Zink
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Posts posted by Zink
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Working! Thanks, Go_Bills I always had to poke around thefirstrow until you started these threads. It is much appreciated.
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Anyone else having trouble with the free feeds?
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Hi all, thought I would jump in here as someone who will be looking at faculty positions within the next few years...
I am currently a grad student (did my undergrad at SLU), who will be looking for jobs within the next 4-6 years (depending on post-doc opportunities, etc). It seems like a total farce and indicates a serious lack of judgment to do away with true-tenure at an institution trying to make it as a research institution. I would never consider even applying to a job at SLU if this were the case, even though I would love to return to my alma mater to live and work in my hometown. Tenured positions at research universities encourage groundbreaking ideas and research, and are theoretically only given to professors who have shown the ability (or potential) to do such work. The road to tenure is arduous and not for the light hearted - grants need to be won (in my field, only about 10% of applicants receive any particular grant), exceptional research must be conducted and published in high level journals, courses you teach must be rated highly by your students, you must show the ability to train graduate students, and you have to maintain a good rapport with the other faculty in your department and around campus. To have to justify your presence every few years would place the emphasis on working to find low-hanging fruit to research and write about, rather than working towards developing truly innovative and exciting research which does not always pan out. To discourage this type of ambition within your university is not a positive and could trickle down to the undergraduate students who no longer have labs to work in or professors who play a major part in their field.
An example of this is the faculty member with whom I worked as an undergrad. As a sophomore, after having the study abroad program I was planning to participate in at Oxford through the honors college scraped (due to budgetary issues), I applied for a position in a lab. This faculty member has done exceptional research, is frequently cited, and is changing the way the field thinks. However, he recently decided to take a tenure track position at a different school, after noticing and feeling uncomfortable with the lack of support he had received in his time at SLU. There were also other reasons to go, but the lack of ambition within the school in terms of generating research was a definitely a concern of his. His grant money (some of which goes straight to the school), exciting research, and ability to train both undergrads and graduate students are now missing from the SLU community.
I truly hope the university is able to turn around the atmosphere and encourage scholarship at every level - but that starts with the faculty.
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My opinion CE is key to it all if he returns to freshman pre injury offensive skills
and comes back lean and mean the pretenders to the
5 slot will all give us great minutes and hope for the future
CE actually had the most points/40 min (19) of anyone on the team last year, I believe. Also, he had the highest offensive efficiency rating. He will certainly up his ppg with more time and opportunities next season.
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Awesome! Another guard!
Why hate on the backcourt signings? After JJ, JB and MM graduate we won't have the current abundance of guards. I agree that our most pressing immediate need would be a frontcourt player, but are we actually going to get a guy who can fill in right away? I would rather not be stuck starting multiple underclassmen at the guard positions in 14/15. For a guide to our team's classification, look below and you can see that we essentially lose our whole backcourt after next year's Juniors graduate.
SR
G - KM
F - CE, CR
JR
G - JJ, MM, JB
F - DE, RL
SO
F - JM, GG
FR
G - KC
F - JD
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I would venture to say that we will be a better rebounding team next season without BC. BC had a really good season from the offensive end, but he was never a strong rebounder. The players taking up BC's minutes next season will almost certainly rebound at a better rate than he did.
I have seen other posters talk about our "poor rebounding" or see it as an area to improve upon next year. However, on the defensive boards, we picked up 71.3% of the rebounds, good for 53rd in the country. While I agree we could get better (we weren't 1st, or at 100%), and having another player who is good at rebounding on the floor would help, it wouldn't be so much in terms of keeping the other team off the glass - we already do that pretty effectively - but would allow us to do it with fewer players, which in turn could open up our transition game beyond a reliance on turnovers.
A similar possibility relates to the offensive boards, where we were not that good (31.6%, 200th). Having individuals who are better at rebounding would improve this stat, as we are very committed to getting back on defense and oftentimes have only one player crashing the boards. JM could be this person, and DE is already very good at it.
