cgeldmacher

Larry Hughes?

This is my irrational, before I calm down reaction, but . . . There won't be a team that I will be cheering harder against than Creighton. I hope they decline to DePaul like standards and make the new BE folks sincerely regret their decision. I've said this before, but I think that Creighton's success is smoke and mirrors. They win a lot of game in the MVC, while at the same time they don't even win the league most years, and walk away with a reputation like they are a Gonzaga, Xavier, or Bulter.

That number will go up when McClemore gets into the League and if Otto Porter's home town is considered St. Louis and if B.J. Young ends up on an NBA team.

Does Chaminade have a message board where its supporters obsess over their recruiting just like we do here?

On that note, it was interesting looking at the final rankings from last year. We were 16. The only new BE team ahead of us was Marquette who was 11. Behind us, but still in the top 25 were Georgetown and Creighton (new BE) and VCU and LaSalle (A-10). Each league had three teams finish in the top 25 and all six were from 11 to 25. I'm not arguing that the bottom of the A-10 is as good as the bottom of the new BE, but the top of each sure finished rather evenly last year.

Weren't we supposed to send formal notice to the A-10 in June or July this year to be able to opt out of the A-10 and get hit with less of an exit fee. Does anyone recall that date? I'm quite concerned that we haven't heard anything about this recently.

Pushing the tempo to get easy baskets works if your team has two qualities: athleticism and the intelligence to know when to pull back if it's not there. I think that this team has both in sufficient quantities to try running a little bit more. The purpose of the motion offense is to create the maximum number of opportunities in a possession to get a good look. The motion offense creates opportunities for shots, but doesn't force anything. IMO, teams that run a disciplined motion offense (i.e. the Billikens) would be naturally better at trying to break out off a defensive rebound, because they're more accustomed to turning down bad looks than other teams (they do it multiple times in a possession in the motion offense). The purpose of running off of a missed basket is the same, to create a quality look, which can compliment the motion offense. I think this group is athletic enough and smart enough to add this to their repertoire and would love to see it incorporated more often.

I like Glaze, not because he is going to a reliable ton of minutes guy, but because he probably shames the rest of the players into playing harder. I would guess at practice, the coaches say to some of the guys when they are slacking "This is why Grandy is starting and not you," trying to get more effort out of them. I think that best thing that Grandy could do in the offseason is to shoot free throws until his fingers bleed. If he can get his FT average up to, let's say, 65%, he could be effective as a guy whose hustle draws fouls against valuable players on the other team.

I liked what Taj said. Rather than look at who might be starting, I prefer to look at who can replace or improve on what we had. If we assume our returning guys all improve their games even slightly, which is a reasonable expectation each year in the college game, then we should be better if we can simply replace what we lost. If we improve on what we lost, we could be that much better. Loss #1 - CR - I am confident that RA, or extra minutes from an improved GG or JM, will cover what CR gave us. This replacement has the greatest chance of actually being an improvement to the team. Loss #2 - CE - This is much tougher. I loved CE's game, but when his shot wasn't there, his presence on the court was almost a detriment rather than a positive on the offensive end. On defense, he was an average defender whose ability to put himself in position and flop properly helped us grab a lot of charge calls. The best case scenario is that TL can give us some of what CE gave us. I just wouldn't count on the occasional game where CE would go off from behind the 3. Plus, keep in mind that CE's minutes can be effectively replaced by someone who doesn't have his exact game. This is where RA, GG, & JM can help. Basically, the best case is that two of the four (JM, GG, RA, TL) step up and give us what we need to replace CR & CE, or give us better. Loss #3 - KM - IMO, KM gave us less last year than he had previously. Still, his minutes will be hard to replace. If we can get close to that caliber of play from a combination of AM and MC, along with improvements from MM, JJ, and JB, we'll be back to even from our guard play. All in all, the great thing about the guys we have coming in is that the coaching staff has depth to choose from to find replacement minutes this season. We don't have to rely on one particular guy stepping up. At each position, we have at least two guys to look to come in and play well and we could be better than last year. Thank you coaches.

Question: If MM or JJ has an injury that puts them out for part of the season, who runs the point when the other one is getting a rest, or in foul trouble? I am very happy with this recruiting class. Crews and the coaching staff came through on the primary concern that many of us had. However, the above questions still bothers me. Am I forgetting someone? Can MC handle the ball at point? Are we confident enought in JB to take this responsibility?

