NoCoBillsFan

https://247sports.com/college/miami/article/nba-players-flocking-to-university-of-miami-to-work-out-39623837/ Players quoted in the article stating how it's beneficial to have NBA players around. The coaching staff was supportive and Larranga is mentioned as well. And look at this quote "Although there are only two former Hurricanes currently in the NBA—James Jones (Cleveland) and Shane Larkin (Brooklyn)—there is a strong NBA presence within the program." Seems similar to what we're talking about at SLU; two guys in the NBA at the time (role players) and yet they still saw the value of having non-alum players come there to workout. Is Miami small-time? https://www.dailynews.com/2022/09/09/jaime-jaquez-jr-paying-his-dues-at-ucla-pickup-games/ Open runs with non-alum NBA guys have been going on at UCLA for years. UCLA players participate in them. STL obviously isn't LA, but I think it would undoubtedly be a good thing if SLU became a hub for local NBA players to get their work in with an opportunity for SLU players to join in. Beal and Tatum could be the start of that and there's no reason we should be discouraging them from coming here. I didn't go digging for specific tweets from coaching staffs like you requested, but there are obvious examples out there of coaching staffs supporting non-alum pros practicing at their schools publicly.

The University or Program isn't promoting Tatum or Beal. A grad assistant (who is his own person) posted a video of two All-NBA guys practicing at his workplace. This is peak off-season controversy.

NBA players workout at colleges they didn't attend all the time...

You’re making a big deal out of nothing. We’re talking about a Grad Assistant here, not Ford himself or the official SLU account. And he didn’t even say anything about the players or try to tie it back to SLU basketball, all he did was share the video with the location. I have no issue with him posting about it, especially with Goodwin in the video. Frankly I think it’s dope to see guys with all-NBA selections playing on the same court that I used to play on, regardless of who posted about it. Side note: do you really hold it against Tatum for not choosing to play for Jim Crews?

He wasn’t Swiss cheese but there’s no way he should’ve been on the all-defense team

Not sure how good his league was but his stats look good. Ford might be cooking again.

Seeing Messi play in person is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for someone like me that’s never even been to Europe, but anything more than $250 a ticket will be a no from me

Bots buy up all the seats right when they go on sale so your only option is to pay resale prices. Wife wanted to see SZA in Chicago and we had to pay $250+ for 300 level seats at United Center. And don’t get me started on the Beyoncé ticket prices for when she comes to the Dome in August, but at least we were able to get those directly.

Been missing you all offseason

If I’m a hater for being concerned about the current roster after the most disappointing season in recent Billiken history, then so be it. Also, I think having three open scholarships and missing an assistant at the beginning of June is a recent development that you conveniently haven’t mentioned

Great post. I give Ford a pass for Perkins. Past that, he’s the one who put the roster together.

This type of mindset is why the AD is so complacent with mediocrity. VCU has made 9 out of the last 11 tournaments. Gotta stop making excuses and feeling sorry for ourselves

Fair enough, I edited my post. But with the guys we had last year and the expectations, making the NIT would’ve still been a failure. We weren’t even on the NIT bubble!!

You’re right, we don’t know for sure because Thames got hurt. Still a question mark regardless.

Thank you for the kind words. The Ford debate has gotten so convoluted, I felt like we needed to get back to the roots of why there is so much criticism of Ford. Anytime I hear “bUt 20 wiNs” from now on, I’m just gonna point back to this post You see how much I’ve disassociated from that game? Can’t even get the correct OVC school. Edited my post accordingly. In an ideal world, I’d love for Thames to be a lockdown defender. He would be exactly what this team is missing. But since the beginning of the Ford era, how many guys went from only getting garbage time minutes on season to eventually contributing the next? The only guy I can think of is Demarius Jacobs. Would love for it happen, but it seems like a pipe dream imo.

We have the same amount of open scholarships as New Mexico St, Jesus it’s worse than I thought

Parker can flat out score at all three levels, he just didn’t get the shot attempts last year. I don’t know enough about the 2s and 3s in the rest of the conference to definitively say where’d they stand in the A10, but I’d pick them against anyone on the offensive end. However, the defense probably holds them back a lot

Let’s break down the current state of the program. It’s about more than Noland and you know it. We are coming off of a season where we being picked in the top 25 prior to the season and were seen as one of the top 2 teams in the A10 before the year started. We ended the year barely inside the top 100, no postseason, and had some of the worst losses since the Crews era (SIUE at home). As of June 1st, we are still missing an assistant coach and have three open scholarships. Due to the fact that we lost three starters and several impact players, hitting the portal hard was a must. And what have we gotten? A good big that will need a waiver that he might not get, a terrible defender from a terrible team (when the current roster already has no defense), and a completely unknown Euro big (that Ford has had 0 luck on so far). And the current roster isn’t exactly stacked either. Jimerson coming back helps, and I’m super high on Parker, but what else do we have? Our only true point guard is an undersized freshman, all of our bigs are giant question marks, and we really have nobody that can actually guard a wing effectively. And that’s just looking at the surface level! It gets worse when you add context. I’ll make a list: 1. We’ve only made the tournament once in 6 possible seasons (and that only happened because Tramaine Isabell turned into prime Allen Iverson for four games). 2. We have had two de-commitments of much needed impact players and lost two assistant coaches in the last two months. 3. The A10 continues to get worse and while the Big East is likely to expand soon, we’ve completely threw away any chance of us being able to move up. 4. We haven’t made any strides in recruiting for 2024 and beyond. 5. We had a local two-time National assist leader on the roster and he never made the tournament, not exactly sending a good message to any future local recruits. 6. Our “Ace-recruiter” of a coach has a roster without a single top-150 recruit. 7. We have the highest paid coach in the conference and he has never finished higher than 4th in 7 seasons. Sit back and think about it. Are you happy about this? Does this make you hopeful for the future of the program? According to the AD and the FFC, we got our 20 wins so we should just shut up and take the mediocrity. Personally, I actually care about the program and would like to see it be better than this.

The Ford Fan Club has been very quiet as the off-season has gone downhill

That’s odd, the women’s basketball team seemed to play pretty well in some big games in March.

Thatch is the perfect example. And if you think about it, Yuri was that guy his first two seasons. Undersized, couldn’t shoot, but played hard and was a true floor general.

He’s before my time but I don’t think he’d qualify, he averaged 17 and 6. He had the production.

Oh and it also pains me to say it, but OG WAS RIGHT ABOUT PERKINS.

I don’t blame Ford for Javonte personally. He was the key to us being good last year and if he never got hurt, I’m convinced we’d have a tourney bid in 2021. Nobody knew he’d be such a shell of his former self, especially defensively

My only gripe with Yuri was his propensity to try too hard to be “the guy” at the end of games. I would always say “here comes Yuriball” in the last two minutes of every game. But do you really blame him? He was probably the most clutch player on the team his first three years. 2021 at George Mason anyone?? But Yuriball is NOT the reason the team underachieved. The offense was good. We had a bad year because of defense and lack of depth. Letting every team have their season-best shooting night when they played us makes it hard to win. And when you have to put Gibson Jimerson on Tyler Burton because no one else in the starting lineup can guard a parked car? (I’m looking at you, Javonte). You have to out-score everybody. And when you have the same 5 guys play the entire 2nd half with minimal subs, you’re gonna choke leads at the end of games because you’re tired. I had a lot of criticism for Yuri last year. And I still do. But he was not the main problem.