Duff Man
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Posts
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Posts posted by Duff Man
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5 minutes ago, Littlebill said:
I’m thinking we aren’t getting a top 3 today
Spoon-Balls and Bills_06 like this -
RIP to a Billiken Legend.
Condolences to his family.
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Guy Phillips jumped on the Spoonball bandwagon and has been tormenting us ever since with his unprofessional PA work and inflated sense of celebrity...with the exception of the occasional reprieve when he's got something more important to do (like annoy Mizzou and Illini fans at the Braggin Rights game).
Give the gig to someone who will actually take it seriously and take pride in his work.
AGB91 likes this -
20 hours ago, Pistol said:
0 - Jordan Goodwin - Marcus Bartley wore 0 in his two seasons at SLU. Before him, Dwayne Polk wore 00, which shows up as 0 most places online. I'm not aware of anyone wearing it before him. So whether or not 0 ends up getting retired with Goodwin, he definitely owns this number.
Keith Carter wore 0 in 2012 before he peaced out.
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1 hour ago, BilliesBy40 said:
Jett had a good career, but his legend is disproportionately weighted toward his season year. Before that, he was largely an offensive role player and defensive specialist (and a great one at that). Goodwin will end up with similar accolades and FAR superior numbers. As of today, with Goodwin having played 41 less games than Jett, Goodwin has 358 more rebounds, 8 more steals, 83 less points, and 99 less assists. The only counting category they will end up remotely close in is assists.
A lot of people neglect how great Goodwin has been through 3 season.
Goodwin has also taken 88 more shots than Jett did, and Jett still has 14 more made FGs. Efficiency matters.
Remember when everyone used to lament Jett's poor FT shooting? Well his 61.2% > Goodwin's 56.6%
I'm not trying to pick on Goodwin because he's really improved from where he was mid soph year, and he fits so well with this current group. He's a guy who does MANY MANY things well and contributes on both sides and works his ass off on both ends and his aggressiveness set the tone for the entire team...but he's not a dominant offensive player who you just keep feeding the ball to (like Perkins or Jett or Claggett).
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18 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:
you can make the connection of the senior season that distorts the memory about a number of our billiken idols. justin love, brian conklin, jordair jett, and Rob Loe all immediately come to mind.
Yeah, they were all bad asses who improved mightily as they progressed. Why would not remember them at the peak of their value?
Meanwhile other guys (not going to name any names) peaked soph year and never lived up to their true potential.
Naturally we're going to glorify the former over the latter.
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15 minutes ago, brianstl said:
Easy Ed’s number 50 is the only retired number at SLU and I think that only happened about 20 years ago. The jerseys of Bonner, Ferry, and Bousshka are retired. Anyone can still get assigned their number.
I feel like Melvin Robinson was made to switch to 54 from 50 his soph year because they realized after it was too late that 50 was supposed to be retired. Not sure if it was officially retired or if it was a Willie McGee 51 situation where Bud Smith gave up number 51 after a pair of starts for the Cardinals in 2001 and no Cardinals player has worn it since.
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33 minutes ago, Littlebill said:
The bottom line is exactly right.
for what it’s worth, I think Goodwin has already had a better Bills career than Jett - who did most of his damage in his last season, and imo wasn’t the best player of his era. I think Claggett is the player with the most beef not being up there at this time.
The idea that Jordair Jett was a one season supernova is revisionist history.
Jett made all 10 defensive team as a 7th man on the deepest roster in program history. He was the best defensive player on the best team we've seen. He was not asked to do much offensively but he was a key part of the NCAA run that had them closer to the Sweet 16 than at any other point in my lifetime before Draymond twisted the knife.
As a Junior, Jett was 3rd team all conference and once again all defensive A10 on a team that swept the A10 regular season and conf tournament titles. The only Billikens team to ever do that.
He took it to another level the following year with Kwamain gone, but Jett was a key part of 2 great teams and was honored with all conference recognition before that magic senior year.
Goodwin meanwhile has 1 first team all conference and 1 all defensive team and 1 NCAA tournament appearance....and people are ready to retire his number
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Claggett is more worthy than any other Billiken past or present of having his number retired. 3x 1st team All Conf, Honorable Mention All-American. 2nd all-time leading scorer.
Jordair Jett is certainly more worthy than anyone on the current roster having won conf POY and Honorable Mention All-American.
I think we should also remember that Melvin Robinson wore 50 in 1989-90 and Cody Ellis wore 24 from 2010-2013 after the numbers were supposed to be "retired".
I don't know when Boushka's 24 was retired but Larry Simmons wore it in the late 90s. This might have been the period when only 50 was retired while we had 24 and 43 banners hanging next to it.
