cgeldmacher
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Posts posted by cgeldmacher
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21 hours ago, brianstl said:
This isn't just a Travis Ford thing, many coaches have said almost the exact same thing. That said, it just smacks of absolute hypocrisy when the coach saying it has used an agent to get a multiyear guaranteed $2.5 million per year deal.
It's not hypocrisy. If we don't have it to offer, there's no point wasting either side's time.
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37 minutes ago, slu72 said:
Thames sounds like Nick Kern. If he bulks up, he could bring his guard skill set to the PF position. And his D was pretty solid as I recall. Of course that was based on very limited observations.
Thames will have to learn to slow his game down and properly take advantage of his newer size. Last year, my impression of his time in games was that he looked like a guy whose hair was on fire and was running around looking for a bucket of water.
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The WNBA draft is 12 picks in and the #20 on ESPN’s Best Players remaining is Brooke Flowers.
rgbilliken, brianstl and BrettJollyComedyHour like this -
Headed to Michigan. I suspect they offered the most money.
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17 hours ago, Taj79 said:
Robert Jennings played 30 games at Texas Tech last year with about 9 mpg and about 3 ppg. Also not too impressive.
He was a 6'7" sophomore. On that team was a 6'11" senior, a 6'11" junior, a 6'7" junior, a 6'8" sophomore, and a 6'6" senior.
That team was stacked with height. He may have just been stuck behind some other guys. But, your point is valid.
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17 hours ago, SLU_Nick said:
This is where I am. We need to find a DJ Foreman and then im all in for next season
I'd rather find a slightly more skilled Okoro.
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I remember watching his recruitment video and thinking "We need to get this guy." Now, I'm hoping to watch videos of him in the NBA and be able to say "We had that guy."
Good luck with everything, Yuri.
BuiltFordBills likes this -
Wow. NIL must be more lucrative than I thought.
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On 3/27/2023 at 1:20 PM, DeSmetBilliken said:
This is a good point. Personally I’m not convinced that Ford is the guy to get us over the hump. I think he’s plateaued here, just as he did at OSU. At OSU, his plateau was the Round of 64. Here, his plateau is 4 seed in the A10, semifinals of the A10 tournament, and a NIT berth.
If the right candidate was out there and attainable, I’d replace Ford without a second thought. With that said, it’s certainly possible that SLU could fire Ford and make a mess of the search, ending up with a lateral replacement at best. Confidence in the powers that be at SLU to get it right is a different conversation. So there is a credible argument for rolling the dice on Ford for another year and hoping he doesn’t have an absolute clunker of a year like his last at OSU.
Anyway, I don’t know who would be officially available this year because I’m not in a position to be part of those conversations. My ideal Ford replacement would be Chris Mack. I know he has said he wasn’t taking a job this year, and that may be, but if you removed Ford, you have to try and make him say “no”. Beyond that, Pat Kelsey at Charleston and Darian Devries at Drake would be next on my list. I had this thought when we were replacing Jim Crews, and I still think a good hiring strategy for SLU is to hire someone with experience at Xavier, Creighton, Marquette, or some other school like SLU that has had more basketball success. Tell them to build SLU’s program the way those other schools operate. Kelsey was at Xavier, and Devries was a longtime assistant at Creighton.
The problem with this is why would Mack, Kelsey, and Devries take the SLU job when they will be getting offers from power conference schools. We all think that these guys are available to SLU, but they are really not. if those guys are going to leave their current school, it will be to make a big leap, not a small one, from where they currently are. The up and coming type guys that are available to SLU are guys most of this board would look at and say "Why did we hire this guy?" Could turn out just fine, but we probably wouldn't be happy at first.
TaLBErt likes this -
The fans at any power conference school in the country will only be mildly excited about Caleb coming to their program after his performance last season. The fans in his hometown would be over the moon if he came here.
I hope he thinks to himself that he is better off showcasing what he can do against lesser competition in the A-10 than in the grinder that is the ACC or other conferences like Big10 or Big12.
I don't think it's that crazy to believe that there is a chance he could come home to play for the Billikens. Signing him could start the snowball rolling downhill for signing other transfers who want to come in and put together a team that can make a run in the tournament without having to fight their way through a big conference schedule (see San Diego State, FAU, Gonzaga, Princeton, etc.)
