Zink
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Posts posted by Zink
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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?
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gomez, edu and bornstein all in the starting lineup:Altidore did have a 'stomach ailment' that put his status in question earlier in the week (I think he missed a practice, too), but looks like he's good to go today. I'm with you guys, I don't get the Altidore haters. He's a big part of US Soccer's future.
With Findley unable to go, I'd also like to see Dempsey slide up front with Altidore and Edu take his midfield spot. I would have to think after the disallowed goal Edu is a guy you want on the field.
Does anyone know a good spot downtown to sneak out and catch some of the game? My office is at Broadway and Chestnut.
altidore - gomez
dempsey - edu - bradley - donovan
bornstein - bocanegra - demerit - cherundolo
howard
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Talked with a friend on the track & cc team and apparently the track will be finished for the spring season, there will be concessions & bleachers and it will have the necessary pits for field events (we will be able to host meets). That's the good news. however, he said that in the plans he saw, the field was grass... my bad about the earlier fieldturf info, but our club soccer captain was told at meetings that it would be fieldturf. so i'm not sure what the final product will be.
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The vandy field is still terrible and only gets worse as each year goes by. they have resodded the field once a year for the past four years (probably expensive, but i don't know the actual cost). It is grossly inadequate, especially if slu doesn't want to properly maintain it throughout the year. They are putting in a FieldTurf field (rather than astroturf) at the new complex which is a great surface, very durable, practical and generally cost effective. Field hockey, club sports and intramurals would all be able to use this type of field without needing to worry about how badly it rained or how torn up it is (major problems with a grass field).I think they are going way too stingy on this project.
I like the idea of developing the surrounding area of the Med Campus, but I think the track and intramural field is a little out of place. I'd rather see a nicer student center and apartments for graduate students, med students, and even upperclassmen who are in Doisy College.
I am a big believer in SLU making a big investment in buying up a warehouse either behind Reinert somewhere on Forest Park Ave. or somewhere in the Valley under the bridge. This could fit in with the Chouteau Greenway project that may happen in this area. They could really use additional training facilities, a track, tennis courts, and Field Hockey fields.
The image of the track had no stands and no indoor facility for bathrooms, concessions, and storage. If they want to have track meets there they are going to need more than they are showing there. They need a shot put area, javelin area, storage for pull vault pads, long jump area, etc. I'm assuming the artists diagram was very preliminary, but as shown, this isn't impressive even for a high school facility.
I really doubt it will get nearly the amount of use on that end of campus as it would somewhere closer to the main campus. I would estimate that it will get 1/8 as much use. And the astroturf athletic field in the middle of the track is a WASTE OF MONEY. The grass intramural soccer field on the corner of Laclede and Vandy has really come along. Now the grass has established itself, its quite a nice facility. Most students show up 5 minutes late to intramural games. If they move the intramural soccer field so that its a 15 minute walk from campus most students won't show up. Think practical. These are college students we are talking about.
It would be a bit odd if pits and other field implements are not placed within the complex, although i'm not sure if this is for anything more than practice at this point. Upgrades will have to be made if it is to be a venue for competition (concessions, etc). Also, it is sad that we lack on campus tennis courts, and seems as if they would be rather simple to plop down somewhere around campus.
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wow. i take that back. maybe it was offsides. i did not know that they line refs put the flag up.
there wasn't an offside reported in the post game info. bob bradley and donovan both indicated they were never told what the call actually was in post game interviews. either way, there was no offsides, as the only player who could have possibly construed as being offsides (bradley) was also being fouled and was not part of the play!!! great goal by edu, great service by donovan, terrible call by the ref. there could have been at least 3 different penalty calls on the play too (dempsey was in a headlock, jozy was wrapped up and bradley was the recipient of a bear hug).
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the Brazil match is anecdotal evidence in support of the exception. I've seen altidore play for the past few years and he basically posts up his defender in the final third. he's also good at turning from that position and going toward goal. he's good in the air as well. he's not always the best distributor back to his midfield support, but he does hold the ball, shields well and plays well with the other forward (especially when it was he and davies). he has also recently developed the ability to get by his man with the dribble, making him a better all around contributor up top. he and buddle could play well together, but with bradley's infatuation with speed i see findley getting the nod. however, recent media speculation states that buddle doesn't perform well as a sub (whereas findley can), and that fact alone may garner him the start. all in all, our forwards have all been finding the goal lately, which is a promising sign for our tournament chances, regardless of the pairing bradley chooses.I agree wtih most of what you are saying but sorry you haven't watched enough of Altidore if you think he is a target forward. He NEVER handles any type of pressure well when his back is to the goal. Did you see the Turkish players dismantle him when he had his back to him? He literally goes limp when someone is on his back and loses just about every head ball that comes his way from downfield. Remember Brazil in the Confederations Cup? Buddle has to serve this role.