Bonner's 34 wasn't retired immediately as some have pointed out that Donnie Dobbs wore it from 92-94 and then Tyrone Caswell in the late 90s. I don't recall exactly when Bonner's 34 was retired.
Bottom line: It's an exclusive club that doesn't really have any clear criteria or consistent rules.
brianstl and cgeldmacher like this -
3 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:
I can’t believe we watched sports in low definition...I couldn’t make it through the UNC game.
I feel sorry for people who can't get hard to standard definition (sports) porn.
SLU_Nick likes this -
48 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:
I'm fully aware that the UNC game I uploaded does not finish the game. I'm not sure what the issue is. The file I uploaded goes the full length.
Eh, it's for the best that it ends abruptly with an ambiguous finish...it was a lot closer than I remembered...thanks for all the work uploading the old games
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3 hours ago, TheChosenOne said:
These lists are never going to satisfy everyone and aren't worth spending much time arguing, but mad props to the writer from the PD who was successfully able to agitate two guys who will make over $200 million playing a sport. Terrific stuff Mr. Kvidahl. Hopefully they can use being slighted by this list as fuel whenever the NBA returns to action, prove the haters wrong Chaminade boys!
Reading the Twitter thread, I thought Tatum was not so much upset about Liddell getting Player of the Decade over himself and Beal, but rather upset that Roosevelt Jones got first team over BJ Young, Cam Biedscheid, and Caleb Love. Tatum gave a take somewhere - I forget where - about how Biedscheid was a guy who was so good (in HS) but didn't pan out.
It's just funny to think that Tatum's NBA game is so mature, yet he's still a 22 year old getting fired up about a dumb list by the St Louis Post Dispatch
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2 hours ago, Taj79 said:
Robinson was, talent-wise, likely his second best center but I wouldn't give him such credit if I were Grawer either. He transferred to Arizona State, didn't qualify, never played a game (as I recall) and then went to the NBA for a couple of cups of coffee. Vashon product.
Big Mel was a poor man's Willie Reed.
Cup of coffee = preseason - amazingly in a span of 12 days in 1995 Big Mel signed/was claimed and was waived/released from both the Sonics and Jazz - teams that would represent the Western Conference in the next 3 NBA finals. I assume back then being 7ft was good enough for an NBA team to kick the tires for 13th man. It was the Hack a Shaq era.
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Bonner
Hughes
Claggett
Jett
Kwamain
Love
Evans
Perry
Jeffers -
If Bess didn't make a roster, I'm not sure how either of these 2 will, much less get drafted.
Goodwin doesn't have the handles to play PG at the next level, nor does he have the jump shot or explosiveness to be a SG at the next level.
French needs to learn to shoot 3s if he's going to make it. Given his inability to shoot FTs, that's a long shot.
I'd love to see them make it, but dear God I hope they keep their options open.
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Glad to see the Big 3 all getting their All-conference due.
What's great about this team is how everyone has settled into their role and flourished within the team unit.
No time to rest on these laurels. Get the W Friday and keep it going.
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Jacobs' ballhandling and FT shooting is useful at the end of games when the other team is fouling to put us on the line.
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Perkins shot 22.5% from beyond the arc vs D1 non-conf opponents vs 41.2% in A10 play.
Even more remarkable since in his first 5 A10 games he shot 2 for 18 (11.1%) from 3
Over Perkins last 13 games, he's shooting 52% from 3 and his FG% + 3P% + FT% = 1.814
Zink likes this -
2 hours ago, slu72 said:
If the Beast folks weren't so GD arrogant they'd take both SLU and Dayton. The add one more E. Coast team for a 14 team league. The MW division would be X, Butler, Creighton, MU, DePaul, SLU, and Dayton.
The East div would have Nova, Prov, St John's, GU, UConn, SH, and take your pick of RI, VCU, Rich, Duq, or Davidson.
Simple. Problem solved. What a conference. Could get like 8-9 teams dancing. Lot of rivalries, new big markets. Reduce expenses for non revenue sports. All good schools academically.
Maybe they enjoy having the traditional round robin schedule where everyone plays everyone home and away.
It would be cool to have an annual home schedule that included X, Butler, Marquette, Creighton, in addition to Dayton...plus Nova, Seton Hall, etc every other year...but we'd struggle to go .500 in that league, and you can forget about winning the conf tournament.
Sure, we could recruit at a higher level but not at the level of the conference elite. I mean, we struggle to do much better than .500 in the effing A10, how are we going to do in the Big East?
