slufan13

That's been the case for years. Hence why he got the bad post reaction taken away

Could this be the last win of the Ford era?

What's a shame is that there are plenty of people, including people on this board, who genuinely care whether the head coach is a Cardinals fan or not.

I just have to hope that a lot of unexpected jobs open up and coaches make lateral or slightly upwards moves. If not, a guy like Schertz is going to do better than SLU. Or you have to hope SLU gets him on board basically now. The worst thing you can do is probably wait around to make a move this spring. Hopefully Ford doesn't have a contract that expires March 31st like some coaches do. Fire him quickly and hire the next guy immediately. I just hope we take a risk for once. It's not like things can get much lower than they are now. Don't care if we're ranked 225th or 295th really.

Chris May has a true talent of making people feel more important than they are. And that's a very good thing. But sometimes it fools people into thinking he's doing a good job or that certain things aren't his fault. Guys like Chaifetz, Novelly, etc certainly deserve blame. They're the ones willing to back the contract. They agreed to the contract in some form or another. But Chris May as athletic director should know the market rate for a head coach in the A10, he should know the market rate for a coach who has never made it out of the 1st round of the NCAA tournament, he should know who he's bidding against after 1 NCAA appearance. You can't count on some academic on the BOT to know all these factors. It's up to May to come to the BOT with a reason for why the contract should be signed. And he failed. May has done a ton of good for SLU and I think he could continue to do so. But athletic director is no longer the right role for him.

Lots of blame to go around. But the highest amount of blame falls on Chris May

You can make an argument on a guy like Ahearn being low floor, high ceiling. And you can say the floor can't get any lower than it is now so you should take a shot on him. But not to be dramatic here, the way college sports are going, I don't think you can afford another 3 years in the basement. You have to get this hire right. Give me someone who can actually coach basketball

People who don't necessarily care about winning games but care more about having something named after them (big or small - not calling out one or two specific people). Moreso people who aren't paying for the coach but are paying for general funds the athletic department needs. You need people like that supporting your school. Those kind of people love May. But that's why I want May in some sort of role where it seems like he has power but he actually doesn't. We need a new athletic director. There are just too many negatives going on even outside the basketball trainwreck. But I think you risk upsetting a lot of important people if you dump May totally to the curb even if that's what should happen. Your school is never in great shape when you need a new president, a new athletic director, and a new coach of your single revenue sport.

I'm not saying I disagree but there are influential people who like May. I don't want to totally alienate them.

May has done a lot of good for SLU. A reshuffling of his title/responsibility would be good for him as part of a long term retirement package. I just don't want him overseeing another men's basketball head coaching hire. Sure, the big donors lead a lot of that but it still games down to May and his leadership and we can't miss on this hire again - not in the current climate.

If 05 thinks it's a good idea I have to reconsider now.

I don't hate Ahearn. He's outside of my top 5 candidates for sure but he's well ahead of some guys that I could see us looking at such as Crean, Weber, etc.

One thing for me in the coaching search is that I would like to get rid of the mentality that we need to hire a guy who is never going to want to leave for a bigger job. If the next coach we hire leaves SLU for a Big 10 job in 3 years, I will be pretty happy with the success it means we had.

I do fear that SLU dug themselves a little too deep of a hole by hanging onto Ford too long and bottoming out while the NCAA continues to evolve (or dissolve) and non power conference schools risk becoming totally irrelevant. I don't think that ^ is fully going to be the case, but I do think we're going to be a less attractive job than we would have been a year ago.

Everything Ford has said the last month and will say over the next month is just to set up his next job. I wouldn't read too much into it. May not making a single comment all season on the single revenue sport in his athletic department is a fire-able offense by itself. But I assume it's just that he is so defeated that his hire and vote of confidence in Ford has failed so greatly. The contract May gave out to Ford is awful but 1) Pestello and the BOT signed off on this so they need to start hearing about all this too and 2) if anything you could argue that it makes SLU a more appealing destination to coaching candidates - "Have one miracle run and get the biggset contract in conference history" is quite the selling point.

#teamblue

Who are AD candidates?

And somehow the next 4 minutes were worse

I'm not sure what I just watched those 4 minutes but it wasn't basketball

If I'm Ford and May came up to me and said "why should we keep you around next year?" I'm not even sure how I would answer. There's a decent chance my answer is 13 new players. I know Parker is on a heater lately but his play on the other end of the court is a good part of the reason we are giving up 90 a game.

Ford has lost the ability to evaluate talent and he has never had an ability to construct a roster.

Ford has failed at the following: - General recruiting - Transfer portal - Talent evaluation - Roster construction - In game coaching/adjustments - Talent development outside of a few players Ford has succeeded at the following: - Elevating facilities - Creating relationships within St Louis - Hyping the program If you asked me to rank those 9 items, I would rank the 3 he's succeeded at as the 3 least important.

And surely it'd reduce, if not completely eliminate, his buyout. We might even need to send fans to road games to make sure we accomplish this.

Ford is gone. My bigger concern is that SLU will not move fast enough in actually hiring a coach. Whether its a formal hire or an under the table agreement, SLU should have someone on board working the portal and getting NIL donations within a few days of moving on from Ford. If not you're just another year behind.