Bench

[Four Seventeen]

During the Soderberg era, whenever the AP ran pictures of the bench, in particular our assistant coaches, one thing always stood out -- the average person wouldn't know JG from Kenny G. I mean, our assistant coaches under Soderberg didn't move on (except for Beane, which was a crooked situation) to better jobs or take head coaching jobs at smaller schools (which, I think is the goal of every "assistant coach") or anything like that.

Fast forward to the 2007-2008 season. It looks like we will have Porter Moser on our bench -- a solid and proven winner at the D-I level and a top-notch recruiter, who will make immediate dividends to the program. The future is bright for Saint Louis basketball -- we finally are getting rid of horrible assistants (I don't know much about Angres, so I won't speculate on the job he will do) that did nothing to boost our program. The guy who recruited Horace Dixon should have been ordered to wear a sandwich board outside of West Pine.

Go Get 'Em Porter! Welcome to Saint Louis University.

[Sheltiedave]

Metz, there was a reason Moser was fired, and before that, had to concentrate on recruiting jucos. Many of the midstate high school coaches had blackballed him from effectively recruiting. He is an idiot, and only one of his vaunted recruits would have been able to transfer to Saint Louis. That degree program thing.

[VTIME]

He did land 2 of 4 the highest rated incoming freshman in the Valley. He just didnt play them until the end of the season. He can recruit high school talent, he just has some trouble coaching it up. Majerus can do that while Porter recruits. Majerus gets him in the door, and Porter closes the deal.

[TheA_Bomb]

What is your source for knowing that Moser was blackballed from mid-ILL HS recruiting?

[Sheltiedave]

Current head of the teacher's union in Peoria was our backup qb at Richwoods(Mark Schiefling). Immediately previous head(Terry Knapp) of the union was the former head coach at Bergan HS(now Notre Dame.) This covers Peoria pretty well without even dipping in the relatives.

Know the Knezovitches, Hawkins, and Crouch families in Pekin area. One of my previous boss's wife is the daughter. Moser is detested in Pekin.

Have multiple families from Decatur, Springfield, Champaign and Bloomington who also corroborate the welcome Moser starting getting from programs in their towns. May not be blacklisted, but not many people would waste a glass of water on Moser if he were on fire.

Moser ran off multiple players at ISU. Check out how many schollies he was forced to fill every year not due to graduation. He did a horrible job as coach at ISU...they ended up being one of the league doormats for most of his tenure. Brad had us higher in CUSA than Moser had ISU in the MVC. If you want to compare recruiting, Martin rules over Moser in the rankings, with Martin doing it in the B10.

ISU dumped Moser as soon as they could, and were glad to do it. Attendance down, donations down, program in a funk. Moser is not the prince apparent we want.

[VTIME]

But Cuonzo would not leave his assistant job at Purdue where he helped land 4 top 100 guys in this 2007 class to be an assistant at a smaller school. Would he?

[p diddy]

Moser probably made the classic coaching move of the season against indiana state in the mvc tournament. one of his guards hit a 3-pointer to put Isu up by 12 points to culminate a 10-0 run or something like that. you could see the indiana players' shoulders slump. they were getting ready to mail in the rest of the game. they tried hard, but they were ready to accept defeat for about the 10th time in a row and finish the season.

for some inexplicable reason, moser jumps up and calls a time-out. Logic dictates that royce waltman should have called the T.O, but it was moser, who was the one who called the t.o. and pretty much put a stop to his own team's run.

Indiana state was able to regroup and they came back and won the game. It was stunning. I bet the illinois state poo-bahs were ready to have the press conference right there are center court at the scottrade center to fire his dumb a** for pulling that bonehead move.

bad boyz for life

[Four Seventeen]

You're a Richwoods guy? No wonder we have clashed so frequently. My mom went to AOL/SI (Class of '73) and I went to ND (2001). I bet we know a lot of the same people.

[Sheltiedave]

Metz, you are a little slow on the uptake. Went thru Richwoods when Holcomb, Williams, Smith, et al ruled the hardwood. Saw Central win state the year after I graduated. My dad hosted the Billiken recruiting party when Polk came to town for Alvin O'Neal(Spalding.) Dad was one of the preferred doctors District 150 had for high school sports physicals.

When you throw in my additional 14 brothers, sisters, and first cousins- 12 who lettered in varsity sports at Richwoods and Bergan/ND, then yea, I know Peoria and midstate sports. You are not the only one with connections in Peoria.

Outside of soccer, there are no sports where the ND/Richwoods game is highly competitive for more than a couple years, so no reason for us to clash. Our family started at Bergan and switched to Richwoods because of the marked difference in attitudes and strength in academic programs.

Moser still will not be a preferred coach in my book.

[Basketbill]

SO I guess he would not be a good candidate to take over then..........

[Four Seventeen]

Richwoods/ND baseball was the best rivalry old Jerry Rashid was involved in. We won 6 straight MS-6 titles from 1996-2001. I was on the 99-01 teams and every time we played Richwoods at your place, it was under the lights, and Rashid always would say, "If you can't get up for this game, you might as well not even get out of bed." I became good buddies with a lot of RHS guys after we graduated and went to college, but we took that baseball rivalry pretty seriously. It was a lot of fun whooping Dave Lang's boys.

I was kidding about clashing, Dave. You're an ok guy. Even if you have the Trojan/Knight combo in your family.

[Sheltiedave]

Question regarding the MS6 - what was the main driver to drop down from the MS9?

Some of the lesser schools had heydays as well as Richwoods, Central, Manual, and ND. Every conference hated playing OOc against us. It's not the same without the hungry dogs. Kudos on the BBall, I ran track for the spring sport. Younger brothers did baseball.

You will begin to realize in ten years how good sports are in Peoria. We routinely have conference teams that are neck and neck with the best from Chicago.

I'd take any of RM's other AC friends over Moser, sight unseen.

[Four Seventeen]

I think the Springfield schools got out. I think Lanphier was one of them that dropped. Maybe even Springfield SE. I agree that the Peoria sports scene is catching up to Chicagoland, but there's still a lot of work to be done in terms of facilities and top-tier coaching.