Aquinas

I would like to see Shirtz keep Harriman and have him look world wide for bigs who can shoot 3s and pass the ball.

IS makes the extra pass and doesn't bail on their offence.

That's how we ended up with Ford.

The other stats area that seemed to kill us was turnovers. Wiz can you say where we ranked in turnovers?

The last line pretty much summed up the season.

I am not sure about Parker. He is a gifted scorer, but poor defender. When I've seen him on the bench, he seems disinterested in the game. I dont recall him celebrating teammates making big plays.

I'll disagree on the ROI. He is a record setting reason to watch the team, on a team that doesn't have much to watch. His super quick release is beautiful and rare. I hope he is back next year.

Mack would be a big statement hire. I think it depends in 3 major things. 1. What he is looking for in a school/conference. 2. What he will make. 3. How much NIL commitment there is. He will be very expensive and would require BIG donor commitment.

I believe Coach Ford's plan for this season was premised on winning a championship last season. Then reloading on that success in the portal and maybe one or 2 good freshman. When last season's team fizzled, Ford was stuck selling only the success of Goodwin in the NBA and taking Yuri to national prominence. That wasn't and isn't enough to draw quick fix players. Now instead of coming off of a very disappointing season, we will be coming off of a disastrous season. It will take a LOT of NIL money to attract recruits to play for Ford. Its true that players want money, but they also want to dance.

When coach Ford came here he said he came to win championships. That was the vision he painted for the school, his recruis and the fans. He didn't say that in this interview. He basically said every A10 teams goal is to play in the tournament and the league needs to get back to sending more teams each year to the dance. He said we have a plan to turn this around, though he didn't say what that is, other than to say we didn't do a good job in the portal or NIL. Now he says he understands both. I think he loves SLU and St Louis. I think he works as hard or harder than any coach we have had. I wish I believed that he could get us to the top 1 or 2 in the A10..... but I don't. He will get us out of the cellar, but his ceiling is lower. Because of his track record here, he can't say to recruis, "we are about winning championships". If the administration keeps him we won't get close to the top 2 teams in the A10. Maybe top half, at best top third. If we were Fordham, this would be OK. But SLU has invested way too much to settle for this.

Ford was married to The idea of Perkins returning to form. In hindsight he should have benched Perkins and played Parker. Ford had no patience for Parker miscues as he adjusted ti Div 1.

Gibson has been drawing the best guard defender, now teams may put the best guard defender on Parker and try to provide some help. Gibson should get loose more often. Ez should have more freedom of movement inside as well. Now if our guys can recognize when they are getting doubled and find the open man, we should get easier shots.

Parker is back, Ez is as good as we could have hoped. We are a team that should be getting better, and we aren't.

Fham gets a F, from the freethrow line. Hmm. That sounds like the kind if team we can defend.

It's imperative that we fix this mess now. Things change fast with conferences realigning. The next good conference opportunity may be our last and we can't be a bad team and think anything good will happen. Today's game allows for fast recovery with the right coach, vision and some NIL money. We have everything else.

The highest hope from the start of this season was a Feb run, even before Parker went down. Going into this season, we had no true bigs and needed big contributions from freshman Casey, Zang when he became available. We also jnew nothing about the other freshman, little about Thames and thought EZ was a long shot for this season. No one looked at us as a potential top 50 team with at large potential.

I dont know what to expect this game. A beat down or suprising rally.

Merry Christmas I appreciate this board and the posters that have improved its content over the years. May God bless all of you on this holy day. Go Bills!

If Parker returns he will play the 2, Jimerson moves to the 3. TJ will lose some of the time he has had at the 3. Time will also come from Hughes and Thames. Though both have been dinged up. A lot will depend on how well Parker, Hughes and Thames play.

This season coaching aside I would expect to see opponents with bigger aecond halves, as we have had a lot of injuries knocking some players out and reducing minutes of other players. Looking at previous seasons with fewer injuries fewer I juries would probably be a better indication of in game coaching.

Does anyone know if any duv one player scored more points in the last 30 secs. Or consecutive points in the closing min?

Thanks for your reply, I greatly appreciate it. It shows that fouling right away is not always the right thing to do. Which is different than what I thought going into the game. I greatly appreciate your contributions to the board about games and topics like this.

I think the right thing may come down to who has the advantage in OT. We were down Dalger, Ez and I think coach said Thames was done. They had everyone. In this case I think OT advantage to them and that assumes we stop them on their last possession. So TJ at 35 to 40% on a 3 is probably the better bet and if they missed one of the FTs you only need a 2 to win and that's more like 50%. I think the quick foul was probably an accident, but was also the best move.

Foul. If the shooter makes both. A 2 point basket ties, a 3 wins. If shooter makes 1, a 2 wins. If he misses the second shot, must get rebound and get up the floor in 5 sec. What were the odds of them scoring in 5 sec. We had Ez and Dalger out. Then there is the specifics on the odds of winning in overtime. We were at home. On the other hand Ez and Dalger had fouled out and they had everyone, including their bigs. I think OT favored them. They gained on us the second half with Ez and Dalger. What do you think? What does rhe Wiz think?

Foul. If the shooter makes both. A 2 point basket ties, a 3 wins. If shooter makes 1, a 2 wins. If he misses the second shot, must get rebound and up the floor in 5 sec. What were the odds of them scoring in 5 sec. We had Ez and Dalger out. Then there is the specifics on the odds of winning in overtime. We were at home. On the other hand Ez and Dalger had fouled out and they had everyone, including their bigs.