Old guy

These experts are experts in motivation and feeling good. I agree it is better when the team and the coaches are motivated and feeling good. However, there is no direct relationship between learning how to do certain plays, having better FT results, or dunking and feeling good about yourselves. It must be understood that the armed forces have what may be considered the opposite approach at making fat soft civilians into proper soldiers. The recruits are yelled at and made to exercise and work at boot camp until they are so exhausted that they cannot do much else. The US does produce soldiers capable of fighting and winning. There is no "feeling good" lectures as part of the training they receive.

I will agree that I do not know much if anything about the art of recruiting. However I believe that treating coaches and players with respect and making offers only when we think they are good offers (for SLU) is not a bad approach, even with coaches that have a long tradition of ignoring SLU.

Congratulations to Jermaine Bishop, he just got a good break. All the best.

I just do not sense a feeling of urgency to get new recruits for the coming season. Weaver is still not listed in the roster but someone said he has arrived. Judging by the OOC schedule, Ford is aiming high this season. We will see.

It is better in February with 65 degree weather (at sea level, Phoenix) and oranges hanging from trees. The natives think it is incredibly cold and go around wearing parkas and gloves. But no, there will be no basketball for us in Arizona next February.

Very happy to see Jacobs in this video.

Ace what you describe is indeed a problem. I think the better course for SLU to take handling these characters is to be respectful to them and to present our point of view, even when we think/know they will not accept it. It would not be good to go there and insult them. If we are going to improve this situation we have to do it correctly and aim for the long run.

I think that in the recruiting process the player and the player's coaches are separate factors. The coaches influence the player's thinking, but the players are the ones ultimately deciding. Calling the coaches after not making a player's final list can be taken as a way to facilitate a better relationship with the coaches with the hope that they will promote our program to their HS players. Fletcher may be lost and gone for SLU but the Vashon coaches are still factors that must be worked up to develop a good mutual relationship, after all the HS coaches are an important part of the process.

The end of the series is the end of the series. If you were to look at it as if it was happening in real life, the real outcome would have little to do with who got it, the real outcome would be dependent upon what the guy who got it did with it after he got it. That is not part of the series, the series just had to end at some point, period.

You could have bought Crews a private jet for his own use in recruiting and his performance as a recruiter and with the team would have remained substandard. Ford can recruit that is true, and it may be worthwhile to pick up the extra tab with him, but ONLY because the results expected (value for the buck) support the expense. It would not have paid to have Crews tooling around in a private jet, his results would have remained PP (for Pissed Poor). The school expenses for coaches using private jets cannot be justified if the results expected are not up to par.

You may look at it that way, of course, that still leaves a question mark in the actual returns per buck spent.

Yes but the actual return for the private jet account is a big fat "0".

I have no doubt that a number of schools, mostly public, spend more in basketball recruitment than other schools do, mostly private. The actual expense is not the real issue, the real issue is the value they get for the money they spend. Do you get more bang for the buck if you spend more? No one has answered that question.

Bauman, thank you for the blue font use in your last line.

You are correct, old geezer golf is more of a social event, provided you stay within bounds of the status quo mediocrity. Little tweaks indeed, a bit higher here, more turn there, feet pointing as such, and then just go out and try to remember all of the tweaks. It is worse if you try to concentrate upon a single tweak before going to the next, because the single tweak only works as intended if you manage to do all the other tweaks correctly. You may very well wind up improving your form, how you look, without improving your game, how you score. OHHH great swing, bad shot though. In medical terms there is the phrase "A Harvard Death," that is someone that dies with totally normal lab results and tests. You are dead, but your tests look real good! Does this sound even vaguely familiar to anyone of you? Have you ever had a Dr. come up to you and tell you, we are so sorry your mother had a massive heart attack and passed away, nothing we could do. And you know, because you watched her going down into death, that she lost motion of one side of her body first and then could not talk before she died. Do you believe she had a heart attack? The Dr. is shooting from the hip, or giving the standard excuse, is the name for this. All the lab results and all the tests are fine, the patient must be fine... boom, down he goes to meet his ancestors. Sure, measurements can help someone get back into the groove. What it really cannot do is to teach him how to do something new. Like the old joke: "Doc, will I be able to play piano after the surgery? Sure you will. Funny, I never could do it before." Technology and measurements for the sake of technology and measurements are crap. After the powers that be figure how to use the technology effectively, then it may become useful, not before.

Congratulations to Javon Bess and all the best. Australia is a fine place to live in.

I think it is a great tool but my long experience with analytic tools says otherwise. Let's say that you, all of a sudden, develop valid data on release angle, ball speeds, and up to 10 total new parameters which had never been available before. The question is how do you make sense out of the new data. Let's say that an optimal release angle is (or angle range) is developed from this data. This may or may not be great because this "optimal" angle range may also be dependent upon jump height, proximity to basket, speed of the player at time of release, type of evasive motions he may have been doing, speed of the ball, etc. To make sense of 10 new parameter measures you first have to develop an extensive database to correlate all of this information with yet additional data like player's height and weight, etc. Eventually you will in all likelihood be able to develop training goals for the players, which will hopefully translate into improved scores. However this will not happen until there is enough data to make valid correlations. So, for the time being, and until an adequate database on these parameters can be developed, the new data is interesting and suggestive but cannot be used to evaluate players directly.

Clock, why are you so worried? Things will find their own level and we will field a good squad this year. Some players will do better than expected, some will do worse. This is always the case, just give it time and let Ford do his thing.

Corect SLU72, by January we will know who is in the rotation and who is not. I hope to see Jimerson in the rotation for his shooting ability.

OK guys, as you all engage in this speculation please remember this. The final rotation will not be chosen until a number of the non conference games are played. If Yuri or anyone else starts in the first game, it does not mean automatically that he will be in the final core group chosen to play during the season.

This is the eternal argument as to which is most important recruiting or coaching. Ford is an excellent recruiter and gets good talent in. He is a good coach who is capable of keeping teams in the fight despite all kinds of bad events happening. He is not RM. I think are just fine with Ford.

Roy you are entirely correct, what the board members are engaging in is simply an act of wild speculation. The only one who really knows what Ford plans to do is Ford, and I assume he is yet to decide how the season will actually be played. Ultimately it all depends on how the recruits, all of them, perform in practice, their strengths and weaknesses combined with their potential, and how the mix works best for Ford. If Ford is still checking, testing, and developing his thinking, there is no way that any one of us can predict at this time how the season will be played next year. There is always a mix of truth in what people see in the current batch of players which is mixed into their wild projections, anyone can be right in what they predict about a player, however most will, at best, only be partially correct in their estimates. Remember last year it was the same kind of speculation, with a heavy emphasis on Gordon, which did not last past a semester with us.

Agree with you Pilot, let's assume this kid is here with his family, or even by himself living with family friends or relatives. You have to consider that most of these people have no clue as to what the good schools are or are not. Mistakes are bound to be made, and then fixed. I think the important thing with this kid is how he plays and how he gets along with other kids in his team. If he is OK both ways, then the school changes may not be much of a red flag.

I hope he gets there, and manages to make the NBA

3 star the fact that you will not make that bet is simply that the odds would not be favorable enough if you won it. Assuming that a pro oddsmaker was calculating the odds in this case, it would mean that the oddsmaker thinks the odds against a player who has never played a second of D1 ball may be better than what you think. Not being a pro in this business I think such a bet would pay at least $10 per dollar bet. It might be interesting to see what pro oddsmakers think about the odds in this case.