Old guy

Guys, the issue is not that we are going to be a lot better next year. The issue is how much better. I think there are a few factors that will be important in this regard: 1. Are Foreman and Goodwin going to be fully healed and recovered plus ready for full time practice before the 2017 - 2018 season starts? 2. Is Bishop going to remain in the team or not? 3. Are Gillmann and Neufelf going to remain in the team or not? 4. If some of these players transfer, who is going to replace them? I would say forget the issue with the FTs until we find out who is going to leave and who is not after the season is over. If anyone leaves we need to find out who is going to replace them, and then we need to find out if Goodwin and Foreman will be ready to practice and play from the start of next season. Things will become a lot clearer after we have this information.

I know we can have a preference as to who we play in the A10 tournament 1st round, but I do not think we will have any choice. Likely the bottom ranked team will play the top ranked team among the 4 in the first round and the remaining two will play against one another. I think we will land towards the middle of this spread, and so we will be likely to play the other mid ranked team (among the bottom 4 teams), whoever that turns out to be. I do not think that will be UMass, so we are likely to play either St. Joes or Duquesne.

As long as the repair lasts without a new tear for the few games left of the season, his leg should be OK.

Is this fake news?

That is quite a statement Torch and even better, it may be correct.

I was not aware that the VCU bench had come in with 12 minutes left in the game. This most certainly contributed to the final score of the game. We expected to lose this one and we did. A very difficult season is almost over for us.

We did better than expected, but again VCU put in the bench early.

I had another commitment and did not watch the game, it looks like we lost but did better than the expected spread and held them to a low score. Good effort, too bad we could not defeat them.

Maybe it is an intended zinger, maybe not. You have to realize that for the people that live in the East Coast, St. Louis is literally nothing other than a place to fly over. Such a place is, in their minds, not a place where good food may be found. I guess he could have named any number of cities in his comment but St. Louis was the one that came to his mind at the time. He really meant to say: there is absolutely nothing for me in the middle of the country (US). I take it as a generic put down of all people living in the inner country (US) rather than a zinger specifically against St. Louis. May he go broke in Reggia Emiliana.

I think Bishop is OK but not great, as far as what we have seen from him so far. However, if Bishop decides to leave and if Goodwin is not capable to start playing at the beginning of the session do you want to have Hines as a PG again until Goodwin or Graves can start playing next season? This may sound a bit far fetched, but who is to say what will come to pass. Do we want to keep our bases covered just in case or not?

We have two transfers (Goodwin and Foreman) who are still recovering from surgery and one transfer (Graves) that will not start playing until the 2nd semester. Until we see Goodwin and Foreman are fully recovered from their surgery and fully capable to practice and play, we just cannot count on either to start playing from the very start of the season. Therefore there may be ample opportunity for Roby and Bishop to play, at least in the first half of next season. Besides, as the tweet above shows, Ford does like Bishop and is hoping to have him next season. If Ford initiates any transfers out of the program at the end of this season they will most likely not involve either Roby or Bishop.

Verbal Commits has Wynston Tabbs at 4 stars as per ESPN.

Now let's get real here. A set sum of $1.5 M / year in taxes may sound like a large sum. However it means nothing unless you compare it to the city's budget for the year. The same applies for the sum total of income derived by the city from all sports complexes. Unless you compare this sum of money with the total budget of the city you have no idea of the impact the sports activities have upon the income and well being of the city as a whole. Anyone wants to rise to the occasion and provide real numbers for comparison?

Doctor B, as a fan of bookstores and book browsing, I fully share your excitement in anticipating a new bookstore around campus.

Cheeseman NYC is approximately 3 times the size of the St. Louis Metro Area, and that is the city proper, not counting the urban sprawl that goes almost without interruption into NJ, CT, and RI. The discussion about the new soccer stadium has been centered about locating it downtown St. Louis, which is a relatively small area full of other sports venues and parking lots. If you do not care where this new facility it is located, then it could go into St. Charles, or South St. Louis and still be available to the city. That might not be a bad idea and it would keep downtown St. Louis' number of large ( and largely empty) sports type complexes and parking lots at the current level which is a plus. This is the point I am trying to make, St. Louis downtown is choking with sports complexes and this makes the downtown area largely a transient area. Most cities that have facilities for multiple professional sports do not pile the complexes close to one another but tend to space them.

