Of all the talking heads I thought the Scott Highmark

[inthelou]

interview on KFNS last was the best. He's a Billiken but he tends to really tell it like it is. I don't know how many heard it but he said that this job is not as atractive as it once was when we were in C-USA and we needed to face up to that and get a coach who fits with our conference, because the A-10, is what it is. I thought that was interesting and I agree. We need a guy that really can maximize us in this conference, because you never want to leave a conference out of weakness (if we do leave it) you want to leave in a strong position. We might need a coach who has some East Coast recruiting connections, etc to get the most out of this situation, who knows but we need one that will embrace the conference not whine about it.

[washu77]

Bull. The job is as attractive as it has ever been-----for the right coach. You don't need a coach that fits the conference you need a good coach/salesman who is willing to work his a** off recruiting. Screw that maximizing us in the conference #####. You recruit the best players you can get. The problem with Sodaberger was he set his sights too low. He recruited to be mediocre in the conference. He ignored junior college players, top 100 players, players from outside the Midwest, etc. A recipe for disaster. A good recruiter has to sell himself, the city of St. Louis, the University and the New Arena. This isn't high school basketball where you have new players coming in every year. You have to go out and get your own players. You have to get out there and sell yourself and the program. Ask Huggins, Calipari, Patino, Theus, Willaims, Olson and Howland how important recruiting is to their job performance. Give me Williams' players and I could roll out the ball at practice and still win 20 games every year.

If you recruit the likes of David Lee, Larry Hughes, Tommy Liddell, Kevin Lisch, Blake Ahearn, Chris Carawell, Cuonzo Martin, Anthony Bonner, Roland Gray, Justin Love, H Waldman, Erwin Claggett or Monroe Douglas does it really matter what conference you play in? With the right players you can win in the A-10, MVC, C-USA or the Big 12.

[Taj79]

Now here's some NEW stuff .... Soderberg "ignored junior college players, top 100 players, players from outside the midwest." JUCOs = Frericks, Newborne, Alexander, Morris, etc. Top 100 I can't remember. And players outside the midwest = Dixon, Relaphorde, Vouyoukas, Bryant, and some others.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that guys come on here claiming Soderberg's downfall was not recruiting the local talent (the Vtime diatribe) and now we've got the opposite and inverse comment. The bottom line to be is that for whatever reason, he failed. Failure is failure, I'm ready to move on.

I can't wait to see how all this turns out. No matter who it is, if they fail, the fault will all be on Biondi.

[washu77]

Name a top 25 Juco player Soda recruited early on. Name a Top 50 player Brad recruited in the last 5 years that is in college now.

Name a top 100 player from outside the Midwest that Brad recruited.

Newbourne, frericks, Morris ,ect were not top recruits. You made my point. Dixon? Brad 'recuited' Voyoukas? Bryant was a transfer. You need to get you facts straight first. Again.

Name me the Top 25 JUCO player or the Top 100 HS player that Brad actively recruited and didn, fall into his lap or transfer to SLU.

The man set his sights too low. Result: mediocrity.

[billiken_roy]

washu, do you really think any coach could have successfully recruited top 50 players to slu since hughes left?

without fixing the things that apparently majerus is demanding (except conference, that isnt going to happen) jesus christ couldnt recruit what you think should have happened.

[brianstl]

He was a top 10 jocu player. He was a first team all-american. He didn't pan out, but he was highly rated comin out of jocu.

Transfers don't fall in your lap. They still have to be recruited.

If you think any non big name coach is going to land top 100 players from outside the area you are sadly mistaken. It didn't even happen with Romar here and he seems to land nothing but top 50 kids at UW now. It would have been a waste of time for Brad to recruit those kids. I am pretty sure Grimes was top 50 coming out and Brad recruited him.

Brad's failure and the reason for losing his job is not because of what you laid out in your post, but rather far more simple and local. Ahearn, Falker, Shaw, Tatum, Roundtree, Booker, Stremler, and O'Rear are the things that got Brad in trouble and rightfully so.

