conception of the Baby Billiken...amazing they were able to keep it quiet...very shrewd PR making him co-mascot like they did
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These people who are talking about us not missing WR as much as we will miss KM will find out how wrong they are very soon. The guys who were predicting we were going to the NCAA tournament simply because Loe committed now know they overrated his talent level as an early season freshman. He will probably develop into a very good player before the season is over but, I think broy is wrong in thinking he will have as much of a positive impact as did WR in his freshman season. RM may have to put a bigger emphasis on offense than defense simply to fit the strong points of the players he has.
Why does it matter who we miss more? It's not like there is a choice. The only choice is whether or not KM redshirts, IF he returns.
As for how to replace the production, it won't be easy but that's what the coaching staff gets paid for...I'd love to hear Majerus field your 'put a bigger emphasis on offense' question...please ask next time you see him.
As much as I love seeing 5 players on the floor who can both pass and knock down open shots, the right way to develop this team is to reward defensive intensity with more playing time.
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According to this guy's projections.
Just early predictions but nice to at least see our name their.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/14257443/projecting-the-field-preseason-edition
It's like meeting the girl of your dreams and finding out she's five...
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Getting squeezed out of the NIT should be the least of our concerns right now...
We've got a fighting chance of winning the Powerball jackpot, and you're focused on Pick 3.
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If we get Rob Loe, I propose Jon Smith officially change his last name to Stamos.
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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.