Bottom line is that getting any better at rebounding will be a plus, but it is not an area we should need to worry about too much moving to next season.
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Second round voting ends tonight at 10ET. Both GG and JJ made it through the first round so vote for them http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/poll/_/id/4703/coolest-name-ncaa-tournament
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He looks like a multi-talented 4. Good looking form on his shot and can get above the rim rather easily. Of course, you wonder how physical he will be - pretty lanky. But nothing Rick and backhand couldn't fix
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We have also been linked with Zavier Turner, a PG in the class of 2013.
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DE will be first team a10 the next 2 years
I agree. His tenacity on the glass has become one of my two favorite things to watch (the other is JJ manhandling his defensive assignment). He can flip a switch and just dominates the boards at both ends of the floor. We need to see that DE every game next year. He is a huge reason that the defensive glass was not a liability this season.
If someone told you at the beginning of the year that when we played MSU in the Dance, they would be worrying about a match-up problem with DE, I would not have believed you. He has developed into a Rodman-esque machine on the boards, and a solid post scorer from the 3. If he develops a consistent jumper, he has A-10 POY potential. He could put up 14 and 10. Next year, I think he'll be closer to 10 and 8.
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So I did some digging and the Iowa state basketball playoffs are done, so I'm not sure exactly what he'd be going to watch if he were in fact headed there. However, it did seem clear that this was not a reference to Jared Drew. Also, the fact Rick said that he wanted to get to this guy before Big 10 schools did makes me think our mystery recruit is probably a Jr, but that is speculation.
Rick could have meant that he was going to Indiana to see Zavier Turner (ESPN says that we offered him a scholarship), a Junior who will be playing next weekend in the state tournament for Pike HS.
Trying to interpret what Rick said might just be an unrealistic goal. Hopefully someone else has more info available to work with.
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Could be for the class of 2013.
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Who else do we have locked up coming in next year with Keith Carter? Who is the guy from Iowa RM was talking about?
We also have Jared Drew from Indianapolis, IN... We know how good Rick is at talking, so this could have been a tongue-slip. Hopefully not though, and we have a stud in the class of '13 coming in from Iowa.
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Who would you compare Carter to and how do you see him fitting in with the current core of guards?
I have watched two of his games online now (and all of those highlight reels), and he isn't exactly like any of the guards we have. KM gets to the hole with an explosive first step and finishes with strength, MM is quick and has that nifty baseline layup and soft-touch, JJ is just a freak athletically without much offensive polish at this point.
KC will be more of an ankle-breaker, he has that ability to penetrate against the defense and is a combination of strength and speed. He should be able to pick up Majerus' D and succeed at one-on-one defense (which will be more relevant to any playing time he gets than his offense, if the past is any indication). Another thing I noticed is that he seems to be more patient than other players with his ability. He doesn't try to embarrass his defender every possession, and is as likely to pass after beating his man as he is to finish the play himself. Perhaps this comes from playing with other collegiate-level talents at Proviso East. He knows how to play within himself, and therefore we hopefully won't see the turnover problems that plagued JJ early in his career. His shot looks good, and he can hit from deep, but he doesn't look like a future 40%+ threat from 3. He could get there, but from what I have seen he is a bit too inconsistent. All in all, he will add a slightly different skill-set to the Three Amigos, but will definitely be able to play at - and maybe someday above - their level.
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-if the world, in this case the committee, worked logically then having those ahead of us lose and we win and therefore move up in seeding makes perfect sense, but sometimes it seems the committee does not work in this logical way
True. For example, if UConn or Seton Hall get to the BE final or even win it, they could easily be gifted a higher seed. Of course, the committee has also said they now consider "whole body of work" rather than performance down the stretch, so of course these final games shouldn't have any more bearing on seeding than the ones that happened in November. We all know that's not entirely true. Per usual, we need to just win, baby.
Zink, I'm with you now as far as Memphis, Southern Missa and SDSU now. Let them lose as early as possible.