Torres.... I like what he brings in but you have to take into account that what he will be able to do at five-five versus a central midfield pairing of Gerrard and Lampard. They could make him look like a little kid out there and completely shut him down.
If I'm going into the England game, I'm thinking about one thing: keep the goals against down as low as possible. To do that, you need two things: strong defense and just enough up top to keep the English defense honest. I'm more worried about the set pieces for England more than anything else. We have looked incredibly shaky on set pieces; recent example being Cahill running right past Dempsey for his goal off a corner kick during last weekend's friendly. If we can't handle the smallest guy on the field on a corner kick, what are we going to do with Crouch?
torres can't compete physically with most midfielders, but height is relatively unimportant in central midfield (makelele, pirlo, xavi & iniesta all succeed as little guys in the center of the pitch) - he'll be using his feet most of the game. the English midfield will probably outplay whoever is in there. we are going to have to counterattack to win the game and defend for 90 min, any possession we have will greatly improve our chances, and torres is a great ball possession midfielder (*for an American). IF our backline comes together, this will be a dangerous team.
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Buddle and Altidore provide the same skills (target forward) as one another, and will probably not be on the field together. I see findley as the starter along with jozy (unless he can't play bc of injury). First game, we'll probably see buddle start and altidore come in to provide a late spark, see how healthy he is (only if we need a goal). Think of Gomez as a (very) poor man's Inzhagi - little apparent value or skill, but he finds the back of the net - and he'll probably see the least min of any attacker who made the team. Midfield, certainly donovan, dempsey and bradley will be on the field,and the fourth will be a wildcard depending on which side of the bed coach wakes up on that morning. edu or clark if he wants to focus on counterattacking, torres, feilhaber or holden if he wants to play a possession game. I think we're better if we don't have clark or edu in there, and would rather wait until we are trying to protect the lead to give them time. In back, boca will be on the left, spector on the right and then demerit in the middle with gooch (if healthy). If he can't play, i wouldn't be surprised to see goodson in there, as he has played the best of our back-up defenders lately. Bornstein has played himself onto the bench, and cherundolo might play if bradley doesn't trust goodson enough and then move bocanegra into the middle. Beasley hopefully stays on the bench the whole time (see WC '06, CC '09), barring injuries. Howard is the man in goal, not sure why we brought 3 keepers, although it seems to be a common trend lately (i would have rather brought another forward, such as ching)I'd rather see Findley come off the bench late and use his speed to stretch the defense when it might be more tired. Dempsey seems more comfortable in the midfield and seems to be more of a playmaker there. I like Buddle up top with Altidore.
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RM says that Jensen is recruiting a big-time European player. Any ideas on who that might be?
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And hopefully he is.Maybe he wants to win and didn't feel like he could do that at Toledo. Leaving a poor team to come to a team where he sees a chance to win doesn't mean he's satisfied to be a role player. Maybe he feels he's good enough to be a leader on a winning team.
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why do you assume he'll be content to be a role player?
Just reading into his willingness to give up the go-to role on a bad team, sit out a year and then come in to a team where he won't be the most talented player. I could be wrong, but it just doesn't seem like something a guy who thinks he's a superstar would do.
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To me he sounds like what we all wanted JR to be, but he has actually proven his ability to do that at the D-1 level. Also seems like he'll be content as a role player on a winning team.sounds like KC, which could be good or bad depending on your perspective.
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i don't know where the "attack" description came from. seems like a complete fabrication at this point, from what i know about the situation
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According to ESPN he is a good student, Gatorade POY in Minn. and rated 92. Sounds like a guy we wouldn't mind havingSo I see on Scout SLU has three players listed that appear to be unsigned at this point.
Majok Majok, that is old news.
Kevin Noreen, a four star PF from Minnesota ---- interesting.
Calvin Godfrey, a two star PF.
Scouts don't show any of these as signed yet, but of course that doesn't mean they haven't. But not sure we need another forward as much as a guard. Of course we do have 5 scholarship guards and Paul Eckerle.
Noreen, that is
BC + KC out - Keith Carter + ??? in ....
in Billikens.com Main Board
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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.