Bills By 40

Memphis lost a tough one, it came down to last minute or two and could've been a different game if their big man hadn't fouled out with 6 minutes to go and Kendric hadn't left with an ankle injury in the final minutes. Shows they can scrap with just about anybody (that ain't the Saint Louis University Billikens).

1) Most of the time that Yuri is shooting is when it's out of a last-resort absolute necessity. And in that scenario it will rarely be a good shot for anyone. How often have we seen him practically avoid shooting like it's the plague? Until everything is going wrong Yuri doesn't consider himself the first option, typically not the second third or even fourth, either. He has been very good, great even. He's also been bad, but only in situations where the rest of the team has also been very bad if not utterly f***ing terrible. It goes both ways IMO - a chicken or the egg situation. 2) I don't think Jimerson is built to be a primary scoring option and with the rest of the team performing like they have been what choice have we left him? Maybe what I'm saying is he's good enough to be the first scoring option, but he can't be the only scoring option and often if not regularly that's exactly what he's been. 3) Thatch is the ultimate utility player and IMO that's exactly what he has been. And then some. I love backup PG Thatch and he's been very good at it all things considered. Pretty rare to find a guy that can basically play the 1-5. 4) You're exactly right. I don't have the energy to quantify this claim but I'd wager that Pickett has been one of the most impactful transfers in the entire country. And he'll be a nightmare for A10 opponents. 5) Yes, we need to stop giving Okoro and Forrester the ball in the high post or beyond, we're really missing Linssen for that part of the playbook. We thought Forrester could've filled that role but so far absolutely not. The issue is that they've been bad from everywhere on the court. Within 15 feet, within 10 feet, within 5 feet...majorly ineffective, turnover prone, and totally incapable of making even layups. Those two are combining for like 4 turnovers/game and if you counted all of the turnovers that are credited to Yuri that are arguably their fault that number might double. Our front court has flown mostly under the radar but if you watch more closely they are far and away the biggest problem with this team. 6) I don't think it's the # of minutes Hargrove gets but the situations in which he gets them. He's better than the amount of playing time he gets and so effective in so many ways, but so much of his PT comes in situations where we're down bad and his only hope is to stop the bleeding. He draws a lot of short straws and has an even shorter leash. 7) We were never going to get a "backup PG" and it wouldn't have solved the issues we're having. There's no viable option to play behind someone that demands and deserves 33+ MPG - we saw that with Deandre last year. I think what we needed was a backup center...maybe a starting center. You could argue that we need a backup 2-3-4-5 because we are struggling just about everywhere right now. I know I'm ragging on Okoro but it's because I know - we all know - that he's soooooo much better than this. I think it's mostly mental issues, lack of confidence or something. We saw what he's capable of last year, but we also saw exactly what he's doing now in the first half of last year's season. I thought we were out of the woods with that version of Franco but he has regressed terribly and I truly think he deserves more blame than any individual player for our losses this year. His rebounding numbers look fine but it's not hard at 6'9" to rack up defensive boards. He's a combined 3-11 in our last three losses, 6-17 in the four of them. He's averaging 3 TO/G in the last three losses and again that number would be higher if he was blamed for the routine passes that hit him in the hands and he fails to catch them. If you picked ten different 6'9" guys off the street today at least 5 of them would average a double-double playing for this team. I don't get it and that needs to change immediately if we want to stand a chance against any significant level of competition.

TL;DR - Yuri has his issues, but many of them are amplified by the issues of those around him. It's not fair to highlight him any more than the surplus of problems around him caused by the teammates that are drastically underachieving their individual expectations. IMO the only players who haven't disappointed are Thatch, Pickett, and probably Gibby. ALSO IMO - we're going to win 14(or+) games in conference play and be just fine.

One of those 8 turnovers was the forced drive in the final seconds that IMO was a defensive foul. Multiple of those 8 turnovers were the fault of teammates who seemingly refuse to be passed to anymore. Our frontcourt has hands of stone and the eyes of Ray Charles. It looks like they're actively trying to lose games out there. The only person with >4FGA that had a higher shooting percentage against Boise was Thatch and even he was only 3/6. Okoro and Forester took a combined 8 shots for a total of 6 points. Our sharpshooter Jimerson was 2/11 and didn't make a 3. Javonte was 0-4, Pickett only 2-6, Hargrove a modest 2-4. When the team shoots 18-58 and and 14-40 inside the arc you can't expect the pass-first point guard to do much more than rack up 17 points. In my view you're looking for reasons to crucify Yuri because he's typically so good that any time we're not it looks like his fault. He's not faultless, but he's far from the sole issue. Same issues with Iona. We shot 21/68 from the field. "You can lead a horse to water..." but you can't make him put a basketball through the f***ing hoop. Yuri was actually tied for highest shooting % on the team in that game and again, not every turnover was egregiously his fault. I can't count on two hands the number of times I've watched him slip a routine bounce pass on a pick and roll to FO/JF and they let it go right through their hands or even their legs. This is a problem, they're (majority of the time) not difficult passes. "Ford's roster construction relied on Yuri being an all american which was um....dumb." If I told you pre-season that Yuri would be averaging 12/11/4 on 40% shooting at this point in the year would you have thought 1) it was dumb to build around him or 2) we would be 7-4? What's dumb is thinking he's anything less than one of the best point guards in the country. We have a lot of problems with the team right now (hopefully a week off is time to resolve some/many/most/all of them) but all of those problems make a point guard's job way harder.

