cgeldmacher

On a strictly basketball note: Last night's game was about as much fun as you can have watching basketball. Tied after first quarter. Bills lead by one at half. Bills down at the end of three. Bills pull out the win. If you are not doing anything Friday night, come down to the game. It will get your basketball mojo back in line for when our new men's team coach turns us back around. No back to the other talk: The Billiken is clearly a dude. Many people call him simply "Bill." Not a chick. I remember times in the 80's and 90's when they used to dress up one of the alternate billiken costumes as the Billiken's mom. Let's not back off of the idea that Bill is a very manly guy and should be feared by opposing team's mascots.

Jacobsen's contact situation is not the problem. Come back to reality. He's not going from a successful program at a mid major conference to a rebuild situation at another (only slightly better)mid major. This is what drives me crazy about this board. We will make the best hire we can make, but this kind of talk will make some people say "really that's all we could do?" Stop talking about guys we can't get.

Anyone know what the attendance was for the 1st game?

I assume the third is Rankin-Jordan

Hiring a coach of a high school program is rare. That coach would have to have some reason why we would hire him rather than someone with college coaching experience. Let me think. Is there anything he could bring to the table that would convince us to overlook his lack of experience? No . . . I'm rather sure that there is nothing that he could presently provide as an ace in the hole to convince us to bring him on board.

Here's an article with the audio. It's crazy. Unless the announcer was giving the ref the finger, there is no reason for his ejection. By this standard, Rammer would miss part of a lot of our games. http://awfulannouncing.com/2016/green-bay-announcer-temporarily-ejected-from-horizon-league-semifinal.html

Ref ejects play by play announcer during Valpraiso/Green Bay game. http://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2016/03/08/video-official-pat-adams-ejects-a-play-by-play-announcer-during-a-game/

Agree. These are the names that get tossed around where we have no chance. I'm not talking about his buyout. Jacobson is in the MO Valley. SLU is in the A-10. The A-10 is better than the Valley, but it's not BCS. Why would a successful Valley coach who is going to the tournament decide to come to SLU and start from square one. Please don't talk about our facilities or how we are going to pay him $2M. We have great facilities. We are not going to pay him $2M. Whether we think so or not, a coach is going to consider this almost a lateral move. Again, why go from a place where you are having success to a place where you have to completely rebuild a program, thus putting your long term career in jeopardy. Only reason to do that is to move to a BCS program. Please get back to realistic candidates.

Of all the (potentially) returning players, who is the most valuable for any possible success next year? Who is the guy that would cause the most sting if he transferred? Ash is graduating. I'm talking about the Juniors, Sophs, and Freshmen. I'm picking Reggie. He's our only inside presence right now. His rebounding is better than above average. He is the only guy with a the chance to post up, make a move, and score.

These guys wouldn't be my top choices, but I have to give you credit for coming up with a good list of reasonably obtainable names.

It's easy to say that, but give us the name of a guy who has previous head coaching and tournament experience that you would want that will be available next year. Add that he would want to come here as opposed to somewhere else and that we could afford him.

I have said it before, but I think we should give Rick Stansbury a serious look. In 14 seasons at Mississippi State he had 10 seasons where he won 20+ games. Now he is an assistant at Texas A&M and they are ranked 21st in the country. I like seeing guys have success at schools where football is king. I think coaches that have success at those schools could thrive even more at a school where basketball is the top of the food chain. He's from Kentucky and coached in Mississippi and Texas, so it's not like he's from one of the coasts and would completely have to restart his recruiting ties in this area.

Stansbury is at the top of my list right now. He had success as the head coach of a school where basketball was not the priority. Now he's an assistant at a school that is in the same situation that is having an outstanding year. I think he would thrive at a basketball is king school like SLU.

This guy is from Wash. U. I would prefer a Division 1 critique.

I'll be there for the Duquesne game next week Thursday. My daughter's team is playing at halftime.

