HoosierPal

The previous half dozen or so posts have got me to thinking: 80% of the players tested positive. I wonder if the 'team' is considered to be the 12 scholarship players who dress (80%=about 10 players +), or 13 with Okoro (80%=about 10), or 13+3 walkon's (80%=about 13). It doesn't really matter. Also Coach said at least 2 coaches had it. The first two positives came back from tests taken on Dec 28. With the incubation period being, somewhere between 2 and 5 days, that puts a possible infection window between Dec 26 and Dec 23. The KC game was on the 23rd. Did the game, or the admittance of fans, have any impact? Were the first two players roommate? Did the team have a get together around Christmas? If the team had been dismissed over Christmas and allowed to go home, would this have occurred. We will never know, and we really don't need to know. I looked on the St. Louis City COVID website, and could not find the 7 day slow return requirement. That doesn't mean it isn't there, I just could not find it. For college and high school students, they link into the CDC. I can't envision that the City would drill down that much for athletes, so my guess is that the 7 day slow return is a SLU requirement. I have no problem with that. SLU has the history of French's 5 week recovery from a spring COVID case to consider. Coach's role in when the next game is to be played; likely a factor but not the driver. He can't wait two weeks until he has a better understanding of how fit the team is. If the squad doesn't get fully back until Friday, no League Commissioner would force a team to play with on Saturday with one practice after 3 weeks off. There is likely some give and take, but SLU will be playing before Coach is comfortable with the status of the team. Playing Dayton on the 26th is my guess, but man, that's a tough draw. The Flyers are slowly figuring it out.

Coach has been getting plenty of air time this week. The first 8 minutes of this session are Coach. Nothing that we haven't already covered. At about 4 minutes he talks about Goodwin and French making money playing basketball in the future, and at 5:45 mark talks about his surprise at how good local HS basketball is.

Coach's Show with Rammer. It will air on KMOX tonight, but was filmed live today. Time of tonight's airing wasn't given. https://www.pscp.tv/w/1zqJVXzRQamKB (Lot's of repeat from the Friday and Sunday interviews.) Coach got the first COVID call at 7 AM Wed 30th of 2 positive players. The test they took was on Monday, 28th . Coach started feeling bad on Wed too and took another test. One other coach tested positive on Wed along with Coach Ford. Positives were spread out. Positive guys spent 10 days in quarantine, then they had the 7 days until return to action. If the players were negative, they had to quarantine for 14 days. Only 3 or 4 guys could use the stationary bikes. Guys were given basketballs just to keep it in their hands. He has seen that the guys now working out are 'behind'. Discussed the 2 pm Zoom's covered in the KMOX post. All players were on every day. With SLU having no A10 games, he wanted to get the guys into the A10 mode, get the conference juices flowing. Talked about first 8 games. Complimented Strickland making a good play at the end of the half against LSU. Talked to Perkins early in the year to get him to the FT line more often. He is now a marked man, a focal point of scouting reports. He needs to accept that challenge. Coach watched the NC State game last night. The first half was the worst half of the year, so far. Lucky to not be down by more. Didn't play great the second half but obviously played better. MN is unbelievable at home. SLU made MN adjust, and they did adjust for the win. They have beaten Iowa, Michigan and Ohio State at home. And we have played them as good as anyone. Called Jacobs our X factor, he hasn't gotten the recognition he deserves. Yuri's 7:2 ratio is the best Coach has ever coached in his 25 years. Have had a couple of individual workouts so far. Our guys understand they have to take it one day at a time now. He is dealing with getting guys back in shape and particularly those who weren't positive. Guys have to be handled differently. When are we going to play, "I don't know." We aren't playing anytime soon. We have to react to how our players are feeling. Some guys are (apparently) having trouble getting through these individual workouts. "How do you know which games to make up?" There will be a difference in games played prior to the A10 tourney. How do you handle that? How will the NCAA Selection Committee evaluate a "20 game" season against a "30 game" season? Scheduling was so difficult for many teams, will the Committee say "but they didn't play anyone" when that team's power games were canceled? Even 'the eye test' will be difficult. "Team Blue, playing for each other." Coach talked about this today with the team. How we will make this better. Guys are disappointed as they can't do the same things they did 3 weeks ago. When in quarantine, coach could have come out at day 10, but he wasn't feeling great so he stayed another day. At 11 days, he made a choice was to be positive, so he came out of the basement and turned his attitude around and started feeling better. Team Blue is about having these experiences together. Team has to handle this together. Team Blue identity has to be more prevalent now than before. This is a work in progress. How has Goodwin weathered this? He was in the individual workout today and had a good session. Coach puts him as one of the top 5 to 10 players in the country, based on whatever criteria you want...stats, leadership, impacting games, potential. Linssen has helped our team get to another level. He is the ultimate team player, doing all the little things. We have 3 legit post players. Bell was hurt before the season and really didn't join the team until almost the first game. Hope to have a full practice this weekend. Boxes have to be checked before we can move ahead day to day. We aren't doing many contact drills yet. We need to see where we are before we can determine when we can play another game.

