Zink

The seats at the Etihad were made for standing lol

Yeah, I really think the right move for modern MLS stadiums is to go for intimate and loud vs expansive and comfortable. Having been fortunate enough to attend matches and visit stadiums across Europe, the coolest places to watch games are the ones that have a built-in atmosphere due to an emphasis on sight-lines and with getting as many spectators close to the action as possible. Craven Cottage is an example of an old stadium that does this really well, but there are actually quite a lot of modern lower tier teams with stadiums featuring similar designs (e.g., The DW in Wigan). Relatedly, if you haven't been to a European stadium, it might surprise you somewhat how cheap, small, and close together the seats are compared to a place like the new Busch. Only a small portion of the seats are actually at all not-uncomfortable to sit in, those at midfield and the ones for people with luxury boxes. The rest are made of flimsy plastic, which is great because it makes you more inclined to stand all game and allows you to get a lot of fans down close to the field. Another big difference is how limited the concourses are, with much more sparse concessions (even in very new stadiums like the Etihad and Gazprom Arena) and nothing else besides bathrooms. Fans congregate outside the stadium pre-match and then go in to watch the game at their seats, really emphasizing the game itself as the primary source of entertainment, which I appreciate.

The reason we've never had a team has almost everything to do with stadium plans falling through/not having a big name or super rich primary owner to headline a bid. MLS has been trying to get a team in STL since its inception due to the perceived amount of local support and extraordinary attendance for one-off matches with the USNTs and club friendlies, providing a direct counter to your hypothesis on this particular issue. The fans have never been the problem, it has been down to unfunded stadium proposals and ownership groups that weren't quite rich enough to satisfy the league's cabal of owners. Both of those problems seem to have been solved with the Taylor group, which is why we have jumped to the front of the list for expansion!

I love how he always either has his feet set for a shot after the catch, or if he the defender is right on top of him, he’s ready to do some sort of shimmy/fake in order to free himself up. He definitely has the potential to be more than a catch and shoot guy based on this video.

Super impressive highlights... I really hope he's good enough defensively to play right away, god knows we can use a shooter like this^

As much as I want to disagree with you (I’m generally team “always recruit over everyone”), another component of the Hauser fiasco beyond the Sam/Markus feud apparently had to do with the recruitment of Tyler Hierro. He de-committed from Wisconsin and Wojo recruited him hard, much to the chagrin of the Hauser clan. Wound up at UK obviously, but that was the beginning of the end for the Hausers, if you will. That said, I think these kinds of problems can be ameliorated through honest discussions with your players. Communication is arguably the most important part of any relationship, and it seems like Wojo failed to communicate effectively with two of his most important players. Can’t lose the locker room like he did, ultimately it falls on him for not smoothing over the Sam/Markus issue and compounding that problem by recruiting a player (Hierro) that 1/6 of his locker room wanted nothing to do with.

Yeah, apparently that was an attempt to help things blow over without making anything else public. My source is pretty reliable, but I can dm you more specifics if you want to know. I just don’t want to put things out on the internet that are easily traced back to people close to the program that haven’t already been made known elsewhere.

Not at the 3, given our lack of depth at forward. I was just speculating on backcourt minutes, nothing in the front court. I’d guess he averages the most of any freshman, probably north of 20mpg.

I heard from some Marquette folks in the know that the relationship between Sam and Markus deteriorated beyond repair for reasons that remain somewhat unclear. The craziest thing to me is that Sam will reportedly be a sit-one, play-one player (he won't be eligible as a grad transfer) which tells me that sh!t must have really hit the fan. Can't believe Wojo lost the locker room to this level, it doesn't bode well for his job security moving forward.