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17 hours ago, willie said:
This doesn’t belong here and don’t tell Roy but Michigan State just ran the weave.
Izzo doesn't know what he's doing. What an idiot.
slufanskip likes this -
I've been advocating the ideas stated in this article for years. Glad that Notre Dame is trying to lead the charge to instituting some needed changes.
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2 hours ago, DOC said:
Sounds like he bagged her, so I don’t blame Abomb for not letting it go.
NM
Slu let the dogs out? likes this -
20 hours ago, SLUDrew said:
Yes, this program is ABSOLUTELY on the brink of irrelevance. To the casual sports fan in St Louis we have become an afterthought at best when we are, with all due respect to Lindenwood and SIUE, the ONLY BASKETBALL SHOW IN TOWN.
I'll give you an example, I was at a local sports bar for our A-10 tournament game against VCU. There were probably 20 TVS on showing various games. I had to frigging ask them to turn the SLU game on!!! This was in Webster Groves which is about 15 minutes from campus. You don't think we are an after thought??
Yes, Dayton was a sellout. However, I tried to GIVE AWAY tickets for about 10 games this year and most nights I couldn't give them away. I stopped even asking. This is a metro area of close to 3 million and our arena sits 10,500. I bet even for the Dayton game you could have walked up and gotten a ticket despite it being deemed a "sellout"
If that is the definition of being on the brink of irrelevance, then we have been on the brink of irrelevance my entire lifetime. We are as relevant, or close to as relevant as we have ever been in the St. Louis sports community, which is to say that we have a small loyal fanbase and a lot of casual observers around the city that will show up when things are good and stay away when things are bad. Selling out the Dayton game is a better crowd than those that showed up for games against Dayton during the Majerus years.
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It is amazing to me how much of this boils down to what is happening is exactly what everyone expected would happen, yet everone on this board is still losing their s*#t about it.
When a coach has a season where the team is expected to do great things, but doesn't, he is going to be on the hot seat the following season. When a coach has produced moderately good, but not great, results over a span of eight years, he is going to be on the hot seat the next season.
Signs a coach is on the hotseat include 1) some folks on a team fan message board wanting the coach out, 2) some boosters, not all, approaching the Athletic Department to show that they are upset, 3) the team play by play guy and a big media proponent for the team discussing, for the first time on air, that the coach has left folks questioning things.
So, let's all agree that Ford is on the hot seat. He needs to show us changes next season. He has to show that he can handle his pre-game and in game duties better than in the past, that he can handle his lineups better, and and that he can produce at a higher level. I don't think he has to make the tournament next year or be fired. But he does have to have us in a place at the end of next season where most folks feel as if he is the right guy moving forward. If he doesn't do that, he should be replaced.
Also, whether it happens this season or next season, we better be able to get the right guy. They people on this board have to realize that the reality may be that the right guy is not out there at the present. If that is the case, then we would be doing a great deal of harm to our program to fire Ford and plug in someone just to make a change. May, the top boosters, the administration, may all be thinking its time to make a change, but can't do it because they don't see the right candidate out there who would take the job.
TheA_Bomb likes this -
1 hour ago, johnbj14 said:
I’m with @brianstl I just want an answer one way or the other. Just want better results going forward. If it’s with Ford? Great! If it’s with someone else? Great! But this continuing to linger is just frustrating. The window to make a move is incredibly tight with the portal.
This board isn't going to get an announcement on the topic. So, stop holding out for your big decision. Ford is our coach, and that's probably not going to change prior to next season. There isn't going to be an "answer one way or the other." Stop expecting one. The only reason you're even discussing this is because you are participating in a chat on a message board where someone, who may not have all that much credibilty, speculated a move.
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18 hours ago, BigMouthBilliken said:
Well it’s been a few days without any actual substance, just speculation. Should have figured since SLU is too “small time” to do anything meaningful. Just more of the same
This is nuts. So SLU is "small time" because they haven't fired Ford and hired a big name head coach in the span of a few days since some speculation was put out? Wow.
