cgeldmacher

An MLS team will be successful in St. Louis. I will buy season tickets to the MLS team when it arrives. The MLS is on the rise and the NFL appears to be in decline. Look at the NFL's ratings dive last year. If this stadium deal gets done, I think we might look back and say that we were lucky to get out of the NFL and into MLS at just the right time. The owners are putting up a $150 million expansion fee and have agreed to pay the $150 to $200 million remaining on the stadium costs after the City's $60 million. I truly think they need this money to make this happen. If we take a chance on the idea that the owners will pony up the money, we will be without a team. The MLS will give the expansion franchise(s) to other cities. The use tax will take the funds for this tax increase right out of the ticket sales on the stadium. I truly believe that the team will be a success. So, I also truly believe that the use tax will fund the City's $60 million completely on its own. Therefore, the City won't lose any funds that should be going elsewhere. The City of St. Louis and surrounding region has lost way to many businesses or potential businesses to the old curmudgeon attitude that you shouldn't provide any tax incentive for businesses to come to or stay in St. Louis. Remember the Chinese import air hub that we were going to get until politicians shot down those tax breaks. I think Chicago got that after our politicians "turned it down." Let's not lose another opportunity.

Are you saying he rufies his opponents?

If Gillman is not graduating, then I apologize for starting the past two pages. However, I will say that players graduating in three years at SLU seems to be much more common that at other universities. Plus, Gillman is a smart kid.

I hope Underwood keeps his promise to concentrate recruiting efforts on the Chicago area. That would be fine by me. We'll just have to settle for the scraps left in southern Illinois.

Since Gillman is a senior graduate transfer situation, I wonder if he is looking for somewhere to land before committing to transferring. I don't know if the situation exists where Ford can allow him to search for a new school while still under scholarship. If this is possible, I would keep an eye on another transfer possibly developing.

BTW, does anyone else find the Underwood hiring odd? Maybe it was discussed on a different thread, but the criticism of Ford at OK St. was not winning in the tournament. Underwood goes to OK St. for one season, loses in the first round of the tournament, and Illinois wants him to, and successfully gets him to, switch over. He is 2-2 in NCAA first round games and has an over all tournament record of 2-4. He's only been a Div.1 head coach for 4 seasons, three of which were in the Southland Conference. Seems a far cry from hiring Brad Stevens away from the Celtics like some of their alumni thought could happen. What is Illinois seeing in this guy?

I hope Jamal cashed in on his situation. I'm thinking big bump in pay, plus a guarantee for a few years.

So, Tatum went to Duke to make a run at a championship in his one year of college. In the end, he only has one NCAA tournament will more than the Billikens this year. I'm not saying that he made the wrong call. He seems like a nice kid. I also don't have any particular hatred of Duke. Just interesting that after all that was made of his going to Duke, they only got one tournament win over a 15 seed.

I'm worried right now that Tate will leave to join Martin at Mizzou. If that happens, then bye-bye Gordon.

I agree with you about the class still filling up and SLU still turning people away. That's going to happen regardless. What I'm worried about is that they will be filling up on lesser applicants, because the stronger applicants will want to go to a school that is not on probation. I don't think there is any doubt that it will play a role in the thought process of potential applicants.

I P5 that is a dumpster fire like Mizzou that sees that Ford just appears to have turned around a dumpster fire like SLU quickly and that knows he would bring Gordon and Thatch with him might just be intrigued. Like SLU72 said, doubtful, but still possible.

There's nothing wrong with the SSM merger. It is a great deal for the Med School. However, the article mentioned problems after the merger that were associated with the merger as being some of the issues for which we were put on probation. For instance, I believe it suggested that students were being supervised by SSM doctors that are not school faculty. Apparently, that is a no-no. My point was the those problems arose with Pestello in charge. The great scape goat of many on this board was gone by then.

Slightly off topic, but why doesn't St. Louis host a non-conference tournament every year like other cities. Kansas City has one every year. I think the Sports Commission has dropped the ball on this one. St. Louis is centrally located and would be a good destination for fans of teams in the Midwest. If you got a Big 10 team, a Big 12 team, an SEC team, and maybe an A-10, AAC, or Mo Valley team every year, you could pack Scottrade and downtown for the event.