At this point, my only major concern with this team is who can spell French for 10-14 minutes each game. I'm not overly worried with how the guard minutes end up panning out, because they will distribute themselves based on performance, but it is fun to speculate about, especially considering our back-court stable is likely set (fingers crossed for no transfers or situations). Goodwin is probably locked in for at least 30, but then it's a total mystery. Here's what I see as what question(s) each player has to answer to get a share of the remaining ~90 minutes: Perkins: can he defend up to SLU standards? Thatch: can he shoot/score, play more on the ball? Collins: can he defend bigger guards, can he shoot? Lewis: can he defend up to SLU standards, can he distribute the ball as a primary guard? Jacobs: is he up to this level in terms of speed of thought, overall skill? Jimerson: can he defend whatsoever (/can Ford find a way to hide him), can he play on the ball at all? So Perkins and Thatch probably have the leg up to join Goodwin as starters, as they have fewer/smaller question marks to go along with more readily apparent high-level skills (scoring and defending, respectively). I don't feel like this is a particularly controversial take. Thatch was actually pretty horrendous offensively last year, so he needs to take a step-up if he wants to play more minutes than he did last year, but I'm cautiously optimistic on that front as he was a very good scorer and an average shooter in high school. On the flip side, Jimerson and Jacobs have the most to prove and are really total question marks. Jimerson might only be good at shooting and nothing else, which would dramatically limit his playing time. Jacobs so far is totally unproven beyond his highlight reel of dunks and really has a lot of work to do in terms of shooting, ball-handling, and defending. Both have tremendous upside, but who knows where they actually are right now? That leaves Collins and Lewis as the two guys most likely to get bench minutes to start, in large part because each brings one high-level skill (distributing and shooting, respectively). Ford went on record to say that Collins is an excellent defender, which is hopefully accurate and not just coach-speak. He's obviously undersized, so hopefully he shows some ability to handle post-up attempts by bigger guards and demonstrates better shooting ability than he did as a senior (when he was fresh off shoulder surgery). Lewis is a decidedly below average defender by advanced metrics, although he's about at the level that Isabell was at Drexel, and Tramaine wound up being an average defender in Ford's system so there is cause for optimism there. However, Lewis has never been a lead guard and doesn't seem to have point guard skills, or at least hasn't shown them at the college level; he's really a shooting guard in a point guard's body, which can work in the A10, but limits his upside. One of Goodwin/Collins will have to be on the floor at all times until proven otherwise. Based on this, I'd guess the minutes distribution winds up something like the following, assuming Ford doesn't go more than 9-deep on the overall rotation: Goodwin - 32 Perkins - 30 Thatch - 22 Lewis - 20 Collins - 16 Jimerson & Jacobs - scraps That said, Jimerson will absolutely get minutes if he's at all competent in facets of the game beyond shooting, which I think will be necessary for our team to be better than it was last year; if so, he'd take minutes from everyone and maybe push Collins down to like 8mpg, acting exclusively as Goodwin's back-up. Jacobs could also return from injury as a totally new player and jump over Collins and take minutes from Thatch & Lewis. Plus Perkins might need to play some minutes as a forward if we don't land a grad transfer big. So obviously this is very fluid, but I don't think I'm too far off based on what we know right now.

Yeah, building a local pipeline will be very important, especially once basically the 10-13th guys on every roster in the country will be eyeing playing time with an immediate transfer. Who sticks around and is willing to compete for minutes when that becomes reality? As you said, it'll be the guys who are committed to the city as well as the program and want to stay close to home.

Lewis is a great addition to a team with no proven returning perimeter scorers. He'll have to improve defensively to fit in with our group, but we REALLY need some offensive output, so he should help solve that glaring need right away; he had a 114.8 ORtg as a sophomore, and Bess led our team at 115.4 this past season. Honestly the most similar player to him that we already had coming in next year would be Jimerson, and I kind of hope that the two of them split a good amount of time next year so that we always have a shooter on the floor. Love the amount of competition that there will be for playing time next year, and that some of those guys will be contributors offensively.

I hope you’re right, and the offers to Kern and Kalkbrenner are another sign that we are trying to be in play for all local talent. However, it already seems like Fletcher and Love (the two biggest names in the 2020 class) are getting distracted by the bright lights of the blue bloods. Kasubke and Bradford are still in play, but they’re not quite as highly rated nationally. Fingers crossed, but I don’t think we will ever have the top-30 local guys on lockdown (might get one on occasion), barring a looong run of prominence and/or a move to the Big East.

And our offense looked wayyyy better when we started playing 4-out 1-in down the stretch, even though one of the four was usually DJ. Get a big who can shoot at that spot and our offense will improve by leaps and bounds.

Looks like there are already a lot of potentially useful players available. I’m optimistic that Ford will find the right guys to fill out our roster.