I was surprised to see that the A10 lists (only) 8 conference games being postponed through today. Five of those 8 are ours, with our UMass game and our St. Bonnie game to be added to the total this week. https://atlantic10.com/calendar.aspx?path=mbball

DId y'all get that indoor plumbing installed?

That would give us 4 practices before playing Dayton on the 26th.

Coach Ford on KMOX this Sunday Morning: He covered a lot of the issues he discussed Friday (see third post above). Team got positives for 5 to 7 days after the initial two positives on Dec 30. That has staggered the return of players. Said protocols through City and SLU are some of the most restrictive he has heard of. [I believe the 7 day slow return was his one of the issues that differs from other areas.] "We are a week or two from playing a game." He doesn't know how strict the NCAA will be for the 13 game minimum for the Tourney. He mentioned how the Ohio State football team got a minimum criteria removed by the Big 10. Coach said again that the 26th probably will be the next game. We are in uncharted territory. He hasn't seen / heard of any other teams with 80% positives. The team had a 2 PM Zoom daily through the quarantine. They focused on one item for each Zoom, showing clips with positive plays. They showed A10 highlights, and discussed how teams and selected players were performing. They showed NBA plays and how SLU needs to learn from those plays. He watched a lot of A10 games, looking at inbound plays, etc. He has 'enough scribbles' to put in new offense and defense plays.

Coach on 550 tonight. In June, team was back together and tested 3 x per week. Six to 8 months, nothing. Then in late December he got a call about 2 positives, and then days later most (8) of the rest of the team were positive. Team is healthy today. Coach was positive also. He has been out of isolation for a week. He gets fatigued easily. 'I was one of the ones who got hit harder than the rest.' Some of the days were bad for him. None of the 10 players had serious symptoms. He doesn't want the +individuals to feel guilty. He doesn't know how it caught the team. On day 2 they delivered bikes to the players. Then 8 other guys came down with it, and they couldn't use the bikes. So only 3 or 4 guys were doing bikes. 10 guys did nothing for 10 days....zero, nothing. Being in a room for 10 days is a mental challenge, seriously. We have to take this slow. Team is completely out of shape. Five or 6 guys did individual workout today, 2 more tomorrow added tomorrow, 2 more on Sunday, and by Thursday everyone back in. Coach has been trying to figure out when he wants to next game. He can't tell yet as he hasn't seen everyone. He doesn't know how long it will take to get back into game shape. St Bonnie will be reach to play. Jan 26th against Dayton may be the first game? He has only half his team available. He hopes to be able to say by next weekend when they can play. SLU still have played 3 more games than St. Bonnie. NCAA won't punish any team for going into quarantine. He thinks the A10 will decide on tourney site in the next week. He doesn't know how teams will be seeded with the difference of conference games played. Seedings will be important for potential at large teams. Some teams may have all 18 in and some with only 10. 12-6 v 8-2. How do you seed that? What is he looking at when the team gets back: First will be physical state, that they are physically okay. They are running all players through the advised medicals. Players will be fresh and ready to go and may have to be held back. When does it hit them that it is tougher to recover. Rhythm will be off. Do guys remember the plays? He will have to go through everything again. "I expect to get us back there, but how long will it take?" Pretty dynamic interview.