[Taj79]

Look at your posts ... your first one said "JUCO players" ----not "top 25 Juco players" as this one now does ------ you then said "top 100 players" and here its now "top 50" and then you closed with "players from outside the midwest" and have now changed to "top 100 player(s) outside the Midwest." I owuld offer that YOU, not I, have messed with the facts. You are asking different questions.

My first post was to answer your first question .... but if I answered it truthfully, you change the parameters. I can't argue with that so if you need a debate win, chalk this one up for you.

But you can't discount the facts that easily and roy is right when he asks which coach inbcluding Christ could you have come in a do what you want? I can name maybe 20 or so independent, formerly-Catholic or religiously affiliated schools that are going to literally kick our collective butt at the signing table, all things being equal. Does SLU rank ahead of any of these: Marquette, Georgetown, Boston College, Creighton, Gonzaga, Xavier, Dayton, Seton Hall, Notre Dame, St. Joe's, Temple, DePaul, Villanova, Butler, San Francisco, Pepperdine, Srt. John's, etc? No, why should they? These all have recent histories better than ours. And they're not the top of the basketball food chain even.

I agree with you in that Soderberg apparently did a poor job of selling, but I wouldn't want that job for all the world. Even if he's the greatest guy in the world, what does he have to sell? No on-campus arena. No nightly sell-outs. No TV contract. Not a single guy placed in the pros, let alone a pipeline. For all the conference crying, I don't think the big boys in high school ever say "yeah, I want to play Northern Iowa" even as much as they say "yeah, I want to play Fordham."

I'm all for bringing Rick Magicerius in. I intend to sit back and play the proverbial "show me" game. Show me what you've got. that's neither pro nor con. Just a fact of life.

[mws26]

Romar is benefiting from having a very high local talent level in Washington. UW is huge in Seattle and kids want to stay home and play. That's not to say he hasn't gotten recruits from out of the NW but his best players have been local. Same thing could happen at SLU if a coach ever figures it out

[billiken_roy]

you are way overestimating the effectiveness of the st louis area in the past. i agree that this next class is very very nice and a good team can be garnered by landing 4 or 5 of purely local players this fall, but the truth is that normally we are lucky to have one or two players of that caliber in any one year.

go back to polk and meyer's senior year.

polk, meyer, lisch, liddell and grimes were the first team all metro area. we snagged them all but the most underachieving of the five. and those "stars" didnt take us to any promised land yet.

btw, you do know that romar's point guard right now is from carbondale?

[washu77]

Let me make it simple for you.

Answer these questions and quit nitpicking at everybodys post.

Question 1 :

Name a Top 25 JUCO player that Brad was recruiting the last 5 years. Don't give me Frerichs, Newborne, etc. These guys weren't even the best players on there JC team. Go back to 'JUCO Junction' website for the last 5 years and get the list of top 100 JUCO players in the country. Now look att the Top 25. Did Brad recruit any of these guys?

Answer the question.

Question 2: How many Top 100 Ntional players did Brad recruit aggressively in the last 5 years? Go to Rivals and get the National Top 100 National list published every year(there is no top 50 or top 100 local list by the way). What players did Brad recruit aggressively form this list? Do your homework then come back with some names of the top JUCO and National HS players from these lists that Brad was recruiting. That's 100+25=125(I'll do the math for you) names of potential players each year. Tell me which ones Brad recruited. Give me some facts, not subjective ranting.

Question 3: If a team wants to be a top 50 program each year shouldn't they be getting their share of the Top 125 players in the nation over a five year period(and some local talent of course)?

[billiken_roy]

what makes you think recruiting that level of player would have been successful? romar did and struck out every time. and romar is now recognized as one of the best recruiters.

[brianstl]

Kalen Grimes(hs) and Newborne(jc).

[washu77]

Grimes WAS a top 100 recruit. Newbourne was NOT a top 25 JUCO. I don't know where you got that from. Show me the source on that one. His stats coming out of JUCO weren't very impressive. Don't make stuff up.

So you have come up with ONE name(Grimes) of a top recruit that Brad was after in 5 years. You have made my point.

