Old guy

Sulfan, this goes to show that enjoying something is not dependent upon winning. We have had a really up and down season with much emotional flow associataed primarily with the downs. Yet, the ending is profiling itself to be reasonably positive despite having only 12 wins (so far?). This is the old Hollywood movie formula, Lots of trials and tribulations right from the start with a happy or fairly happy ending. In the Bills case it is more like the Hollywood formula modified somewhat by reality TV. It has been enjoyable but it took a lot of work and sweat plus some disappointment and cursing to get to this ending.

Blackman got a pretty solid whack from Reggie's elbow behind his L ear. Lucky for him it was in the area behind and below the ear where the skull bones are thick (the petrous prominence) and the skull is less likely to breaking. Had the same blow happened in the area in front and a bit above the ear (temporal bone) where the bone covering the brain is thin and flaky he could have suffered a fracture of the skull. Yes, it hurt a lot but without a break and not having lost consciousness, he should be OK.

Come on Wiz, you posted not long ago that if the statistical analysis of the Bills this season was limited to the last "X" number of games, all of them at the end of the season, the Bills would be playing at a B level, and that if this level of play had been achieved for the whole season we should have around a 6th seed in the A10. To my uninformed self that means that we are currently playing, despite all the issues with the team, much better than the D level indicates. We won over Duquesne, I agree it was an act of God, but it was facilitated by the fact the Bills just did not cave in and crumbled at the end of the game, but continued playing all the way to the end. We managed to win last night. As for GW, I really do not know if we can win or not but we will see, won't we?

Glorydays the whole issue here is what rankings really are and how valid they are. You seem to accept rankings as a measure of reality, they are not, they are an attempt to approximate reality by comparing statistics. If the data used in this approximation called a ranking is clean (no errors in the data) and valid (comparison of performance between comparable players playing similar leagues and number of games) then the approximation has a greater chance of being correct. When you compare players that play in different positions and therefore play differently, the validity of the comparison, and therefore the validity of any results or rankings coming out of this comparison, are still approximations but have less of a chance of being correct. When you compare two gifted players like Ramey and Gordon, who do not play the same position and who have not played a similar number of games for the season, the resulting ranking becomes even more of a guess rather than a valid comparison between the players. Are we clear now or not?

We won, YES! we have 12 wins. GW comes next, see you all tomorrow. Wooh!

WE WON! Damn_d crap pile feed. We won!

By the comments I assume we lost, correct?

My stream feed just died, what happened?

Looked at the stats, we can recover in the second half I think, however if we keep playing like we have been we will probably lose. Let's see what we do in the second half.

Not so Kshoe, your post means that you would never ever pay out of your own pocket, I assure you there are people that do pay out of their own pocket. What they gain from it goes way beyond the marginal value (after taxes) of the money spent. Perhaps you do not understand this so let me try another approach: Let's say that you want to buy a fancy car, let's call it a Porsche Cayenne. Well, you look for the best price available and go ahead and buy it. What did you get for your money that you could not get buying a Volkswagen Jetta at less than 1/4 of the price of the Cayenne? You got prestige and status. This is important for a lot of people, do not try to diminish the value of prestige, you would be wrong. Well, someone that has a job that requires him to be a leader of gifted people (athletes do qualify as gifted), needs to establish himself as a leader in the eyes of the prospective athlete, needs to get their loyalty, need them to buy into the system. You can do this by blowing off less than $1500 total in air fare, rental car, and overnight stay. You can let the kid know or indicate to him somehow that you care so much for him that you do not mind to spend your own money to go see him in person on Senior Day. This is rewarded with loyalty and with performance. Believe me there. Money is not all there is in life, and an extra whatever percent it is you pay in taxes is a well justified price to pay in order to gain loyalty and performance from your people. Have you ever taken all your employees for dinner at some time in the year. I have participated into paying for such events and will assure you I did not get a cent of reimbursement from the company. You see, I am stupid, I really care a lot more about loyalty and performance from my people than getting the last miserable fraction of a percent I can get from the company. I hope that Ford thinks like I do in this regard.

Bingo! the solution has been found. Ford stays put, Pestello stays put, and if no one else agrees with this, at least I will be happy.

Thank you CBFan, I have no idea what the details of SLU's financial condition and or expenses vs gains are. All I know is what is made available to the public in press releases and the like. SLU does not appear to be in a good financial condition, however this is not something that is affecting only SLU. Many other colleges and universities are feeling a singificant economic pinch, and that includes Harvard by the way. Amazing stuff, Harvard got $1.6 B in donations last year, and managed to spend it all plus all other income realized in 2016 plus a $0.4 B or so dip into their endowment for good measure! Imagine where SLU would be if they were spending at a similar clip. I am sure that details about SLU's current financial condition are known to Ford. Oh, and by the way, the cost of airfare and overnight stay to go wherever Hassahn French is graduating from, to attend his Senior night, is a drop in the bucket compared to what Ford makes. He really does not need to request funds to do this from May, he can do it himself without even thinking about it. I am sure Hassahn French really appreciated this gesture, and that made any expense incurred completely worthwhile for Ford. My original post was not intended to poor mouth SLU but to profile Ford for what he is, a real leader you can count on and follow.

