Old guy

For those who may be confused by the number of layoffs at SLU today. They permanently eliminated 130 jobs or positions that had been vacant for some time and not filled. These positions are gone. They they laid off, and offered severance, to 120 additional employees who were actively employed in the administrative areas. There may be additional lay offs and elimination of other jobs which are currently vacant in specific programs, likely including the elimination of faculty positions. These next round of layoffs will not take place until they finish a major program of evaluation, and will likely not take place until the current semester is over. So far 250 administrative positions have been eliminated, but only 120 active employees were laid off today.

More fake news, the product of journalistic invention.

I am happy to report that Team Rankings has SLU as favorite to win against Duquesne, they only gave us 1 star out of 5 but that is better than Wiz's estimate of a loss by 3 pts. When I get a spread I will report it.

I would think that having the transfers present during practice has helped improve our team, yes. How much I have no idea.

Fine then who benefits for all of this garbage floating around?

Does the term "fake news" strike a chord? Can you recognize the level of political manipulation and BS underlying all of this feast of rumors about Ford and Mizzou? To start with just think who benefits from these rumors, is the rumored connection something that is likely to benefit Ford, or Chris May, or even Sterk in Mizzou? I do not think so. The only party that could win if these rumors come true might be OK State. Assuming that Mizzou agrees to pay Ford more than $ 3 M a year (which is unlikely) OK State would be relieved of their contractual obligation to cover any salary deficits below $ 3 M paid to Ford. That would bail them out of the stupid contract they signed with him. Otherwise if the rumors have any truth in them it becomes a lose / lose feast for all involved. As far a SLU's, financial issues go, the Announcement of the 2017 high profile tournament next season with ESPN coverage is bound to bring increased revenue to SLU's athletic department, something they need to show to the administration at this time. We are not in bad shape.

From my point of view, every year you start with a blank slate. Oh, you can make guesses as to where we are or we will be based upon the prior year's performance and the performance expected from the new recruits. However you must take into account that next year we will have, for all extents and purposes, a brand new team with brand new talent and brand new possibilities. I think it will be better to wait for Wiz's 8 games to collect actual performance data before decide where we appear to be headed for the year. If you have been following my posts you will understand that I write "appear" because statistics are not written in stone, the team can trend and improve (or get worse) with the passage of time. And besides we have Ty Graves that cannot play for the first part of the season but will be coming in the second half. If he is as good a PG as I think he may well be, our level of play may trend up rapidly in the second half of the year when compared to the first half.

So, this was the big Announcement Chris May was going to make. Very nice, we have not played in a tournament like this for some time, it will be nice for our "new team" to go to this tournament.

Now guys that is extending the deep dislike for all things Jim Crews into something like geographical discrimination.

Oh, I am not going as far as all that, I think the chance for us to win the A10 tournament is very small. However, every game we win will increase, even fractionally, our chance of winning the next one and so on and so forth. In all likelihood we will be bounced out somewhere along the line, but our tournament appearance does not have to end with the game against Duquesne or the next game in line.

I agree he will most likely not be considered for a HC spot by Mizzou.

Wiz, it is nice to see that you are scratching your head and trying to figure out why statistical analysis is not showing the level of play SLU has been showing as of late. Sample size, etc... Let me start by saying that from a statistical and probability point of view you are absolutely correct in what you say about sample size although it is not really true that a sample size of 30 games constitutes a large enough amount of samples to make the results totally valid, but neither is a sample size of 12. It is a well known fact that teams playing peak at some time in the season, we seem to be peaking late in this season, other teams may be well over their peak. So, what gives? I think your bottom line says it all (highlighted in the quote), we are not going to be favored by any of the big statistical shops (nor by your numbers), unless it is realized that we are currently playing at a level much higher than what the statistics for the full season show us to be at. As such I think we probably are over 50-50 in our chances of beating Duquesne when the tournament starts (the spread of 3 in favor of Duquesne is not likely to happen). We will, of course, see in due time. One thought is that if we do indeed beat Duquesne, our chances of getting another win in the tournament will go up, that is if we consider the trend.