[billiken_roy]

you havent said why you think anyone would be a success at slu pursuing that level of recruits when romar couldnt do it.

[brianstl]

You are right about Newborne for some reason I thought he was a juco all-american. I went back and checked he was not.

[washu77]

It's not successful if you never try it. You guys keep making excuses. If you want to build a business(and college basketball is a business) you don't sit in your office and hope customers call you. You get on the phone, write letters, do some target marketing, network with people, get a laptop and make list of potential customers, etc. Was Brad doing these types of things? Did he have a detailed recruiting plan? What areas did it cover? How extensive was it? How much time did he spend during the season and off-season on recruiting? I don't know, maybe he did have an extensive recruiting plan but just couldn't close the deals. Only he can tell you.

[billiken_roy]

romar did try it. he recruited darius miles, david lee, travis deiner, chuck hayes, etc. got close, but in every instance was turned away because bigger and better won.

as to brad's recruiting, bob ramsey said the other day that if brad made one mistake is he was too regimated and analytical about recruiting. his work was very extensive. and while maybe he didnt go directly after the big boys, it would make sense he went after second and third tier recruits than first tier.

btw, he lost out in the all on recruits that had us as the second choice to kansas state, georgia and iowa. he lost out to iowa and illinois this spring.

so he was trying on select recruits to go bigger.

as to why he couldnt close them? the fact that romar and him both couldnt do it, maybe it wasnt the recruiter. maybe it was the location he was recruiting to.

[mws26]

Yes, i realize that a pg is from Ill. I was responding to:

"If you think any non big name coach is going to land top 100 players from outside the area you are sadly mistaken. It didn't even happen with Romar here and he seems to land nothing but top 50 kids at UW now. It would have been a waste of time for Brad to recruit those kids."

i think you're putting too much into my post. wasn't trying to assert all of the things you speak to. I'm just pointing out that its easier to recruit nothing but top 50 recruits when your backyard is full of them. Those kids in WA over the years have been waiting for UW to have a coach worth playing for.

[billiken_roy]

our backyard is normally not "full of them" though.

this next year is an exception. and soderberg was indeed definitely making the all out full court press to recruit the class of 2008 from the st louis area.

[mws26]

That's true on both counts. that really wasn't the point though.

Brianstl was saying that even Romar couldn't get it done and now he has nothing but top 50 recruits. I'm simply saying it helps when you have a local crop lining up to play for you. Any prominent coach worth their salt would be landing many of those players if they were coaching at UW. in other words, doesn't have as much to do with romar as it does the school, etc

[brianstl]

That Brad didn't get the local kids. You can also say the same for Romar.

[mws26]

i hear you. I was just saying romar's recruiting at UW looks a lot better as a result of the talent level in WA being so high the last few years.

[Taj79]

So what? What is your point? That Soderberg didn't get off his *ss and go to the big boys in each class? Okay, he didn't. He was lazy. He wasn't ambitious. He didn't have a plan. He aimed too high/low. (Two other JUCOs --- Stemler and now this Grinkiedinkus kid at Mineral Area or whatever). Frankly I don't know but Brad Soderberg doesn't have to answer to me.

But roy brings it back to Romar. Romar also had Hollins and he had top 100's like Pulley and McClain and others like that and where did that get us?

I'm done ... you win. Like I said, I can't wait to see what magic Rick is going to wave on all this. Thrity two years of experience tell me its a tough sell. And the school lost it three time when it was on the rise ... with Bonner, with Claggett and with Hughes.

You are right ... business is business. But its not. Nike and Reebok and addidas are running the shoe world. Along comes And1. What do they do? Throw money at Hughes and Raef Lafrentz to be the newest shoes on th block spokespeople. Short of money, what do you throw at kids of this caliber to come to your side of the street? Longevity? History? Facilities? Academics? TV? Pipeline to the pros? What the hell is it?

Whne you answer that one, please forward to Soderberg so he'll get it in his next job. Is camping out with little to no chance of getting a "foreigner" a good way to spend your recruiting buck? I agree, a plan is better but if its one if by land and two if by sea and they come by air .....