cgeldmacher

I have no issue with this argument. Not trying to put words in your mouth, but the idea that if we had spent our investable money in the basketball team more wisely, we would have more funds coming out of that program (tournament credits, additional tickets sold, etc.) to be used on upgrading all of our athletic programs makes sense. That argument wasn't raised until just now. My issue is with guys on this board picking every sports team we have at SLU, in different threads, and complaining that they don't have upgraded facilities. What's next, are we sacrificing our values because the track team doesn't have an indoor training facility. Here's how all this gets fixed. Invest (wisely) in the men's basketball team. Let that team earn the needed money for the entire Athletic Department. Then begin the process of upgrading everything else. I'm pretty sure the bigger donors have been squeezed as much as possible at this point. The money needs to start coming from within.

No. I don't want the absolute best for our tennis team if that pulls funds away from the sports I care much more about.

That's not a bad way to look at it. It has to be a long term play. Invest in the sport that brings in the money (men's basketball) and then use the tournament credits we earn to upgrade the other sports. Upgrading tennis now doesn't help the overall AD budget in the future. Investing the men's basketball program now, does help all of the other sports down the road.

I do care about tennis. I play tennis, and it is/was the primary high school sport of two of my three children. Tennis is great. However, if Chris May had two million dollars of extra funds, and he had a choice to build tennis courts on campus or spend the money on basketball, soccer, or possibly part of the costs of new baseball/softball stadiums, I am going to choose those other sports every time.

I do know how it is, because two of my kids played high school tennis at two different schools and both schools used Dwight Davis as their home court for practice and matches. For one of my kids, Dwight Davis was about the same distance away as SLU is. For the other, Dwight Davis was much further away. They often drove down to find out last minute that a practice or match was canceled. Neither of them were receiving any scholarship money from their high school to do this and only did because they enjoyed playing the game. Having said all of this, I understand the challenges faced by our tennis players. However, they sign to come to SLU knowing this is the situation. If they are good enough to receive a scholarship (even a partial one) at SLU, that means they were also good enough to play for other schools. They chose SLU knowing that this would mean practicing and playing off campus. #spendthemoneyonbasketball&soccer

By the way, are we going to do this with every sports team we have? By this, I mean complain on threads that this poor [fill in the blank] team is not taken care of by our Athletic Department and doing so is not in line with our values. I think we have heard complaints the facilities about field hockey (I know that is being fixed), baseball, softball, and now tennis in just the past week. I agree with slufan13's sentiments above. Let's take care of our marquis programs first. Our second priority should also be our marquis teams. Also, our third priority. Everyone else is in line after that. I frankly don't care if a kid getting a scholarship to SLU for tennis has to go to the very nice facilities at the Dwight Davis Tennis Center to play his or her sport. That kid is getting his education paid for by playing a sport that no one SLU attends or, frankly, cares about.

I'm saying that some schools' sports teams are forced into a conference that isn't ideal based solely on football considerations. What was proposed above by Aquinas, which is something I have proposed as well, is creating a conference just for basketball teams, meaning each of the schools would leave their other sports in the conference they are currently in, but their basketball programs would leave for the newly created basketball only conference. This happens much more than you would think for other sports. For instance, Fordham has a water polo team that competes in completely different conference since the A-10 doesn't have water polo. Davidson and George Mason have men's wrestling teams. Several A-10 schools have women's gymnastics teams. None of these are A-10 sports, meaning those teams all have to join and compete in different conferences. The point being that it is not unprecedented to have one of your teams in a conference that is different that the conference you are in for all of your other sports.

I disagree that is a specious argument. In fact this comment "(n)o matter what we spend on Field Hockey that has nothing to do with Basketball spending. That is not how the AD works," if flat out incorrect, not just specious. Are you suggesting that the Athletic Department does not have a budget or that there is no limit to what donors are willign to pay? Every business, and the athletic department is a business, has a certain amount of funds that it has to decide how to allocate. If money is spent on Field Hockey, it means that same money was not spent on either basketball program, either soccer program, or the baseball or softball programs. It's very easy to criticize and say the athletic department is being sexist by not taking care of our field hockey team and that doing so is not in line with SLU's values. I'm sure you will then complain about not having a new baseball stadium or complain about some sort of budgetary shortcoming on men's basketball spending.

Exactly, which means they may be forced into a conference that is not ideal for basketball, because they are trying to accommodate football. These are programs that may appreciate putting their basketball team in a better basketball only conference.

