Aquinas

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.

In the final 30 sec, they didn't appear to be in their typical half court roles. On both of TJs 2 point baskets, Jimerson set a screen. That is normally done by our 5. It looked like a set play. They were not going to let Jomerson get the ball so have him set the screen and his shadows follow him and it opened the lane for TJ.

I dont expect Ez to be a great player, but I do expect him to be a big improvement. We have been so weak at the position, that we have played TJ, an undersized 4 at the 5. We have had to provide help when the ball goes inside, which has resulted in a lot of open 3s. Ez strengthens the weakest position on our team. As The Wiz said, it puts players like TJ back in position. Helps keep us from running out of gas, like we did 2 games ago. We need Parker back to be actually be good, but now is the time to play our bigs at the 5. Tune the bigs up and see what this team can do by playoffs.

Now that Ez is good to go, I think we have a shot at winning the conference tournament. That assumed the return of Parker to his previous level of play. I also think we must have Zang and Ez playing the lions share of min at the 5. Also have Van B play a few min. I would like to see TJ and Dalger tag teaming the 4 position with each coming in with high defensive energy and going super hard, knowing they will be tagged out and to recover. We can beat weaker teams with small ball, but we have to be bigger to beat better teams. While Zang's numbers are modest, he alters what teams want to do. We need to play these bigs now, to get them to their max potential by tournament time.

It seems like every decade or so, someone inside of SLU steps up and does something that devastates men's bb. Upchurch was a killer. SLU did not quickly change its view of men's bb as a result. Grawer had lots of fights, including facilities, recruiting budget and travel expenses. I have great respect for his accomplishments, especially given the many handicaps he had.

The good, the bad and the ugly 23-24 season so far. Better than I expected: Freshman: Zang, Medley and Thames are better than expected, appear to be div 1 players with high ceilings. It's also good to see 3 solid freshman that play 3 different positions. SVB and Curcic are close to what I expected. They are projects that might develop or might leave. Transfers Meadows looks solid. Dalger sometimes looks great and sometimes playes hero ball. He should not be shooting 3s unless it is late in the clock with no other option. There is a reason he is open at the 3 point line. His rebounig is disappointing. Parker was everything we could ask far before the injury. Jimerson is doing a better job of getting to the free throw line and Houghes is doing about what I expected. What is killing us are the injuries and the transfers that still have undetermined status. All that said, we still have a chance to put together a team that can dance. IF the injured players return to their previous form AND at least one of the bigs who are not yet cleared are cleared and play better than TJ at the 5. TJ has played better than I expected. He has a lot of heart. Though if we have any hope of winning the A10, tournament, we have to have legit centers. The silver lining in the dark injury cloud is that Zang and the other freshmen are getting good playing time. The bottom line, I think good things might still happen for the Billikens this season.

A min 30k wage for every sport will make all none paying schools second class citizens in every sport. All of the good players in every sport will go to the 30k schools. The mess that is div 1 men's bb will spread to every sport.

We have serious problems, but its wrong to say all of our players are sub par. I think our best starting guards, Meadows, Parker and Jimerson are pretty good. Good enough to win the conference and dance. I also like young Houghes and Thames. Unfortunately they are not all healthy and our forwards are not nearly good enough.

We will need a significant NIL commitment to attract anything more than a high risk hire. In today's game a new coach can't count on any players returning out of loyalty. He must have NIL funds to retain the players he likes and to hit the transfer market hard. It will probably be better to hire a lower salary coach with higher NIL $, than a higher salary coach with lower NIL$.

His size affects what other teams do, and without him, we don't have a center. I predict that if we sit him, we will lose him and watch him play for someone else. The bottom line in today's game, with all players: Play them or Lose them.

I think playing Zang now, so that he is a force by tournament time is in Ford's best interest. If we sweep the conference and dance, he saves the season. But what does a one point victory against Dartmoth buy us.

My view of coach Ford differs some from most on the board. I dont think he is a great recruiter, I think he brought a high level recruiting process that includes non stop recruiting. I think the lack of discipline that he displays in game play management is also in his recruiting efforts. He puts a short term goal over a long term goal. Just like he abondons the goal of playing young players when they make a mistake, he grabs the best available player instead of recruiting the teams greatest need. For instance, did we really need Pickett last year? No, we needed a big. He recruited Frech and Gordon. Really good players that I enjoyed but they didn't complement each other as they both had very limmited range, and adding Collins didn't help. His recruiting may be hurt by NIL, but its hurt worse by lack of delivering big seasons. You can't paint a picture of winning championships and NCAA tournament appearances this deep into your SLU tenure when it hasn't happened. Plus aposing coaches are quick to point out the failures. To be fair, I think Ford has had more than his share of bad luck. But the impact of that bad luck has been made worse by not recruiting team needs and not playing young players when we had them.