NoCoBillsFan

Yuri is one of six players in NCAA history to average double digit assists in a season. He led the country in assists two years in a row. And I don’t just have an infatuation with assists numbers, Yuri simply put up historic stats. He is a once in a lifetime type of player. I too have watched 95% or more of Yuri’s games since he’s been at SLU. And over that time, it’s easy to take everything he did on the court for granted because we’ve been seeing it for four years. It’s also very easy to find the negatives in his game because he was the undisputed leader of a very disappointing team and basically given the keys to the offense (which isn’t his fault, Ford shouldn’t have done that). Let’s not forget that Yuri was pretty much universally loved up until the end of his junior year, before he was in the spotlight with high expectations. Better yet, remember how much fans loved him after his freshman year? Hughes Jr averaged 8.7 minutes a game. I too love his game but when he gets 20 minutes a game, much less 38 and a high usage rate like Yuri, you will see a lot more mistakes. It truly blows my mind that anyone can look at Yuri’s all-time great body of work at SLU and say a walk-on that averaged 8 minutes a game is an upgrade. Take the recency bias out of it and really think about it. There’s just no way that should be your conclusion.

Yuri to Hughes Jr is an upgrade? Hard disagree.

It is officially “constantly refreshing Billikens.com hoping @TheOne has recruiting news” season.

It’s not plain stupid, it’s being realistic. Hypothetically, let’s say we won the conference tourney; we’d most likely be a 13 seed imo. So which four seed would we beat? UConn, Virginia, Tennessee, or Indiana? I know Virginia lost in the first round but I’d say odds are still slim to none against any of those teams.

We were 3-7 against tournament teams with an average point differential of -7.5. The highest tournament seed we played was an 8. One of the 8 seeds we played destroyed us by 30 on a neutral floor. We also lost to a 12 seed three times. 2 of the 3 wins were at home. If we played all 10 of those games on a neutral floor, how many do we win? One for sure, maybe one more past that? If we can only confidently say that we’d beat 1 or 2 tournament teams on our schedule on a neutral court, how in the world could we even have hope for one win, much less a run, in the tournament? Is this Chris May’s burner account?

Saying stuff like this just exposes that you don’t even watch the games.

French was a freshman in 2017… 6 years ago.

The issue is that we’ll never be able to move on if we accept mediocrity. Side note: thank you for having a reasonable discussion despite being on different sides of this.

If the P6 is making it more difficult for MMs to make the tourney, then our response should be to try to join the P6 rather than lower our expectations. The Big East is going to expand soon and while we have the facilities and investment to fit in, a string of disappointing seasons and little tangible basketball success means we’re likely to be on the outside looking in once again. Do you think the Big East sees a “second-place regular season tie” in the weakest A10 in years and thinks we’d be a good addition?

I love the efficiency. I like our chances with the minutes we have to sell but I shouldn’t get too attached to guys in the portal

All a regular season championship does is guarantee you an NIT bid. It’s not that meaningful in the grand scheme of things if your goal is the NCAA tourney. And a general question to anyone, if two teams tie for first, do they share the regular season title? Or does it go based on tiebreakers?

I also paid $200 for season tickets, missed two games all year (one due to illness, the other due to family commitments). I will be renewing my season tickets for the foreseeable future (and likely upgrade at some point) so long as I live in St. Louis. The vast majority of posters that are local to St Louis are also season ticket holders. If you were happy with the product you saw, more power to you. Personally, I don’t think blowing an 18 point lead to SIUE inside our beautiful arena is acceptable, but that’s just me.

So what is the point of conference play if not to determine your playoff seeding?

I don’t understand why you take any slight criticism of Ford so personally. Nobody has mocked him in this thread. He makes $2.5 million a year, funded by alumni. He’ll be okay. P.S., look at any fanbase of a program aspiring to be competitive. when a coach has failed to meet expectations, these kinds of discussions happen.

I’ve been critical of Ford but I think his player development should be praised. As I mentioned above, JGood improved his shooting every season. We’ve seen guys like Jimerson round out their games and Okoro significantly improved from the FT line when he got here. I think the only guy that really stands out as never developing is French and that was probably all psychological

Yes I’d love Fernandes. I’m high on Medley but still want someone proven

Goodwin’s 3pt% went up every year he was at SLU As hard as he worked, I don’t think this applies to Jordan. It’s not like we’re talking about Carte’Are.

1) In 19-20, I remember the consensus being that we would have to beat Dayton in the A-10 tourney for an at-large. 2) One thing about 20-21 is that we got screwed by TV Ted in the last road game against VCU. Of course we shouldn’t have had to rely on that game to get in but it is an added wrinkle.

Unknown has been Yuri’s thing long before he even got to SLU. His Instagram name has been unknownyc for as long as I can remember. Him using it as a hashtag on Twitter isn’t “NIL crap” and definitely doesn’t imply that he’s worried about his clothing line instead of winning games. Also, let’s not forget that while Jordan Goodwin was a more vocal leader and showed more emotion on the court, he was also a part of some underachieving teams himself.

Personally, I don’t expect the tourney every year. No denying it’s hard to make it. But it’s possible for a mid major to make it consistently (every other year or so) and eventually improve their standing in the college pecking order. SLU’s investments over the last 15 or so years have made it clear that they are trying to do just that. But the results don’t match the investment right now, which is the problem. I’ve accepted that ford will be the coach next year and probably longer after that. I’m hopeful that a fresh roster can improve the ceiling for the program. But there is no denying that Ford has objectively failed to meet expectations when we’ve been picked to finish top 3 in the conference on four separate occasions and never finished better than 4th, have never gotten an at-large bid, and finished off of the NIT bubble in a year where we got pre-season top 25 votes. Just because some people have lower expectations of the program doesn’t mean that’s the consensus. The AD, media, and other A10 coaches have all shown that they expect SLU to compete for at-larges. And it’s perfectly reasonable for fans to be disgruntled with the fact that we haven’t done so under Ford.

There are also non-P6 schools that are at-large quality but happened to win their conference tourney. FAU, San Diego State, Memphis, and Gonzaga all would’ve been at-larges based on their seeding. Obviously not an exact science but theoretically, if there were bid-stealers in all of their conferences, they would all still make the tourney (FAU being the worst seed, 9) Nevertheless, if it’s so hard for a mid-major to make the tourney, how has VCU made it to 9 out of the last 11 tourneys in the same conference as us with similar facilities and funding?

Well that might be true once VCU leaves for the Big East.

Personally, I am a Louisiana Ragin’ Cajun