Old guy

So, beggars can't be choosers, if we have 3 transfers how are we going to fill the slots?

No need to apologize White Pelican, the truth is revealed, the only sport I am interested in and follow is Billiken basketball. I really do not know the names of the Cardinals, Rams, or Blues. However I am surprised that Box found out about Mark Reynolds' epic cleansing BM. It never crossed my mind that we were talking about any team other than the Bills. I really thought Box was showing the incredible detail of Billiken insider information he is able to access. I do hope no one minds my sense of humor.

Must have been a hell of a BM if it made him change his name from the old Miles Reynolds to the new, after the cleansing BM, Mark Reynolds. A real life changing event, maybe even a Guiness book of records event?

Like it or not we should all support the A10 teams and hope for the best.

Oh, I do not know if he is confused or if he is just giving information for public consumption. I do not think the PD is the proper place to air your dirty laundry, and actions should speak louder than words. We will see what he does after the NCAA tournament is over. I am very interested in seeing if there are transfers or assistant coach changes, and I am equally interested in seeing who will depart and who the replacements will be, that is, assuming there will be some personnel changes at the end of this season.

Well maybe we can pull someone interested in lots of playing time and thinking he may get it given our performance this season. There are all kinds of angles involved here. The issue is not to wind up with scholarships that cannot be filled.

When you see the difference between Roby and some of the others you must see there are vast differences between players. Some of them appear motivated to do what it takes to get where they want to go with this team, others appear either less motivated or more interested in other things.

Fully agree with this. However as you pointed out the team hit a wall after the LaSalle game, this must be corrected if things are going to improve.

I would be pleased with a 20-11 record next year, provided we get more wins against conference teams than we did this year. I think this is doable but first the issues that plagued the team after the LaSalle win must be identified and corrected, otherwise I am afraid we may not do very well once more.

Ah basketball, the thing that makes all of this speculation so very interesting is the huge number of variables involved. It is not only a matter of talent and coaching, personality is a major variable, so is the ability to integrate with the team, so is the level of injury sustained in play, and the inability (or lack of desire of the coaches) to identify and sideline those with potential injury to prevent a minor issue becoming a major chronic issue. The academic potential of the players is also important. Let's talk about injury retrospectively if we may. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that last year we had one of the most capable teams we have ever fielded. Yet, this team did poorly towards the end of the 2013-2014 season. Two of our best players last year were Jett and Evans, there is no doubt about this in anyone's mind. There has been much expectation in this board about when we were going to see these two players going professional in Europe or elsewhere, like Conklin and Kwamain did. This has not happened. What has happened this year is that Evans had lower extremity surgery and Jett had upper extremity surgery. Is there anyone that wishes to claim these two players ended last year's season playing free of injury? Grandy is another case where a possibly minor injury became a major chronic injury requiring surgery. Most likely he played with an increasingly malfunctioning shoulder for a long time (years?) steadily worsening his injury and making it a chronic issue. I do not know for sure what happened between Grandy and the team after his surgery early this year and do not care to speculate about it. However he might have made a difference this year's results if his rehab had been complete and if he had been able to play towards the end of this season. Why did he have to wait until January to get his surgery? It is true that scheduling the surgical procedure may have been an issue, but if he had had been able to get the surgery in October or early November he might have had enough rehab to lend a hand to the team towards the end of the season. And let's take a look at Manning if you please. Is there anyone else in this board that sees a clear difference between those pictures of Manning playing for Chantilly HS and jumping aggressively under the hoop, and what we saw coming from him this season? Did subltleneuro injury play a part in what we saw coming from him this last season or was he just burned out as a player? Again speculation. Academic performance. We all agree Willie Reed was good and had potential as a player. Was he good enough academically to make the grade, probably not to ensure graduation with a reasonable grade average. Would his poor academic performance have had some kind of an impact upon the team evaluation as per NCAA? I do not understand how this is done but likely yes it might have. Now let's jump to MR of the current freshman class, he is very good academically and is or should be in everyone's list as a player who may graduate with honors after 4 years. Is this level of academic performance important for the team as a whole? Is this something to take into consideration from a program's point of view? Personalities and dysfunctional patterns. This is for sure a matter of speculation but it appears that there may be some degree of issues like these between our current players, some of our current players and current coaching staff, and maybe even between the members of the current coaching staff. Is this significant enough to blow our performance out of the water? I strongly believe this may be an issue. One of my experiences in the Army was the concept of the "happy" and "not happy" units. "Happy units" stick together, support one another and get the work done, "unhappy units" are a mess to be in. I just did not see a "happy team" playing together towards the end of this Bills season. The answer to all of these issues mentioned are important variables affecting the performance of our team. Any one of them or the combination of all of these variables may have contributed to our decline late in the 2013-2014 season as well as to the very poor showing this season. Fixing the problem is not just a matter of transferring kids and coaches out. If there is something I hope is done, in depth, after the end of this season is a thorough evaluation of our team, the personalities involved, the academic potential, and the checks of function and injury levels employed during the season. I think we need a better way to prevent minor injuries from becoming major chronic issues affecting our player's performance. If we want a better team and a better program we must improve in all of these areas. All I can say is that it will be interesting to see how all of these variables are reshuffled and adjusted before next season. The issue is emphatically NOT one that can be solved or significantly improved by just transferring players out and recruiting new players. Our program needs significant work in the areas mentioned to improve to national levels. Crews needs some leeway to implement the kind of changes needed in the program. I do want to emphasize that I strongly believe some transfers are necessary for the improvement of the team.

