Billikenswin

More important is to see how the team players if Parker returns and I’d healthy enough to ply at his full potential-hopefully with Larry II and Meadows

Deal was made to extend TRO into next spring. No retaliation against school or player allowed when double transfers start playing now. Great news for Brad and the Bills.

Not that it really matters because you have an obvious need to have there be only few people at this event but there were tables with people sitting to the right and behind this photographer who would not be in the picture

Not true. There were about 40 people there.

I am always amazed at the utter BS that is posted on this Board and people lap it up as true. Forget about Dandridge. Bob O’Lougllin graduated from Connecticut and is one of the smartest businessmen in St. Louis. He has been incredibly generous to SLU and active on the Board of Trustees, including acting as Chair of the Athletic Committee—and the O’Loughlin Family Champions Center is almost finished and it will be a fantastic facility. It is incredible that you and about 6 or 7 others on this board can do nothing but complain and post highly negative comments about everything related to SLU. ‘Why not give it a rest for a few months? Believe it or not there are many wonderful things happening at the university and our student body is a bunch of wonderful young people who really care about academics and caring for others and the 400+ athletes really care about academics as true student athletes and they want win and be successful. No person is perfect, no coach is perfect, no team is perfect but they are all doing the best they can to represent the university in a positive way and we should be very proud of them.

This guy Bartok obviously, knows nothing about our new players. I have seen some practices and would suggest thatMedley and Bruce Z will be solid contributors. Our three euro players have excellent potential and the young man from the Netherlands is big and strong. Once he is back on his feet he really seems to be someone who can also contribute. It really is impossible to predict how all of the new players will contribute at this point but without a doubt they will have a larger impact than zero which is the assumption by this guy

Everyone will be very happy with our new assistant. Stay tuned

It is almost impossible for me to believe the amount of false information posted on this site. It was Frank, whose son works for Worldwide, that commented on Fred’s seven interviews—Travis never said a word about it. Yes, we have had some disappointing losses but we have had some damn good wins—Memphis, Providence, Drake( who dominated the MVC tournament) Dayton and road wins in conference. The amount of vitriol —and purely ignorant things said about Travis —is and are ridiculous.

Many of us lived through this bad season with all of its problems. 30 years ago! On the brink of a highly anticipated new season with a very nice team with great team culture, why attempt to stir up controversy. Steve, lets deep six this thread.

Yes

Announcement soon

Don’t believe everything you read on Twitter. The timing of this recruits arrival will surprise us.

With all due respect, in today’s environment it is not the NCAA that is driving to you “two divisions” but rather the power 5 conferences who want all of the money. The NCAA loves the idea of a broad based tournament with the possibility of a few Cinderellas who bring excitement and give smaller schools an opportunity to “dance”.

Yes, entirely.

This picture shows that Andre is a legit 6’8” and he can get up—not like our best leapers like Fred, Hasan, Perkins, TJ, Jacobs or Marhki, but he is not A slug!

Markhi is definitely a high flier similar to TJ-in the open court dunks they are both worthy of highlight films. Markhi is more advanced than most frosh on the defensive end and he really hustles on all plays. He is a decent shooter and an aspiring 3 point shooter who appears to be a future scorer. In many past years he would have been a potential top 8 or 9 rotation guy but with our depth this year it will be a difficult task for him to break into the top 10 but it is possible. Everyone sees him as a significant contributor and potential star in the future after the big three graduate.

I know this might sound implausible but I have had the good fortune to attend some practices and I think one of our break out players will be Jordan Goodwin. He is playing so much better than he did as an arriving freshman and even better than last season—it is amazing that his shooting thus far this season is much much better than earlier in his career. His defense and rebounding are still excellent although I think he is now a better on ball man to man defender, and his leadership is truly something special to watch. Many other players are playing well— Yuri with much more confidence and he seems to have a much better mid range game. TJ is much more at ease and confident than he was last year and with his improved defense and shooting he will be a factor. Gibson is hustling all over the court and when he is hot he is an incredible shooter. Frankly, all of the returning players look as good or better than last year and the frosh are impressive as first year players and they have huge potential for the future. If we ever go cold we can rely on our defense but it wont be a pretty way to win. If we are hot—look out!—We could play with anyone.