What college student is going to want to apply to a med school that is currently on probation. This is a huge blow that will affect the quality of students the Med School gets for years. Pestello took over in July of 2014. He's been at the helm for over two and a half years. He was in charge when the merger with SSM happened. At what point do we start holding this guy responsible for the myriad of problems that have arisen since he took over? The budget is a mess, employees are getting laid off left and right, and the Med School is the only med school in the country currently on probation. Can the alumni protest down on campus and give Pestello a vote of no-confidence just like the idiots in the faculty did to Biondi a few years ago?

Here were the winners who predicted 12 wins: 3star_recruit JMM28 WestCoastBilliken Waldo027 Bonwich hsmith19 BrianSTL The Pelican DesmetBilliken SShoe Billiken Blue The Pelican actually suggested, after picking 12 wins, that the over/under should be 12.5. Nice call. The worst picks were TheTorch saying 6 wins and BillikenBay saying 18+. For full disclosure, I said 14. I will also add that shortly after the season started, several people took to this thread to lament picking so high, including a few who are on the list above for nailing the 12 win total.

So, the Braggin Rights game really has nothing to do with your idea. Basically, you're saying sign a home and home series with Mizzou and sign a home and home series with Illinois. Sounds great, but if it were that easy, it would have happened long ago. I don't disagree with your thought that MO & ILL should be wanting to increase their exposure in St. Louis. However, I think that they think they accomplish that with the Braggin Rights game.

I asked for it, and I agree with it 100%. That being said, my main point is that I don't want to lose all the momentum we have here, because the University fails to live up to its promises with regard to funding athletics, particularly basketball. Even if Ford is not going anywhere this year, I don't want him having a bad taste in his mouth about the university that will cause him to have one foot out the door his entire stay here. Just give him what he was promised. I heard that they are raising the funds for this project. Is that what Ford was told was going to happen? Does anyone know? If he was told the University was going to do this, and then later the Athletic Dept. was told sorry now you need to raise the funds, that falls into the same category of not reimbursing a coach for buying the team ice cream. It's not going to leave a good impression.

I got blasted for suggesting that there was something to this, and now it seems like most are at least admitting that there's enough noise in the media that there must be something to the rumors. Go ahead and give your obligatory the media are liars speeches again if you want, but I'm going to face the facts. Several sources are saying that Ford is "expressing interest" in other jobs. That means one of two things. Either it's a ploy to try to get SLU to fulfill the promises it made to him (i.e. refurbishing locker rooms and creating player lounge) or he really is interested in leaving and is using Gordon and Thatch as incentive for any interested school. I don't care what tier people think he is on as a coach, those two players are game changers for a program, obviously more Gordon than Thatch, and Ford's recruiting abilities in general are enticing. Let's suppose for a second that he doesn't intend to leave, but that it is a ploy to get SLU's attention. Does that not bother anyone on this board?! We appear to have a great situation going here with Coach Ford. If he's pissed that he was promised a locker room and lounge, you should all be pissed that he doesn't have those things already like he was promised. Why does nobody here seem to care about that? We shouldn't have to put up with getting excited about the future only to, once again, have the carpet pulled out from underneath our feet because of BS like Pestello not coming through on a promise. Also, someone questioned my previous post about why I blame Pestello. Simple answer: He buried his head in the sand for several years while the finances went to s#*t. Now we have something like a $16 million dollar deficit. He knew when he came in that Biondi was out because he was "the bad guy" and Pestello decided he needed to be liked by everyone instead of making hard decisions about finances. Now its biting him in the ass. Also, if this is the reason Ford hasn't got his locker room and lounge, then it's also biting the athletic department in the ass. That would not be May's fault. That would be Pestello's fault if non-athletic budget problems are affecting money for athletics.

Dave Matter was just on with Bernie. He said that Mizzou does have interest in Ford. They talked about several other candidates also. Matter said that the interest in Ford is do to the success that Ford has had in recruiting area kids while at SLU and that it should be viewed as a compliment to Ford's success in that area. Bernie followed up by saying that he didn't think that Ford was a big enough hire for Mizzou. He actually said that Ford was a good hire for SLU, but not a big enough splash for Mizzou.