Ok, the season is over, they played reasonably well in my opinion. Nothing to be ashamed about. Now we can move on to next season.

Thank you, you are a gentleman.

+1

I know they are not the greatest source of information, but Verbal Commits reports that SLU recently made offers to Christian Williams (SG) and Jashire Hardnett. (PG). We also have an open offer to Nynch Smith (PG). These offers are above and beyond Wellmer and Neufeldt.

Whatever happens tonight is what will happen. Personally I hope we manage somehow to win. We will see, not having nightmares about this game, just a feeling of ennui.

Oh, I do not think that is the case. Even the poorest person in this country has $2 to throw for a chance, however minimal it may be, of making over $100 M. Even if you get nothing else out of it, you can spend some time in a fantasy about how you are going to spend the money. This is not math, mind you, these are subconscious needs being met, however remotely, by spending $2. People do not have to be rational about every last buck they spend, and as a matter of fact they are not.

Of course there is a chance to go all the way, as minimal as it may be. This is why millions of people plunk their $2 and buy PowerBall tickets whenever the prize is in the 9 figures. To rephrase this, if you have little to lose, you may opt to go for the big win. A win, any win, would be great this late in the season. If we go all the way it would be like winning the PowerBall with your $2 ticket. Imagine that!

Well, at least the chance of winning a Royal Flush is better than the chance of winning the PowerBall.

Congratulations to Yarbrough and Crawford, well deserved.

As for myself, I would much prefer having at least 1 win in the A10 tournament than none. We will see what happens.

We lost, as we all kind of expected, at least we made more than 20 points. Reggie played well, so did Gillmann. The refs were calling a lot of non existent fouls on us. Oh well, next game is against Duquesne, we may have a chance to play another game after all.

Well guys at least we are over 20 points at the half. We can do it, maybe.

I cracked up laughing at your response

Kmbilliken you are saying what you would do if you were JT. Only JT can determine what JT will do. Let us say that there are goals in life that are not limited to the NBA and money, you cannot determine a priori what among many choices is most important for JT, you can only say what is most important for you (the NBA and money of course).

Since according to bizzle I am old enough to say something, I will do so. I do not believe that we will ever find out what really happened that kept us out of Big East, that was indeed a bad break for us. Period. I know hope springs eternal, but I really do not see anything that indicates we may be offered a spot in the Big East, not next year.