The way I understand it, A10 credits the school with having earned the full 75% (or whatever percentage it is) of the tourney's money but pays the money in installments over a period of years. If the school leaves the A10 any as yet unpaid money is retained by A10. I may be wrong in this regard. The point you make about always been bound financially to A10 by any as yet unpaid amounts still retained by A10 at the time of leaving is a correct one. However, the issue here is not really what A10 does or does not do or how much money it is going to cost SLU to transfer. The real issue is that when you are laying off employees and possibly faculty, plus possibly eliminating academic programs, in order to regain financial stability, you cannot assume the burden of leaving a significant amount of money already earned but not yet paid, plus termination fees, on the table. I would think SLU is just not in good enough financial shape to do this at this time. It may be different in a couple of years, but it is not reasonable to think it can happen now.

As far as the new coach goes, no one is going to jump blind into a Mizzou position before they hire their new coach. After they hire their new coach, it is most likely that the hiring of assistant coaches will be done by the new coach himself. True, money speaks, but the mess that Mizzou is in may speak louder. Are you saying that Tate will go there as their new HC? That might be an attractive offer for him, I agree with you there. However the new AD at Mizzou (who has been there less than a year) will most likely prefer a "name" head coach from another program, rather than an assistant coach from another program. We will see what happens.

Tate left Mizzou after spending only one year there, why in heavens would he be interested in going back to Mizzou next year?

Well then, it Dayton is profiling for a lower level of overall performance for next season, they may not be such a great gain for AAC, and are likely go go to a lower ranking in A10. Just saying.

I do not know about VCU but I thought Dayton has a number of seniors that will be departing this year. If this is the case they may not be as good next year.

I don't think that is the way they would look at it.

I am not trying to put anyone down with this post. Factually speaking SLU is laying off 4% of its work force (administrative personnel only) coming Monday. Classes, etc... will not be affected by this move. However, there is an ongoing review of academic programs and faculty positions going on currently. It is likely that this review will lead to cuts of academic programs and faculty positions as well. Of course, nothing is likely to happen until this academic semester ends. The reason for these cuts is the $16 M deficit experienced by SLU last year (? not sure when but recently), and their reluctance to use the endowment to keep non productive programs alive. This has led to actions like bringing back Biondi, in a part time non salaried basis, to help with fundraising. It appears that SLU needs to raise $40 to $80 M to control the financial situation. This may prove difficult without a lot of additional cuts of personnel and programs. Given this financial situation you can rest assured that there will be a strong reluctance on the part of the administration to take any actions with the sports programs that will require significant expense, like changing leagues will. In SLU's case we will not only incur additional expenses to leave A10 and join another league but will forgo an unspecified amount of income scheduled to come from A10 as a result of the good years we had in the recent past. Financially, any such action makes no sense at all given the current financial stress the University is going through. In other words, a change of league membership may perhaps occur sometime in the future, but not now.

Wiz, I think we will win this game if we play like we did against LaSalle. Duquesne has had 5 straight losses in the last 5 games, both St. Joseph and George Mason (which we beat) beat Duquesne during the last 5 games. Of course we will see in due time.

Looking about Anderson's dismissal, the AD at Mizzou (Sterk) has been in that position since September 2016. He probably had to show the administration that he was a man of action and therefore out went Anderson who had had 3 very lack luster seasons at Mizzou. We will see who they get, maybe Kellogg?

Taj I honestly must say that you are capable of seeing things (like Zeke's speed of release) in actual games that pass totally unperceived in front of my eyes. Good to know, thanks.

Taj like or dislike we are going to go against Duquesne in Pittsburgh. Let's hope we come up playing like we did yesterday against Richmond. It is a winnable game and no one said anything about this being a shoe in for us, we will have to do it ourselves and come into the game with the will to beat them for the second time this season.

OK my turn. They played very well, much better in the second half than the first half. Great effort, they were neck and neck until the last minute. I think the factor that did them in was that Richmond really picked up the tempo in the last couple of minutes and they just fell behind. Again, great effort, the final score does not represent how close this game was. So, we lost, but as far as I am concerned we played at a very high level, close if not even with Richmond until the last couple of minutes. Well done guys, proud of you. I think the team is ready for the A10 tournament. After watching the game today I think it might be possible for them to win more than one game in the A10 tournament. Way to go guys, well done indeed.

I checked it out, it is a benefit for the Wounded Warrior Project, for 2016 the participants were Marquette, SMU, Michigan, and Pittsburgh.