Conklin sort of seems like a Mike Matheny type. By this I mean a guy who has no head coaching experience, but you just kind of look at him and say "He'd make a great coach." I think we should throw his name in the mix. He can get paid a lot more than he gets for playing, let's say starting salary of $500,000.00. At this point, he would have low expectations for the next two years. Sounds crazy, but why not.

The more and more I ponder the question of talent vs. development, the more I agree with Clock. This subject could probably get its own entire thread. As I look at the guys currently on the team, they don't look all that different to me than the guys that Majerus brought in when they first got here. I really believe that Crews has not done a terrible job of recruiting. Instead, he and the staff aren't taking the guys he's recruiting and making them better individually, putting them in systems that can work, and convincing them to play with a team first concept. In my somewhat uneducated opinion, therein lies our/Crews's problem.

Whether or not MY could be a DE type player is to be determined. However, I think the reason he hasn't is not because the coaching staff has not wanted that. Based upon what I have seen, I think that he has not allowed himself to play that role. He still believes he's a 1 or 2 and refuses to play like a 3. Could he be the guy with the highest upside on the team??? Maybe. He hasn't shown us that yet. He has to get over the hurdle of his role first, before anyone will be able to know.

Majerus would have Austin setting screens properly.

Here is my best scenario for this season: The team, coaching staff and players, turn this thing around and become a team that is very competitive in the A-10. After the season, Coach Crews says to himself "I righted the ship. I can now feel good about stepping away. All of the stuff I went through at the beginning of the season is not what I signed on for. I wanted to be retired anyway when Rick called me several years ago. I'm going to retire now, gracefully, and turn the reigns over to a new coach." We then are able to get a much better coach to come here than we would have if the team tanked the whole season like some of you are hoping for. Upon retirement, SLU can throw a nice retirement banquet for Coach Crews. We all attend and thank him for stepping up and stepping in when required and for leaving our team in a nice place.

Bigs take longer to develop. In programs with more talent than we have, guys like Neufeld are supposed to learn in practice and from watching on the bench for the first season and a half. Lately, we have overexposed our freshmen bigs and killed their confidence. I hope Neufeld stays on the more traditional path, and we see the benefits in a few years.

Couple thoughts: 1. Milik is completely predictable at this point. Any opposing coaches watching video of us can tell their team that when he puts the ball on the floor out near the free throw line "he's going to try to drive." The other team's players might think "that's crazy, when there are four of us waiting for him under the basket." The coach will reply with "trust me, he's going to drive straight into all four of you, just don't foul him and we'll get the ball." 2. Jolly is not as bad as everyone on this board makes him out. He truly has become the scapegoat. I'm not saying he's good, but he's not that bad. I can foresee a scenario where he actually becomes a very solid contributor in his final two years. Not saying it's going to happen, just that it could. So, let's cut him some slack. 3. I simply cannot cheer for the Billikens to lose. Beating GW was awesome. I needed that game. We all needed that game. We need more of that game regardless of what we think of the coaching situation. I know why some of you are saying that you are hoping for things to pan out certain way, but come on!!! I'm the ultimate optimist in these situations and am telling myself now that if we now know that we can play the way we did last night, that we can play with that level of competition, maybe we can get even better and roll off a run in the A-10 tournament. Probably won't happen, but optimism is the only reason to be a fan.

I feel bad for Zeke. Our program did a 180 from our success of a few years ago and the fan base has nothing to be excited about with the current team. So, we are now grasping for any signs of hope. We have only one recruit currently on the books. Now, this high school kid has to have everything about his game over analyzed. If we want to let out our frustrations, let's complain about those that currently make up the team. Leave this kid alone at least until he gets here. That is assuming he doesn't decide to change his mind and go elsewhere.

Totally agree.

Kurtis Townsend at Kansas. Started as high school coach and worked his way up. Now he's a top assistant and top recruiter at Kansas. He was heavily involved in Kansas's recruitment of Ben McClemore.