But the problem with most of these BCS schools is they already have bye's in there conference tourneys and some of the teams below them in their bracket are bubble teams or lower seeds than the Billikens. Don't you risk some of the these teams going on a run in the tourney and passing us up in seeding?
I guess you have to look at it game to game every day. So root for Texas to beat Iowa St and then lose the next one? Notre Dame has two byes, so would you be rooting for UCON to beat ND at that point. Do you root for NC St to beat Virginia?
Maybe, we should just root for all the below bubble teams to go on runs in the BCS tournaments and lose in the Championship game so they don't take a spot. Go BC, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas Tech, etc?
It is all rather convoluted, but yeah, having a bottom feeder go streaking through the tournament should help us. Also, it would be good for the top-tier teams to win, as we probably aren't going to pass them up anyway. It might be possible for teams to pass us up (as I mentioned above), but I'd rather have a team desperate to make a case have a chance to pass us than allow a team already ranked above us to solidify their case. The former gives us a shot at moving up where the latter probably does not.
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Maybe. I'm no bracket expert. My thinking was to limit the amount of surprise at large bids from the mid-majors and reduce the amount of BCS teams as locks for the tourney. I figured this would make it easier for the committee to move us up in seeding. I don't see any scenario where we go back to the bubble. Maybe your approach is better, but I don't have a good feel for who needs to win or lose to drop 5,6, and 7's down and move us up.
My thinking is that the more teams that lose ahead of us, the higher we can move up. Of course this is all contingent on us also playing well and boosting our chances at a higher seed.
These are the teams currently listed by Lunardi as the 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10 seeds who still have games to play (we are a 10):
Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Gonzaga (6)
Memphis, New Mexico, SDSU (7)
St Mary's, Iowa State, Alabama, K State (8)
Purdue, Virginia, Cincinnati, Southern Miss (9)
UConn, West Virginia, Cal (10)
So ideally, the teams in this range lose early in their conference tournaments as this would likely hurt their eventual seed (the SMU vs Gonzaga match-up in the WCC championship game tonight probably won't hurt the loser too much). I stopped at 6, b/c unfortunately that is probably our limit. I don't see us moving up to a 5 unless there are some serious embarrassments. So if you want teams to cheer against this week (other than SPUMAC and SVU), pick on the teams listed above.
Understandably, we don't want a team currently seeded below us or on the bubble to have an excellent conference tourney run, but if we take care of business (and we will) we shouldn't need to worry so much about them.
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It looks like most people believe Iona (25-7) and Middle Tenn (25-5) are out due to ealy tournament losses.
Tommorow the Big East starts and we need to be rooting against UCON, S. Florida, and Seton Hall in their first games.
Later in the week we need to root against Texas, Univ So. Miss, Northwestern in early games and for Long Beach St to win their tournament.
I know some of these teams will get in even if they lose their first game but the more we see go down, the better the seed for the Bills.
Correct me if I am not thinking clearly on this topic, but shouldn't we be pulling for teams on the bubble (or out of the picture) to beat other teams competing for those 5, 6 & 7 seeds? At this point, we are just about a lock, and it would have been better for us had teams like Creighton, St Mary's, Gonzaga etc had lost early in their tournaments, as this would have allowed us to leapfrog them in the seeding come Sunday. We shouldn't need to worry about too many teams eating up at-large bids with conference tourney upsets, because it would take a ridiculously improbable number of those scenarios to play out for us to end up on the bubble.
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He is going to be a great Billiken. Seems to have McCall's quickness combined with Mitchell's savvy. We'll see if he can put it together at the college level, but he is, as Majerus has said, the best guard he has recruited here at SLU.
Also, if anyone has time to kill, they can watch the championship game of the Proviso West Holiday Tournament (at which he earned MVP honors, I believe) on YouTube
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Reading about individual records got me looking at our team's numbers from this year. The most interesting individual stat I found is that KC is currently tied with Kendall Marshall, UNC's stud PG, as national leader in A/T ratio (3.6). http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/stats/assist_turnover_ratio?season=2011-2012
This is perhaps another Billiken record ready to be broken, although I don't have anything to actually back that up.