Here is why I'm concerned about this using the arguments against it as references: * He wouldn't move his family two years in a row - His family could stay right in the house they are in now and go to the schools they are going to right now while he coaches and commutes from Columbia. I assume, given his recruiting schedule, that they don't see him a ton as it is. A two hour drive isn't going to hold this back. * He wouldn't leave the recruits he has coming in - The prize recruit he has a commitment from, Gordon, absolutely could go with him and Tate to Mizzou. So could Thatch. * No one would respect a coach that leaves after one year - The guy many consider the best coach going right now, Calipari, doesn't have much respect among a lot of people. Respect, unfortunately, doesn't matter much. Recruiting and winning matters. This is why Calipari gets paid millions to do what he does. Does anyone really think that Mizzou would shy away from Ford because of this issue. If they think he's the right guy, because of his recruiting skills, they won't hesitate. * Ford might be pissed that he didn't get things he was promised by SLU - If it is true that Ford was promised a swanky players locker room and Pestello is telling him he can't have it because Pestello crapped his pants with regard to the school's finances, then Ford might be saying to himself that he needs to get out of here before it's too late. * Ford hasn't proved himself, yet, during his one year at SLU - Mizzou doesn't care. Look at Illinois. Groce continues to fail to prove himself every year, but the fans and administration get hypnotized by his recruiting classes. Look at us. Ford hasn't changed the results much from a record standpoint, but we are all overly impressed with his recruiting and what the future may hold. Mizzou may simply see Ford's ability to recruit this area and see that he could bring Gordon and Thatch and say "done deal." If Ford leaves to take the Mizzou job, Pestello needs to pack his bags to head back to the East Coast.

Since the hype last year was around Bryce Drew, I decided to look up some numbers on him. In the past two seasons, Vanderbilt was 21-14 (14/15) & 19-14 (15/16). Each year they finished 7th in the SEC. This year, Vanderbilt is 17-14 & currently is 7th in the SEC. Last two seasons under Drew, Valpraiso was 28-6 (14/15) and 29-7 (15/16). Each year they finished 1st in the Horizon. Without Drew this year, they are 24-8 and tied for first in the Horizon. I know one year removed is a bad sample to work with, but Drew becoming the Vanderbilt coach has not made any difference at Vandy this year, and the loss of Drew hasn't resulted in a sizeable drop-off at Valpo either. That being said, Ford hasn't improved our record from last season, but we all know that he was working with a limited roster. I think he would have gotten several more wins with Ash in the lineup. There's not a huge point to be made here, but I would take Ford and the excitement he has created at SLU over having Bryce Drew. I think we would all agree about that. That sentiment is very different than it was almost a year ago when we all wanted Drew and were disappointed with the hire of Ford.

A four seed. That's strong. I can see us making it at least to the Elite 8 based upon those in our side of the bracket.

I'm confused. You say several donors swore they wouldn't give while Biondi was in charge. I've also heard that one of the big problems with the financial situation right now is that donations are way down since Biondi left and Pestello took over and that they are bringing Biondi back to get the donors back that bailed. Maybe the donors you are referring to all graduated with social work degrees (meaning not really donors at all). Didn't Biondi get run out of town by the faculty, staff, and students because he was trying to institute tenure rules that would keep costs down? So, Biondi wants to put measures in place to keep control over costs, he gets chased, we get Pestello, and a few years later we have a financial crisis. It's been a long time since I graduated from the Business School, but I think the facts add up pretty well. Now, your trying to twist those facts to make it sound like donors swearing off Biondi was the problem. If that was the case, then we should have seen rise in donations in recent years. I don't think that is what happened.

I think we'll compete for the A-10 title with Dayton and VCU in the league. Playing them will help our RPI. Not having them will hurt it. Gonzaga stays in its league, because it has no other options. We may have options.

For anyone already making plans for that trip, tickets to Hamilton on Broadway for those days go on sale to the general public starting tomorrow (3-7-17) at 10:00 a.m. EST.