Bills_06 the answers you suggest would make life much easier for you, Billi Ken and many others, but would it be the best thing for Ford to do? Everyone has the right to look after themselves first and do whatever they think is best for themselves, as long as no laws are broken of course. Ford decided not to talk about it or to take any media questions about this issue. This is what he feels is best for him. You have no right to question his motives if he does not want to talk about it. The fact that something makes your life easier is no reason at all whatsoever for someone else to do something they do not consider to be in their best interests.

Did I say he was paying out of pocket?, do you understand the meaning of the sentence "may be?" And how does this statement does not fit the current financial condition of SLU?

Billi Ken, the issue about getting involved into a question/answer circus, is that anything you may say and any way you may say it will only raise more questions. Before you know it, you are tied up by the interpretations of countless talking heads that proclaim you actually said things you never intended to say. It is like a company layoff, you do not discuss the motives for the layoff, or the way the layoff will affect those employees laid off. You just state there were layoffs and give a reason and close all further questioning and rationalization about it. Otherwise you never see the end of it. Hoosier Pal, there is nothing wrong with kicking tires and checking what you might be offered at a new job. I always did that, but just out of curiosity, not because of any desire to switch. However to say you are kicking tires openly only makes you a "do not call list" member for headhunters when they may be searching to fill a job you may want. It is not a good idea to discuss this kind of stuff with the media.

So, we will not win the A10 tournament or the NCAA tournament, that does not mean we cannot win tonight, and, if we are lucky, the following game against GW. Did anyone in this board thought, there was a chance of winning 11 games this season last December. Does anyone in this board think there is no chance to win against Duquesne or even GW? Do we think in terms of Royal flushes or momentum? This is a valid question.

I also like the fact that they (SLU and Ford) are not acknowledging the rumors. Of course the media, and I am referring to 101.1, had to say they were specifically asked not to mention this rumor. That is the way to maintain or increase the audience, worry the fans. This is marketing 201 if you wish. Lets all agree upon a couple of facts, when the right job comes along the likelihood of a move will increase. I guess we all agree upon this. So, what is the right job? Well that does not depend on what we think the right job is, but on what Ford thinks the right job is. What does he want to do with his career, how much more forward potential does he think he has, how about personal and family issues? Le's all agree that from a financial point of view the right job might be an NBA HC job. Well there is zero chance for him to land an NBA HC job at this time. Wiz can do the math and come up with his story of the Royal Flush in a five card draw or whatever it may be. These jobs are not there for him. Fine, so what could the right job be? Kentucky, Duke, Louisville? Are any of those jobs opening soon? Does Ford have the winning record to get them? The answers are no, and not yet. To land the right job and move forward Ford has to really achieve great results first, something to make him a good fit for this, presumably much higher, level job. With that thought in mind, what makes Mizzou even marginally a better place to achieve his great results than SLU is? In my opinion absolutely nothing. From a personal and family point of view, which is the better city to live in and go to high school in, St. Louis or Columbia? Is there any doubt in anyone's mind? I am not saying he will not go, I am saying he will not go to Mizzou, period. He has nothing to gain and much to lose there, Ford can see this. Also from a personal and family point of view, he also just spent with his family, a bunch of years in that fabulous metropolitan area, Stillwater OK. So now he is in St. Louis which compared to Stillwater OK is like living in a different world. Why should he want to go back to living in a much smaller city with a lot less to offer for his family unless it means getting the right job?

Thank you 3star for your analysis. From my uneducated point of view, as far as the technical aspects of basketball go, I think that we are most likely to have a much improved team next year and I am happy about it. Appreciate your thoughts about Goodwin and Bess.

There is always a chance Wiz, someone eventually wins the PowerBall and collects a ton of money. The issue is that the chance to do certain things is so remote as to be almost equal to imaginary. I still think the Bills are likely to beat Duquesne, regardless of the statistics collected over this season. All I can say for sure is that we will see, this question will have a firm answer sometime tomorrow night.

Would you believe this, Team Rankings changed its mind and is now making Duquesne favorite to win with 1 star out of 5 of confidence. The Vegas implied scores for this game are: SLU 65, Duquesne 67. The spread is 2 in favor of Duquesne.

Too late to regret anything that Crews did or did not do, this is water under the bridge. We are much better off now.

I respect your opinion and views 3star, you have a much greater degree of knowledge about basketball than I will ever have. That said, I have a question for you if you please. Is there anything like a basketball player that has absolutely no holes in his game, particularly if you are considering freshmen. I suppose there may be a few of these perfect creatures available each year, but I also think that the chances for SLU to land one of these gifted players is extremely small.. I like the way in which you qualified your last paragraph, yes we have a lot of new additions to the team each one with some claim to specific kinds of talent. We need to see how well they gel together, but certainly we can replace players having a night off in some game with someone else and retain a good chance to win the game. I am an optimist, of course you know that, and I choose to believe we will do a lot better next year than we did this season.

I am not a fan of Biondi, do not misunderstand me, but what SLU needs right now to deal with this financial crisis is a bit of Biondi. No explanations given, "you are fired" is the message. The soft touch is nice but you get lost in arguments going back and forth about righteousness and feelings. Sometimes you must do what is best for the University and forgo the touchy feely approach. This is possibly why Chis May made a big to do about announcing next year's tournament, if will be bringing extra revenue to the Department and the University. This provides some justification for the extra cost of the Athletic Department. There is nothing that I would dislike more than having Biondi reinstated as the President of SLU. I like Pestello much more as a President.

Agree with one addition, considering Crawford's injury based limitations evident this year his performance was extraordinary even though it was spotty at times.