SLU women with another postponed game due to COVID. They are back, but Davidson is now out. They were to play tomorrow. SLU has played two games and had three quarantines due to positive COVID tests and last played Dec. 6.

Good, I was wondering why I had to pay you to take off my clothes.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2021-01-15/new-bracketing-principles-adopted-2021ncaa-tournament There will be some minor, yet obvious changes to bracketing. No need to consider geographic location when all teams are in Indy. Also discussed is when same conference teams can meet in the tourney, depending on how many times they played throughout the season.

You or me nude?

What do you think about Kalish's new goalie? Do you think he is a Republican or Democrat?

How about the Monopoly Man....for those of us old enough to know him. He could be a Duke. Top hat, mustache and monocle.

A few individual players were on court yesterday. Full team not expected until mid to late next week as some players are in various stages of quarantine and slow recovery protocol.

New Duquesne mascot to go with the opening of their gym.

That’s interesting. Dambrot said in his podcast that Carry would go MAC. And yes it is closer to his home, Solon OH.

We already knew this was the direction. The linked article doesn't add anything except the Women's Tourney will be at VCU March 3-7. The Men's tourney is currently scheduled for March 10-14.

Stu was on 550 last night. When asked why SLU's situation is taking longer than other teams, he said they had their first positives on Dec 30, then the week after they had one or more additional positives, as they were testing daily while in quarantine. This put different quarantine lengths on players depending on when their symptoms went away, plus the 7 day slow progression back into activity after symptoms disappear, on various schedules. He commented again that some players were in the gym with Coach Ford on Wednesday. He did talk with the A10 Commish, and she said SLU is in good shape (as long as they don't go out again). "There are 100 or more teams in the NCAA that have played 8 or less games, so SLU isn't the only team out on an island." Stu on the A10: VCU has put themself into a position to get a top 4 finish, Richmond will be fine, St.Bonnie will continue to be good, Dayton has slipped a little and not playing as good as people thought they would. It remains to be seen how SLU will compete after this long layoff, but should be competing for the top spot. SLU still is scheduled to go to VCU and Richmond. Both could be Quad 1 games. The LSU game should remain Quad 1, NCState is slipping. "I'm sure Goodwin will take his leadership to another level coming out of quarantine, realizing this will be a short season, and will be his last." Interview https://ktrs.com/the-big-sports-show/ Here is Stu's article today in the PD. https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/a-10-commissioner-says-slu-still-on-solid-footing/article_9d4e2caa-feec-5069-8507-470c63d59cb3.html

Frank and Rammer today: Rammer said individuals that had no symptoms nor positive test, workouts start today. He sees a way to play St. Bonnie with minimal practice, but for sure Dayton on the 26th. Other comments from Rammer on SLU coaches recruiting: Soderberg was too methodical, he could have had Ahearn, Stemler and Harrelson but Soderberg wanted to see them too many times, and didn't pull the trigger soon enough. https://590thefan.com/radio-shows/press-box/

This reads like the game on the 20th is toast and the game on the 23rd v the Bonnies is questionable.

IDK, but I'd read it as no FULL TEAM practices until next week, but individual and group workouts, maybe even today??

Here is some good news, per Stu, first group of players and coaches are OUT of QUARANTINE. https://twitter.com/studurando/status/1349428127446028289?s=20

https://pittsburghsportsnow.com/2021/01/12/watch-duquesne-coach-keith-dambrot-on-moving-on-from-transfers-facing-dayton-more/ If you have nothing else to do, this 24 minute video of Dambrot is interesting. Most of our guys have already been positive for COVID, so that is behind us. They are still working on conditioning. On Austin, 'I understand and support his decision' He will be back. He lost his sister a year ago. Norman not happy with his role. He wanted more responsibility. Carry - he is just unhappy. It wasn't playing time or role. He had the keys to the car. He was either unhappy with the team, the coach, or something else, or he was just unhappy. Dambrot expects him to end up in the MAC (no bright lights). When asked how Hughes and Weathers are reacting to these departures, he said they have already moved on. Hughes and Weathers are battling to get back into shape. Weathers mother was sick and he was with her all spring and summer not working out.