Now Wiz, you are using the wrong adjective for us, it should be realistic not optimistic.

Nope, I agree we are not winning this one. I think the 22 point spread estimate may be low.

This is true kshoe but we have or will heal and come back stronger starting next year.

Pitbull is out because Coors Miller is bringing back an alcoholic beverage that did not make it the prior time? I think you are wasting Pitbull here, let's get serious about the symbolic value of this image.

While I agree that the decline suffered by the basketball program under Crews was close to catastrophic, most programs tend to decline gradually from multiple minor errors committed by someone up above and never fixed up properly. Nice guys in high level positions that do not want to upset the apple cart as a basis for their own performance may be the main culprits in these types of gradual declines. SLU apparently has any number of non performing programs (academic and non academic) that will have to be redone or eliminated as a way to control the financial issues. If Ford turns the basketball program around into a good moneymaker for the school this will alleviate the problems the school faces and elevate the relative standing of the sports programs compared to other programs in the school that are losing money. I am assuming that finances will play a much larger role in the decision making process at SLU over the coming years.

Even as a D- we played badly today.

Yes, we just did not play well today, too bad. The VCU game is also not going to be a win.

We lost, they were hot we were not. Too bad.

I will stand by what I said, I think the 9 wins so far this year are above and beyond what the probabilities at the beginning of conference play indicated. This is a very significant achievement for Ford and the team, period. I really do not care if we are currently fighting to get out of the bottom spot in A10. Achievement has little to do with ranking as far as I am concerned. I am aware the team next year will be different, and so will be what can be achieved with this "new" team. Probabilities based upon prior year performance (meaning this season) may well be erroneous. I am aware there will be difficulties in getting the team to gel and to play well together, holes in talent levels, etc... I choose to believe Ford will be able to deal with these issues. I stand by my post, next year we will definitely be a better team than this year. The probabilities say we will not get to play in the NCAA, NIT, or CBI tournaments, but I do not think these numbers are carved in stone. We might go up to this level of play, if any number of factors favor us. The numbers never tell the whole story.

All I can add to this discussion is that absolutely no one can predict the future with any level of confidence or reliability. That said, it is possible to approximate the possible future outcomes for next season by applying probabilistic methods and statistics, which is what the Wiz does, and does very nicely at that. So, there you are, we are justified in anticipating a good deal of improvement for next year, how much exactly no one knows yet. Please note I am not emphasizing the negative side. For those that may take this as a negative comment let me point out that after the first 8-10 games this season the probabilities were very low for us to win much more than 5 or 6 games this year, yet we have won 9 games so far and the season is not over yet. It is not unlikely that we may win 10 games, a bit less likely but not too unlikely that we may win 11 games, and not quite likely, at this time, that we will win more than that. Although the probabilistic approach does indicates there is not a good chance next season for getting a slot in the dance, maybe just maybe (cross your fingers, pray, and trust Ford) the magic may happen and we may do a lot better than the probabilities anticipate, a repeat of what we have done this year. Let me emphasize that this year we have played with a depleted, injury plagued team that was favored by the experts not to win a single game in conference... Ford and the team have done wonders this year. With this in mind there is no reason to totally rule out doing better than we are probabilitically expected to do next year. We must also realize that at this time there is no reason at all to assume that we will play at the NCAA, NIT, or CBI tournaments. The future cannot be predicted, but it is easier to live with if you look at the glass being half full. Next season promises to be interesting to say the least. It is good to keep in mind that disappointments may come when you find out the glass is not half full, but in fact it is half empty, such is life. The probabilistic approach for next season is telling us the glass is filled over the 50% mark, it is not clear how much more. We will find out what the answer is in due course. Finally a disclaimer, before the current season started I posted that this season we would go 50-50, 15 wins is what I said. I was wrong, I looked at the glass being half full, when it was a lot less full than that. I was too optimistic. Who cares? I am happy that we have done better than the probabilities indicated before we started conference play. Go Bills!