Billikenbooster likes this -
18 hours ago, stmdragons said:
That’s genuinely infuriating.
Love how guys react to some random person's interpretation of what a third person said as if its a statistic being given by a respected reporting agency. If you listened to Frank's segement and are infuriated, that's fine. Don't get infuriated over this rando's short blurb putting his spin on what Frank said.
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2 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:
SLU needs to get into the Big East.
I still think schools need to keep an open mind to the idea of a basketball only conference. The concept is not as unusual as its sounds. There are some schools whose sports teams are in 4 or 5 different conferences. This is usually if they have a sport that their regular conference does not support (hockey, water polo, crew, etc.)
Let's get Gonzaga, St. Mary's, Wichita State, Dayton, VCU, Memphis to join SLU in this basketball only situation. You can add a few more from the A-10 (St. Joe's, Rhodey, Richmond) or from other conferences (UNLV, Tulane, Boise St., Drake). Then, we can decide if we want to leave our other teams in the A-10 or if it would make more sense to move them to the Missouri Valley.
I think that in the changing landscape of the NCAA, we are going to need to land in a bigger situation or risk sliding down the hill with a diminished A-10. I don't think we can wait on the Big East.
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FORD SUPPORTERS - Ford has underproduced given his salary and our expectations for this program. He has shown us flaws and an inability to learn from those flaws and improve. If we can find the right candidate, it may just makes sense to part ways.
FORD HATERS - Ford has shown an ability to get 20 win seasons. The fact that he hasn't gotten us over the hump doesn't mean he cannot. If we can make a big splash hire this season, great, do it. If not, hiring an up and comer is very dangerous. If we have to part from Ford, this year or next, we better have right guy lined up. The big name guys many of you would like to see may not want to come here. Heck, the up and comers from smaller conferences many not want to come here if they can by-pass us for a power conference job. You should be behind the idea that if we get rid of Ford, it better be to get a can't miss type of hire.
The moral of the above is let's not just pound on the Fire Ford or Keep Ford concepts until we all piss each other off. Instead, it should be let's make sure we get the right guy next time, whether its this year or next or the season after that. I'm willing to be patient in order to either (1) get the right guy as our next hire, or (2) let Ford surprise us and prove his is the next right guy.
TaLBErt and BuiltFordBills like this -
Flowers is an elite player. I think any team in the country would love to have had her this year. Unfortunately, she’s the only one doing anything for us right now.
BrettJollyComedyHour likes this -
Can we get #4 out of the game before she turns the ball over another 6 times?
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To add to the above, give me West Virginia and Fordham in a game right now, and I will put money on Fordham.
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18 hours ago, WVBilliken said:
WVU beat at least 5 highly (ranked 1 to 15) ranked teams. WVU had one of the five toughest schedules in college basketball.
Fordham would have been lucky to win one or two games in the Big 12 this year.
WVU deserves to go based on their record after playing an incredibly difficult schedule IMO.
West Virginia only played three tough teams in its non-conference schedule (Pitt, Purdue, and Xavier). They won 1 and lost 2. Then they played conference games. The Big 12 as a group, like all conferences, is statistically bound to go .500 as a conference in conference games. Someone wins and someone loses every game. WV went 7-11 in conference. They lost their first five conference games. At this point, no one was looking at them like a tournament team. The rest of the way, in the 7 conference wins, they beat four ranked teams. That's their resume. That's it. It wasn't as if they were dominating during this time. After those first five losses they only went 7-6 the rest of the way. They just happened to beat four ranked teams, because all they seemed to be playing were ranked teams. You're going to get a few of those.
Every team is going to win some and lose some in their conference. The problem for us is that when a team like WV inevitably wins a few games in conference, those wins are way, way overblown and the losses are way, way underconsidered. Until this problems is solved by college basketball, teams like WV will continue to get into the tournament over lower conference teams.
ACE likes this
Former Billikens Updates
in Billikens.com Main Board
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Flights and hotels cost money. Any money spent on those things comes from somewhere and takes away from using that money on something else (NIL funds). I'd rather have the coaches concentrating their efforts on guys who could play for us next year than an entire tournament full of guys who cannot.