If all else went as expected, yes. But that includes a slower than projected transition for Sincere. That includes Forester being (so far) a major downgrade from Linssen when we expected him to be an improvement. That includes Okoro being what we saw in the first half of last year, not the second. If just one or two of those four things above were true, we'd be in great shape. Probably 9-2. If only three of the above were our current reality we'd surely have won one of Auburn/Boise, kept the others closer. But so far it seems we have far more issues than anyone could've projected and it has proven to be too much to overcome. The good news is all four of those issues could very well resolve themselves between now and the important part of the season. Necessity is the mother of innovation and we sure as hell NEED to figure something out. We've seen lesser SLU teams gel and succeed far beyond expectations in the second half of the season before, we have no reason to believe this team can't or won't do the same.

"Taj may not be a glass half empty guy." says the glass completely empty under any and all circumstances guy. When can we start looking for a replacement for you? That time is long overdue.

I don't know if anyone knows the answer because NET is rigged. At a minimum it's suspiciously non-transparent. All we can do is win and hope it's rewarded by the powers that be.

Nor am I worried about Collins and Jimerson leaving for anywhere besides pro careers. More importantly, if those two or even just Yuri returns - we are a top, like, 10 transfer destination in the country.

This is worth a DM at most, not a thread.

It was a combination of both. Maryland is flat out GREAT. They're one of the best teams in the nation. We played a poor game that day, maybe in part due to it being our first road game, most likely due to being shell-shocked by the 10th-ranked pre-season Big 10 team playing like a top-5 team in the country and shooting 105% from the floor. It can be both at the same time. I'm much more mad about Auburn than Maryland, as we all should be frankly.

In theory yes, but don't forget how important margin of victory is. Also important that we have guys chasing records and trying to bolster their resumes for professional aspirations. If we play the kids against SIUC do we win by 5? By 9? Neither as important to NET as the 13 we won by. Same as TSU - we didn't even cover the spread, and Yuri deserved every minute he got. Evansville could've been a loss if we didn't play the starters as long as we did, and it at times felt like it could've been with them in there. Long story short MOV is too important nowadays to give the kids in-game practice time in my opinion.

Maryland could've beaten any team in the nation by 20 points that day, they looked unstoppable. Didn't help us that our best perimeter defender was out for the second half.

We don't play the back end of our bench because they don't deserve to play over guys who are, let's say, the best in the country at their position. If they weren't good enough for minutes against cupcake teams what makes you think they'll be good enough in one of the toughest games of the season? Those guys are for emergency situations. Foul trouble, injury, etc. Players like Fred and Yuri and Jimerson deserve to play the minutes they do because they're that much better than any other options on the team.

I'd be shocked if anyone disagreed with you. Maryland is a different beast.

I'll have a meeting with the board to discuss a rebrand. As a former recruiter Cian Medley has a strong lead on the competition but I'm also an early contender for biggest Bruce Zhang fan on the board. To be determined. ALTERNATIVELY, if Yuri makes an NBA roster it probably stays.

You've been here for 18 posts, you ain't seen nothing yet.

If Yuri Collins stays for his fifth year in Saint Louis next season we will we be one of if not the hottest transfer portal destinations in the country for anyone that isn't a point guard.

Being an alcoholic is a disease, but one you're fully aware of having by this point. It's one thing to struggle with the disease but to repeatedly choose to get behind the wheel of a car and put others lives in danger, IMO, is grounds for forfeiture of the "good guy" status. It sounds like none of you have lost a loved one to the decisions of a drunk driver - I personally haven't either but am very close to some that have - but I think we're getting lost in the appreciation of a public sports figure and discounting human decency and basic responsibility in the process. It was 6:30PM on a Sunday - we know he's got the money to call a fu**ing Uber. Guess I don't share the same sympathy, sorry if I offend anyone. He's a great sportscaster, but maybe not such a great person. Three strikes you're out, right?

The thread is for us to b!tch about now and track the movement throughout the season. Both valid reasons to start a thread.

First NET rankings of the season debuted today and they're, well...not good. https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankings SLU debuts at 56th, 6 spots behind Iona and only one and two spots, respectively, above Boise State and Drake. Mizzou - with the third worst SOS in the nation and only one 4-point OT Q2 win - debuts at 34th. The A10 as a whole is in terrible shape which puts a major emphasis on these next three games:

Looks likely to break into the top-90 before the New Year.

*2nd. Avery Johnson is 1st and 2nd with 13.3 and 10.74.