Programs that were a lot more successful than SLU before joining the reformed Big East (Creighton, Marquette, Georgetown) don't make the tournament as regularly as they used to because the competition within the conference so fierce and someone needs to finish in the bottom half.
Bottom line: It'd be great if it happens, but it won't really make getting into the NCAA tournament any easier.
Spoonball18 likes this -
28 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:
I disagree with the portion I highlighted in bold — particularly in 2014. I feel that the Bills, particularly against Wichita State, Duquesne, Dayton, and St. Bonaventure, were penalized more than favored.
Wichita St were a better team coming off a Final 4 and SLU could not buy a 3pt shot.
Dayton went to the Elite 8, were as good as we were not to mention Jordair was banged up. They beat us.
Duquesne hit 8 of 15 3s while SLU went 4-23. That's why they lost. It wasn't the refs.
Are you talking Bonnies in the A10 tournament? Thats probably the most egregious screw job I can recall. Jett got hammered and stayed down. No call. They hit open 3 playing 5 on 4. Total garbage. But...its different in the conf tournament as the league benefits from a dark horse winner.
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In order to beat a top 10 team on the road, you're going to need to overcome biased officiating. Period.
College basketball refs are often crap. We should be used to it. You would be naive to think we don't have dirty refs. Of the refs who are 100% clean, there is a natural bias towards the home team - esp when it's a sellout crowd - esp when it's the best team in the conference - esp when they're ranked in the top 10.
No ref wants to be the one who made the bad call that caused the best team in the conference to lose (at home), and hurt their NCAA seed.
When the Billikens were the top dogs in the A10 at the height of the Jett/Evans era, we certainly benefited from this phenomenon. It works both ways.
SLU does not project as an at-large NCAA team. They are a spoiler at this point. Come A10 tournament time, it'll be a different story but right now when they play the A10 teams with legit NCAA at large aspirations, we're going to playing uphill against that officiating bias.
As far as leaving the conference goes...I mean, since joining the A10 they've made the NCAA tournament 4 times in 14 years. It's a conference that's strong enough that they can earn an at-large bid with a strong regular season but also a conference that's not so good that winning the automatic bid via the tournament is not an impossible task. What other conference could they join where both of those factors would remain intact?
dlarry, MusicCityBilliken and Bizziken like this -
2 hours ago, Clock_Tower said:
Any idea what the full payoff would be? Assume the lawsuit against the NFL will try to recoup monies for this.
That has been brought up and my guess - without knowing anything about how the plaintiffs are structured - is that the bonds with be paid off by the time the money arrives but the settlement/payout will factor in the debt payments from 2016-onward.
Regardless, the state felt like they got burned on the Dome long before the Rams moved. The Cardinals were denied direct stadium funds by the state in 2000/2001 (remember they briefly bluffed that they might move to the east side) and while they ultimately got $30M in tax credits (pocket change) and some state money went towards demolishing/rebuilding highway ramps, the Dome was the deal that effectively ruined STL's credit when it comes to any kind of state funding for stadiums.
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46 minutes ago, Clock_Tower said:
Understood. But that was 1994? 24years ago?
And if you have a principled stand, then take it from the beginning and dont be silent with their funding proposal and stand with the ownership group in the celebratory photo if you are holding a knife waiting for them to turn their backs.The bonds don't mature until 2022.
From my recollection, it's $12M/yr and when the team was here the state was coming out narrowly ahead ($12.6M in additional tax revenue) but even with the Battlehawks about to begin play, it's still a bleeding wound on the state's books and has been since 2016.
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I don't know what Parsons' end game was or why he pulled his support for the tax breaks after previously indicating he was on board with them...
But in addition to the general political rift between STL and the rest of the state (which goes back centuries), there's the far more recent history of the Dome financing which was a terrible con job where the state financed a $280M stadium on spec - no one has every really dug into how that happened but if you look at who stood to benefit from the project we can assume HOK and the unions were influential - which ground had already been broken by the time STL missed out on the NFL expansion - at which point the region had zero leverage in negotiations with any team looking to relocate (i.e. the Rams) which led to the awful lease that didn't even cover maintenance costs in the short term and allowed the team to leave before the debt was paid off in the long term.
So yeah, while this MLS deal appears to be win-win for all involved with the ownership group covering the vast majority of the costs and only asking for "pocket change" tax breaks...the fact that the state got burned on the Dome, and also how the MLS and the STL ownership group are pot committed at this point, I understand why there's hesitation to give them the $30M in tax breaks.
dennis_w likes this
2020 Billikens.com Fundraiser
in Billikens.com Main Board
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Donated.
Thanks for keeping it going through the years and dealing with the spikes/outages.