I have had a chance to see Lorentsson play and he is head and shoulders better than the players you mention. He is a lights out shooter on the level of Gibson and he is a legit 6’8”. He has a good basketball IQ and fundamentals and he is not thin but he clearly has room to bulk up. We are a very deep team but he will challenge for minutes with the second five.

The word is that Fred is doing very well and he feels good as he works out at home. If he is healthy as reported, I believe he will be a big factor against some of our better opponents because of his great defense and pure strong athleticism.

Huge new recruit for Billiken men's soccer--Patrick Weah of the class of 2020--was a high school All American and has big time experience and success as a goal scorer and assist man. Kevin beat out some of the biggest programs in the country for this incredible young player.

It is funny that you say that--of course the videos are edited!--but when I talked to the staff after his visit the word was that it seemed like he never missed a shot the entire time he was here. His free throw shooting is great and as many on this board have said, the best way to significantly increase our percentages is to recruit and sign great free throw shooters. Although he is not a 5 it seems like a combination of he and Gibson will give us a tandem like Loe and Ellis!

Like all of the frosh and Perkins and Weaver he is drinking from a fire hose with so many different defenses to learn. He hustles, gives good effort and is reasonably quick.

I talked to Fred and he said he was cramping at the end of practice--which went for 2+ hours from 3:30 until about 5:45--and he said the trainers wanted him to rest and get fluids because the next practice was the following morning. I was able to attend that practice, the first official one of the year, and for those of you who are concerned about our defense based on the Billiken Maddness scrimmage I can assure you that nothing in that scrimmage was real. In the practice they went hard for 2 hours working ferociously on various defensive plays and set ups. Everyone was playing hard and the coach was on them if they made a mistake in footwork or effort. Overall, they looked like they can play hard for 40 minutes of defense with the depth they have. In several recent practices that I attended the team has been shooting better than I have seen in years. JImerson leads the way--the best freshman shooter I have ever seen on the Billikens in practice- but Jacobs has been hot from the 3 as has KC Hankton. Weaver has a nice stroke as does Perkins and Fred has looked good as well.Yuri can get hot but his strength is his ability to drive and score or drive and dish--he is a very clever passer. When they do scrimmage full court--a very rare occurrence so far--they are attempting to fast break on almost every play and we have some players who can fly down the court. The most surprising player on the break might be Jimerson because he can flare out and hit threes like no one we have had in years. Obviously, Yuri in perfect for that style but JGood has actually been playing very well on the break and at times he will take it in over all of the bigs and score like Jordair Jett used to do and Fred and Jacobs are high fliers who can score over defenders as well. And all of our bigs have been told to run hard and try to beat opposing bigs down the court. Hasan is fast and tough and can finish. Bell and Diarra are working hard and may surprise some folks. Clearly, the best 3 on the team are JGood, Fred and Hasan but then it becomes an interesting dynamic in terms of playing time. Jimerson shoots so well it may be hard to keep him off the court. Yuri and Weaver are very good point guards with Yuri as the better passer and Weaver slightly ahead on defense. Bell is big and tough and will help in the middle, particularly against big teams where Hasan will be needed at the 4 spot. Jacobs at times looks like one of the better players on the floor and he has a nice touch from 3. Hankton is bigger and stronger and he is also shooting well from 3. Perkins is smooth and clever on offense. He will be taking a crash course in practice on the defensive end. I think it is impossible for any of us to conclude who will play a certain amount of minutes past the Big 3--but the competition is fierce and that should make us a better team by January after a tough non con schedule.

There were changes in the team in charge of student recruitment including the leadership. Many hours were spent developing new strategies and a lot of hard work went into this effort which was very successful. This was definitely not just a situation where SLU did the same things as in past years

I agree with your call for patience but I do see some differences. If you compare freshmen to freshman you could go either way as to which group is/was better. One distinct difference is the size of Bell. However, The key element of potential superiority of this years team compared to that team is the hard nosed defensive and rebounding trio of Upperclassmen Goodwin, Thatch and French combined with the experience and shooting of our grad transfer and Perkins. That group of 5 more experienced players had no equivalent on the 2010-2011 team. Go BIlls.