Does it really make sense to try to get both. I mean if we can get Hunt, there would be no need for Mihoff. I would got the route of making a real strong sales pitch to Hunt, but if we can't close the deal, after a nice dinner out a Pappy's and maybe a movie, we might have to settle for Mihoff.

Here is the transfer list posted by Jeff Goodman at CBSSports that was updated on Tuesday (5-21). Drew has been added, which is a good sign about the list being current. http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/22007798/transfer-list-first-edition

I thought that the deadline for SLU, Dayton, or otherwise to give notice to the Atlantic 10 about withdrawing was coming up. My recollection was that giving notice prior to said deadline would save a million or more dollars. Does anyone know when that deadline falls?

I think we might agree, even though we made our comments in different ways. I said that I trust the staff if they think that Strawberry can play. You said that if the staff passed on him, you trust them. The problem is that we don't know how they view Strawberry. I think you would agree that if they thought he was a fit, but wanted to explore other options, it doesn't mean that he still may not be a fit. I would agree that if they are passing, I trust them. It seems to me like Strawberry is the type of player we have recruited in the past, but that we have our sites set a little higher right now. However, if we need a point guard and he is our Plan B, let's not set our standard so high that we're not filling out recruiting classes or leaving holes in our line up. The difference between him and others on our wish list may not be that great. I'm going to leave up to Crews to decide. All teams have their Plan A and Plan B and Plan C. That's how it works. I would hazard a guess that there have been times that teams end up very happy, years later, that their Plan A didn't work out and that they got their Plan B or C guy. I've mentioned this many times, but MM, JJ, and DE weren't highly recruited out of high school and I'm pretty sure we're all happy we have them as seniors for this upcoming season.

I have not seen Strawberry play in any form, but I have liked what I have heard. You can't be a point guard on a team full of top recruits without having some skills and the ability to distribute the ball. I also have to give him a sliver of a positive in his column for being the son of a professional athlete. Kids of pro athletes typically have seen the level of commitment that is required to succeed at the highest level. This is why so many fall into the "coachable" category. If the staff sees something in him, I will trust their evaluation given the two facts mentioned above. What I can't figure out, though, is his height. I just looked it up and Darryl is 6'5". How is his son only 6'1", if that's accurate (I thought I saw somewhere that he was 6'0" or under). Maybe Darryl's "shorty" at the time was a literal term.

The ACC is trying to move in on Madison Square Garden or the Barclay's Center for its conference tournament. They will get a lot of resistance if trying to push the new Big East out of MSG, but I imagine the A-10 may get treated like Jared Drew if the ACC decides it wants the Barclay's Center. http://espn.go.com/new-york/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9278832/acc-investigating-playing-conference-tournament-madison-square-garden-sources-say

Anyone know anything about this Joe Coleman (SG) who just announced he's transferring from Minnesota?

Mizzou, because I grew up watching SLU and Mizzou in the 80's. Recently, Butler when they are not playing SLU.

One more thing, who has the inferiority complex? You used the phrase "Chicago is an actual major city," when defending it against an imagined attack.

My comment was not intended to be a comparison between STL and Chicago. It was intended to be a commentary on the fact that Father Biondi got run off after years brilliant forthought and planning that has resulted in an ugly, dangerous campus being turned into a much larger beautiful campus in neighborhood that is turning around in large part due to his efforts. I'm actually not sure how you interpretted that as a slight on Chicago, which I think is a great town.

Cleveland??????? They have a first place baseball team that is in the bottom three in attendance. To be a top five sports city you at least have to have fair weather fans that show up when times are good. At least the Rams sell out when they are doing well. Detroit - also doesn't sell out their football and baseball stadiums when they are doing well. Dallas - Rangers, Mavericks and Stars don't light up the attendance numbers. Boston - agreed, should be in top five.

Thank God that Biondi acquired all that land over all those years before he mysteriously and abruptly became inept and a tyrant.

Careful. That's the kind of crap that ends up being a Yahoo article lately.

Given his list of offers already, I assume our staff wouldn't be offering him if they didn't think we had a chance.

If Carter was getting minutes last year as a freshman, and we haven't added another guard, yet, why wouldn't MC get minutes next year. I think that if he does well, he could get 15-20 a game. Of course, that all could depend on our other signees, but they probably would be freshmen also.