I've been saying this for years. It solves the problem of schools that want to be in a certain league for purposes of football or all other non-revenue sports. I would try to get Gonzaga, St. Mary's, Wichita State, Memphis, Dayton, VCU, Loyola Chicago, Umass and then maybe St. Joe's, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Drake. There are probably several others I'm not thinking of that would thrive outside of the football conference they are forced into.

So, are you okay with the athletic department diverting funds from the Men's Basketball program so that the field hockey team spending comes in line with Jesuit and NCAA values?

Then let's poach Gonzaga and St. Mary's

I firmly believe that most of the costs that have been driving up tuition for the past forty years are unrelated to the actual education that students get. I bet if you run a comparison of what professors were paid forty years ago up to now, you will see that this figure has probably kept up with inflation despite the fact that tuition costs have far outpaced inflation. The issue is that kids, and their parents (I include myself), decide on a university for reasons that have little to do with how well they are going to be educated. They need to see beautiful green spaces, flowers, gorgeous buildings, statues, lakes. They want to know that they will live in modern, state of the art dorms. They want expensive recreations centers (see the topic of this thread). They want to know that they will eat meals in something that resembles the food court at a mall. They big auditoriums that allow for entertainment to come to them. None of this has anything to do with their education, but these are the factors driving kids toward certain schools versus others.

Wow, that seems like a great student section dig.

Did they add members, or did their existing members just improve their place in the college basketball world?

The vice presidential candidate is possibly going to play at SLU. That would be cool.

According to Google, The Billiken Shop is "permanently closed."

I would take two road games at quality opponents over no quality opponents at home or on the road.

It's concerning that Rhode Island can bump us from a tournament we thought we were in, that we didn't have any sort of backup plan, and that we we not already have something solid if the Jacksonville thing was a question mark.

Just did a bit of research to see what other A-10 schools are doing in their non-conference: St. Joe - Villanova, College of Charleston, Virginia Tech Dayton - Xavier, Northwestern, New Mexico State, Marquette, UNLV, Cincinnati, and the Maui Invitational (Good lord) VCU - Boston College, Colorado State, New Mexico and the Shriners Hospital Charleston Classic Loyola Chicago - Princeton, Tulane, San Francisco, South Florida (probably about as good/bad a schedule as ours) Fordham - not fully announced, but they have confirmed St. Johns and Sunshine Slam (Clemson, Penn St., & USF) George Washington - not fully announced, but have confirmed Marquette and Duke, wow LaSalle - Temple and North Carolina along with Big 5 Classic St. Bonaventure - Providence and ESPN NIT Tip Off The other schools did not have schedule info out yet. I cannot imagine SLU has a harder time scheduling than any of these other schools other than Dayton. On top of the bad schedule, not getting in a non-con tournament was a big fail, regardless of whether there was one that fell through. This schedule is a massive fail. BTW, last year Indiana State played Alabama and Michigan St. in their non-con schedule.

As many of you may know, there are three places in the world where the early 20th Century Billiken craze still lives on. Those places are St. Louis (because of it being SLU's mascot), Alaska, and Japan. I just recently got back from a trip to Alaska. In almost every store that featured local artistry there were carved Billikens for sale. When I walked in and asked "do you have Billikens?" there was someone in each such shop, usually the owner, that knew exactly what I was talking about and led me to their selection. Most Billikens I saw were carved out of soapstone or jade and were the size of or smaller than the average person's thumb. They were tiny. There was one store, Tom's Treasures, in Ketchikan that sold much larger Billikens that were carved out of whale bone. I bought this little beauty from Tom's Treasures. He's about five inches tall. If anyone is going to Alaska, I would recommend that shop if you are wanting to pick up a Billiken. There were a few others that were this same size, including one in the window display that I almost bought instead of this one after finding it last minute.

I definitely understand this sentiment, but keep in mind that Jimerson and Swope are out of eligibility. Avila will be a senior. If we just miss making the tournament because of our weak schedule, what are the odds that Avila is okay with that happening to him two years in a row? How likely will he be to come back and "try again" as opposed to cashing in on a bigger NIL deal with school that doesn't have problems with creating a schedule that gives them a chance at the tournament? Then, if miss the tournament because of a weak schedule and lose Avila, Jimerson and Swope, will it matter if next year's schedule is much stronger? This schedule is very concerning to me.

That same concept is true every time you complain about plagiarism.

He's talent was always having a knack for putting the ball in the back of the net. That's what City needs right now.

Yet another Billiken going pro