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Note that Mitchell and Reed played a combined 9.3 fewer minutes per game in the seasons you are using for comparison than did Lisch and Liddell. Also, consider that the offense averaged about 3 fewer ppg during Mitchell and Reed's sophomore campaign and this direct comparison makes even less sense. If you want to make a direct player for player comparison, you need to control for all of the other variables impacting their stats which the players themselves have little to no control over. I don't really care to crunch the numbers at the moment for you, but please don't try to argue your point by utilizing misleading statistics as support.I used sophmore years for both. I could have used a combination of freshman and sophmore years and Lisch and Liddell would have really blown Mitchell and Reed out of the water. At this point in their careers Lisch and Liddell were a better combination. We'll see what happens after that.
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Looks like it was no video, lights off with swarming spot lights.
There were short clips of some players dunking, dribbling etc. with close-ups of the starters as their names were announced. It was an improvement from last year for sure.
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Some notes from the first half; I left before the second half:
Started in 4-5-1 with Roeckle, Brown, Dice and Mags in back; Newport Robson, Bortolon, Holmes in the middle. Sweetin appeared to play a Attacking Mid/Fwd; Adnan was up top. Shackleford in goal.
Early on Evansville had the run of play and possession. SLU was compressing laterally quite hard; if the ball was on the left side, SLU was in the middle and left third, leaving the right third open. SLU wasn't connecting well or smoothly. Backs were not connecting with the mids well nor were the mids showing well either. In the 33rd minute, Bortolon fed a ball to Adnan about 40 yds from goal and Adnan took off. Two defenders closed on him inside the 18 on the left post and he sent it across on the ground. Sweetin followed up and buried it. Very nice technique on the shot. Five minutes later, Evansville scored on a quick attack down the right side. There was a deflection that got ripped in.
Nothing much else happened after that of interest. I did not think Robson had a good first half nor Bortolon. They can not be a midfield tandem. Holmes was fast but ineffective on the wing. He does not have the touch or sense to be a winger. Newport worked hard as usual. Mags was great out in his wingback position. Brown and Bice were fine at CB; they tried some long balls but they were of Ream-like quality. Sweetin and Adnan were the best SLU players on the field. People will like Adnan....he's not as soft as I thought he was and bodied up very well like a target but also could turn and go at people very well. He might just be the type of forward we have been needing for a long time.
Given that McGinty was likely playing people to see if they will start or not, I would say that based on the first half players, Sweetin, Adnan, Mags, and possibly Robson are definite starters. Given the youth on the team, Bortolon will probably start.
Finally, I have never seen the field look as in bad a shape as it looked last night. Brown streaks everywhere. My lawn looked better. CLumps all over the field. I'm guessing all this heat did a number on it.
Apparently they tried a new fertilizer out over the summer, and it obviously didn't work out.
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TECHNICALLY speaking, PE will be a RS Junior. So he might touch the floor his junior season, but never in his senior season, and yet he would be honored on Senior night...during his junior season.Will we have the first Senior night in history with two players who never touched the court for the team in their junior seasons?
SI Power Rankings
in Billikens.com Main Board
Posted
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-basketball/news/20130227/college-basketball-power-rankings/?sct=uk_t11_a7
We come in at #12. Luke Winn highlights the poor shots that our defense forces the opponent to take.
I would also like to see the reverse statistics, as we take (what seems like) a relatively low proportion of mid-range jumpers compared to other teams. And when we do settle for them, they tend to be wide-open and therefore perhaps not as inefficient. In this way, our offense reflects modern trends in terms of shot selection - shoot 3's and lay-ups, get to the FT line at a decent rate - that are being embraced thanks to the influence of sabermetrics.
Edit: Another SI article focusing on the Bills - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-basketball/news/20130227/saint-louis-after-rick-majerus/?sct=uk_wr_a1