cgeldmacher

Not sure I agree that we didn't need him in 16/17. We would have had real problems with only having 7 players available at times last year.

Doesn't Foreman have his own injury problems. I'd hate to have French start his career at SLU not playing the position he's best at. Ford needs to get someone.

So, Gillman stepped away, Neufeld transferred, Welmer may still be injured to start the season, Santos is sitting a season, Whaley went to UConn. If Tillmon doesn't sign with us, who plays the 5 to start next season? Also, who's our tallest guy left?

It's possible that what Tillmon and his handlers are pulling off a brilliant shakedown. Imagine this: he knows that he is not going to qualify academically, and that he is going to play in Europe next year, but he's being hounded by college coaches. So, he slowly and very quietly makes his way around to any school that shows interest. In the process, he gets his mom a house from Illinoi$, he gets a car from Mi$$ou, he gets leather briefcases full of money from SLU and DePaul. In the end he goes to none of them, and heads to Europe flush with cash and knowing his mom is being taken care. When the school realize they've been duped, they can't exactly complain to anyone.

Don't forget about Stephen Curry. Two of the NBA's biggest young stars are both from mid majors. Didn't seem to hurt their careers or earning potential.

I'm not a Pestello fan, but I have no argument with how the University dealt with this. This illustrates just how hard of a time administrators have dealing with this crap instead of concentrating on educating students. I cannot fault the wording of a notification to the students when the intent was to get the word out quickly. 95% of the students will walk away with nothing but a story to tell. 5% will have "emotional scars" from this traumatic incident in their lives.

That I don't disagree with. He'd only be able to do that a few years though.

And we're only talking about one year. Basically, whoever you get just has to be better at playing center than Gillman and the team is improved. Then the guy graduates the same time Gillman would have and we are in the same position. I definitely think we need to go the grad transfer route.

Can he afford the Bentley? Yes. The concern is that the guy who goes out and spends his money on a Bentley is likely not going to make smart decisions with the rest of his money. These guys don't go get another job when their career is over. The money he makes has to last him the rest of his life. Hope he is wiser with the rest of it than he was on the money he spent on the Bentley.

Wouldn't that be somewhat of a drawback for a kid who may want to attend SLU High? What I mean is that if an elite kid wants to go to SLU High and wants to play for BBE, then he would be forcing his high school coach to no longer be able to coach the BBE. Seems like an odd situation.

I don't know the answer to this, but I would hope that the NCAA would allow him to go on academic scholarship. If his grades are worthy of a scholarship, and he's not going to play D1 basketball anymore, what would be the harm in letting him finish out his education on a different type of scholarship?

I guy I was watching the Blues game with last night said that Gordon released a Top 3 schools recently despite the fact that he committed to us. He said it was SLU, Kansas, and Missouri. Anyone know if there is any truth to this? I freely admit, that he might have been full of it.

I'm friends with a Mizzou grad. We were at a bar watching the Blues game and talking about college hoops. He mentioned that he thought SLU should join the Mo Valley and I just about popped him. I explained to him that moving to the Valley would be a huge step down for SLU, and he just rolled his eyes. It is absolutely a thing that SLU outsiders, even in St. Louis and members of the media, think that SLU doesn't deserve to take the step up that we want SLU to take. They don't care about finishing top ten in the country recently. They feel like that level of success should be reserved for Mizzou and Illinois in this region. Screw them all!

Please allow me to remind everyone that there was discussion on this board about offering Justin Tatum an AC job here when we were recruiting Jayson. There was literally zero outrage from any of you when this was discussed. This is part of the reason that I'm confused. If we want to offer a dad an AC job to get his son to come here, it's not a problem, but when its a different school, suddenly several of you have a problem with it. That is why it is so hypocritical. I frankly don't care much what Mizzou does, I just can't stand acting like this board is so much better than others, which I thought it was, and then a bunch of you acting just like the idiots on the other boards they are complaining about.

I like Romar also. Hope he lands at a job that he can stay at for a long time. Preferably one far away so that he doesn't affect our recruiting.

I can't for QIJ1, but what annoys me about the Martin bashing has little to do with the actual issue and more to do with what's behind it. We have claimed for a while that this board is better than the Mizzou & Illini boards and that we are better, more logical fans than Mizzou or Illinois fans. The people going crazy over a coach hiring an assistant so that he can get a recruit are proving that they are no better than Mizzou fans. That makes me sad. I thought we were better.

