cgeldmacher

Courtside, I enjoy reading your soccer posts. In fact, I have complimented you on this site for writing your posts. However, you are way off base on this one. Please stop telling these guys what they should and should not do in their podcast. They don't have to do it. They don't make money off of doing it. It is not their job to do it. They do it to help enhance the experience of Billiken fans. If they do interviews great. If they offer witty banter than includes some of their opinions about some of the non-revenue sports, that's fine by me to. To be clear, I don't care where they get their information that they use for the show. I don't think anyone else on this site does either. I don't care if they get it from SLU's website. I don't care if they get it from Twitter. I don't care if they get it because they watched the games live or on some sort of streaming platform. I certainly don't care if they get it they get it off of your posts. You're not a journalist. Neither are they. You post the information that you post for purposes of passing along information. That being said, I don't think they are lifting info directly from your posts, but even if they did, let me reiterate I don't care.

Bell was signed as a project. He was given minutes his freshman year. Those minutes, and the lesser minutes he got his sophomore year, proved that he was just not quick enough to succeed in most college programs, including ours. That's what project big men are. You take a chance to see if they pan out. He didn't. Traore is the next one. Plug Traore into that spot and the worst you get is a slight drop off. The best you get early on is a slight improvement. Either way, it is not much different. What we are hoping for with Traore is incremental improvement so that he is a contributor by his junior season. Bell just wasn't going to be that upper classman contributor that we were hoping for when we took a flyer on him.

Wow, was this expected at all?

This site has been dead lately, so I thought I'd start a new topic to get the discussion rolling. Which player is going to going to make the biggest leap in performance this season? I know that's somewhat vague. Let me try to define it. What player is going to have the biggest increase as far as what people expect of them and what they actually contribute to the team this year. If player gives us exactly what everyone thinks they will, that's not a step up. I want to know who is going to surprise us and exceed expectations. My pick is Hargrove. I think that he is going to average over 10 points a game this year.

Just dropped my reply

My group is between Duquesne (Pittsburgh) and Davidson (Charlotte) for our road trip. Leaning toward Duquesne since this is the first time in years that the Duquesne road game is on a Saturday. The Duquesne website lists the game time at 2:00 if that helps anyone.

Hey Sigourney, thanks for posting. I wish some of our other regular posters were a bit more accepting of new fans to the board, but don't worry too much about that. Keep cheering on the Bills. With regard to Hasahn, he recently signed with a team in Europe. We will, hopefully, follow his career over there, as we do with other former Billikens. I personally think Hasahn had a decent final season, but he just was who he was; a dominant force on the boards and inside on offense, but no real shooting touch to speak of.

I slightly disagree. The group running the B12 does have vision. It just that this group (Texas and Oklahoma) had a vision of leaving the B12. Since they run (ran) the B12 and that was their goal, having plans for the future wasn't the conferences priority.

Any opportunity watch this one on broadcast or streaming?

Everyone always seems to look at this issue as one where all of a school's sports have to stay in a conference or move to a new conference together. I believe that some folks think this, because most of our sports compete in the A-10. It is much more common than you might think for one sports program at a school to be in one conference while the rest are in another or even a few others. Here's my point, a basketball super conference made up of the best non-football schools out there isn't impossible if you make it a basketball only league. If SLU got into such a league, we could move our non-revenue sports into the MVC to save on those all important transportation costs, while the basketball team is in a premier basketball conference. I hope Chris May is constantly working the phones to try to create the best situation for our basketball program. If we could create a league with Gonzaga, St. Mary's, Dayton, Loyola Chicago, Davidson, VCU, Wichita State, Richmond (that's nine). Maybe add two more of St. Bonaventure, St. Joe's, Belmont, Liberty, Drake, Temple etc. to get to 11 so that we have the same 20 game schedule as the Big East. The one drawback I always hear about forming a brand new conference is that you have to wait 5 years to get an automatic qualifier. Who cares? That league will send 3-5 to the tournament every year.

If he said that, then I would defer to Coach Ford. It does sound like even he thinks that it doesn't matter to some and does to others.

I agree with Willie. How many of our players go to Cardinal games or Blues games? Possibly none. Same for the new MLS team. Many high school basketball players are also not in a position to take advantage of a "city college atmosphere." I think most of them have spent most of their lives within so many blocks of their homes with the exception of AAU tournaments. Their experience when traveling to AAU tournaments is staying at an off the highway hotel and going to a facility that's not all that impressive other than the amount of players and teams they encounter. The idea of going off to live for a few years in a place where you get a variety of food whenever you want and are around thousands of other kids your age is what is exciting to recruits. I don't think the thought of "what does the town where the school exists have to offer" comes into the decision making process. I think we sometimes make much to big a deal out of the draw of our urban campus.

Also, if Hargrove blows up this year, the narrative that the coaching staff can't develop players needs to go away.

I disagree slightly on Jimerson. Get him the ball when he's open, and he's a dead eye sniper that you can go with. Get him the ball with a defender right in his face, and he feels like he has to jack up a quick shot over the defender's outstretched hand, and you will get the Jimerson that seems more lost.

More like congrats to the SLU Athletic Department

That could make them ripe for admission to the A-10

Steffe is a 6'5" shooting guard from Frisco, TX. Has offers from some P5 schools (Arizona St., Auburn, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma St.) but those might be stale as they are all from 2020. I'll leave the rest to Pistol.

Just looked it up and found out for the first time that Gio Reyna is Claudio Reyna's son. Guess I was late to the game on that information.

Has the A-10 ever had three teams in the top 25? Also, based on the rankings and having already played (and beat) Louisville, is the best schedule we've had?

Maybe he just hasn't had a chance to practice day after day against someone who was one of the most dominant bigs in the country in high school. Maybe that is what he needs to develop into a quality big himself more so than coaching or his age. When a new kid comes in, part of the fun of being a fan is to have high hopes for him until you find out that those hopes may not have been realistic. Doesn't mean you were wrong to have the high hopes in the first place though.

It would also be nice to develop a pipeline with this program since we have already pulled two guys from there. Developing connections is never a bad thing, and Ford is the master.

If that is true, then it is on the agent

Seems to me like LaSalle's non-con schedule should become their conference schedule next year if that's who they believe they should be playing.

I certainly don't know all the details, but I think it is safe to say that we don't know if it was the agent or Willie who didn't want to sign the bigger deal. It is possible that the agent got the offer and told him to take it, but that Willie wanted more.

I think Jordan's best chance to make the NBA squad is to show that he can rebound, defend, and, on the offensive side, drive and dish to guys on the three point line. If he shows he can do those three things at the NBA level, I think he has a shot. Plus, if he drives and dishes outside, he's in position for the offensive rebound. If I were him and his agent, I would not be forcing up shots, as that will only draw attention to the parts of his game that aren't the most polished.