cgeldmacher

Out of no where we have a fun team to watch!!!

They'll be even better with better players around them. Both seem to not miss open 3s. Will get more open 3s in next two years.

Thought Welmer and JJ were keepers before now, but what they've done so far in this game is why.

If we weren't accustomed to the old Billiken and saw it for the first time, we would have thought that it looked weird too. This one is fine. It will work for the next ten years. A good job was done appeasing the fans. Now, let's go win some games.

Totally agree. Despite what Ford's success has some of us believing, we can't have every recruit. I'm happy with the ones we have. At this point, I would rather let Coach Ford get a year or two head start on Mizzou and Illinois on the program prestige meter. Plus, if the time Tillmon and Picket spend at Illinois is looked at as a less than optimal experience, it might be a cautionary tale to future recruits on the east side.

We've gotten so spoiled so fast with recruiting. Now we expect to get all the top local players. Not sure our expectations are unreasonable either.

I have extra tickets to the game at Fordham to give away to any NYC alums. I have a group that travels to an away game every year. We're going to New York this year to watch the Fordham game. They have a group ticket policy that allows you to purchase group tickets for cheap. So, I bought 12 tickets just to be safe. We only have 7 guys going on the trip. Thus, I have 5 tickets to give away if anyone wants to go. Let me know.

Unless his persona as a family man is a complete act, he's not going anywhere for at least a few years. He was fired from OSU, so he had no choice but to move his family. Now his family is settled in in a new city and his kids are in their new schools. He is not going to uproot them again after one year. Also, he worked his ass off to get these next two recruiting classes. Why would he start over with that process somewhere else and never get a chance to coach to the kids he recruited? I can't imagine anyone putting themselves through coaching this team this year, knowing that you have studs coming in next year, and then leaving. If he leaves, it will be for a major program, not a rebuild.

Your probably right. Either way, if he can use basketball as an "in" to one of those schools, good for him.

Agree. That's why we can't make any judgments this year. He might be doing everything right, but when we can't hit shots, even layups at times, you can't fault him for the results.

Don't know if you were joking, GloryDays, but do you really expect for us to have any 2019 kids "locked in?"

I definitely think Ford was sending a message. If you can't play for this team, how in the world on you going to get any playing time next year. From what I recall, I thought that Gillman was recruited out of high school by an Ivy League squad. My hope for him is that he graduates, uses the graduate transfer rule, and spends his last season of eligibility getting a free year of Ivy League graduate school. That's a valuable asset in terms of tuition cost savings and an investment in future earnings. I don't think that Neufeld is as bad as some say he is. Having said that, he needs to spend the talent he does have more productively than wasting away on our bench. I hope he finds a good fit for him.

I was hoping that Ford would be able to coach these guys up a bit and we would get better results than Crews. Clearly that has not happened. Why it has not happened is up for debate. I'm not ready to proclaim that Ford can't coach simply because he can't make this group win. That would be completely unfair. We need to judge his coaching abilities starting in the second year of having his players. He gets a pass for the first year since it's a whole new group of guys coming together. We should temper or expectation for next season.

Who's on the list?

JJ will be even better with a better team around him. Not saying starter necessarily, but he'll get more of those open shots with better teammates. His shots will open up the inside for his teammates.

Makes you wonder if all of the transfers he made were actually his choice or him getting pushed out but being allowed to save face.

Someone send Thatch's parents the recent WSJ rankings that someone started an OT thread about. SLU rank 116 Arkansas rank 427

Question: Does anyone know if Kemph is WNBA material? Not that I follow the WNBA at all, but it would be cool if she made it to the League.

I am ecstatic about Ford's recruiting so far. However, we need to temper our expectations until we see what we have. Remember this, we all got excited about Crewsplatt's recruits as well. Let's see what we have first before predicting that we will be dancing. If these guys are going to be as good as advertised, it would be better for them to come in minus any lofty expectations anyway.

I don't know the parameters they used, but this is the WSJ. It comes with a solid reputation. I would say that it's journalistic integrity is viewed as above the U.S. News and World Report. I also know that the USN&WR ranking criteria has been widely criticized over the past decade. I would trust a WSJ ranking over a USN&WR ranking.

I'm shocked at how low some schools rank. Xavier 229? DePaul 270? I certainly want SLU to improve in the rankings, but I would be far more embarrassed to be a graduate of either of those schools.

The 1948 NIT win has to be at the top since there is a legitimate argument that this was a national championship. The next season, SLU started out ranked #1 in the very first AP poll. After returning home from the win by train, they were greeted by 15,000 at Union Station. The team was immediately put into cars decorated in blue and white and driven to campus for a celebration. That certainly seems like the top win to me. There may be other wins in that era that were big.

Any time someone has a pension that is allowed to be transferable, they can sell it to finance companies who pay them pennies on the dollar. If he was outspending his means, he may have already cashed in his pension. I don't know if the NBA makes its plan non-transferrable, but if not, they should.

Love the way French went up for that layup with authority. May seem trivial for that particular two points, but when you put that top effort into every part of your game, even a layup, good things follow. The guys on the team now don't do that and that's why they miss bunnies.

"Thanks for taking over during a difficult time. Thanks for trying. You should be ashamed, however, that you made SLU pay every penny of your contract."