Zeke's Dad, thank you for you posts. I hope you do continue commenting on this board. I think your opinion would be welcome. I thought that Zeke was a good pick up for us when he sigend, and I also enjoyed watching him this season. His freshman year here put him exactly where you would want a freshman in your program: he showed us the things we heard he could bring to the table and he improved steadily throughout the year. I certainly wanted him back next year, but I understand that what a fan of the Billikens may want may not be the best for Zeke. I hope he has a nice career at TTU and I'm sure that he will get a degree that will serve him much longer than his basketball skills.

You don't need to apologize for wanting the best for SLU. What you need to apologize for is: *Bashing college kids in the interest of proving you were right about comments you made days earlier on a freaking message board. *Refusing to be properly contrite when you get busted by the father of a Billiken player who had to come onto this thread to defend his son *Nearly ruining this board with your constant post defending your prior posts which were defending other posts in which you made asinine comments. Have you heard the term "if you give a guy enough rope." You navigate this board with so much rope, you don't know what part of it to use. I'm not sure who is the worst troll on this site, Tillowsky, who is actually a troll that doesn't like the Billikens, or you, who likes the Billikens, but can't get out of his own way with regard to rubbing everyone the wrong way. Here's some advice: post less and give some consideration to your posts. If you get into a tussle about something, which I have before, stop posting about it. The issue goes away much faster and most guys on this site won't remember it a day later. That's much better than everyone knowing who you are for all the wrong reasons.

There are so many outside the rules recruiting problems at schools that calling someone unethical for doing something that is within the rules to get a recruit seems like just being shortsided against a program you don't like. These situations always have two angles they can be seen from. We (hire/steal) Tate away from Mizzou. Tate gets us Gordon. So, we got Gordon because (Tate is a good recruiter with local connections/we unethically paid for Gordon by paying Tate as an assistant to get him). I have a bad taste in my mouth constantly about the state of college basketball recruiting, but if I am going to follow the Billikens, I have to recognize that it's just the process we have created. Not the NCAA. I hate when people blame the NCAA for being corrupt and then criticize it for its recruiting rules. The NCAA would get disbanded before schools like Alabama, USC, North Carolina, Duke, Nebraska, Michigan, etc. etc. etc. allowed them to fundamentally change the rules to take away the competitive advantage they have in recruiting.

+1 Maybe not with quite the fervor that you had, but sounds like the hypocrites finally got to you. Each one of our assistant coaches was hired because they had a connection on a recruit. Were we paying for the recruit? Can't say for sure, but I can say Ford would not have hired them if they did not have an inside route to one or two recruits.

Thanks for posting, Coach. Don't let the few hypocrites on this board ruin your image of SLU fans. The fact is college recruiting is an unavoidably distasteful process. It can't be helped. Some work within the rules and some work outside of the rules. I've seen no evidence that Cuonzo Martin or Travis Ford operate outside of the rules. Doesn't mean they don't. Just means that I haven't seen evidence of it. I typically don't call someone unscrupulous unless I have proof. Hiring a guy who is already a college basketball coach in the hopes that his sons will play for your team is not outside of the rules. If doing so would have brought Mr. Porter's sons to SLU, I would have been fully behind the idea. I don't think having that thought makes me unscrupulous, but maybe other guys on this board will tell me that's not the case.

If Ford had a shot at landing Porter Sr. as an assistant, thereby assuring his boys would come to SLU, we would have been upset at him for not doing exactly what Martin did. If Ford had sister that lived in East St. Louis, and visiting her during a dead period might help him land Tilmon, we would have been upset at him for not doing so. Let's not be hypocritical.

Tennessee has one outright regular season SEC title since 1967, and the SEC is a much weaker basketball conference than the Big 12 that Mizzou was in before it moved. Mizzou is the only major conference school in the State of Missouri. It has access to a great recruiting territory with far less competition. Tennessee competes in that region with Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Memphis, Louisville, and a ton of smaller basketball schools that traditionally have a lot of success in smaller conferences. I do think that Mizzou is a better job than Tennessee as long as it has the right coach with the right recruiting connections. I would bet that Martin has much more success at Mizzou than he was able to have at Tennessee.

Why?

Not saying this is true, but Ford may not be interested in Tilmon or Pickett. We are at a point where he's going to need to be a bit more selective about who he takes. We don't have to take every top local guy just because they are ranked as a top local guy. If he sees something he doesn't like with either of these two, and thinks he can recruit over them in the next two or three recruiting classes, then I'll trust his judgment. Remember that every kid he signs is a spot we no longer have open for someone else.