bauman Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Two interesting comments on Frank and Rammer's show yesterday: FC said RM had the St. Louis Eagles coaches into his office a couple of nights ago to get to know each other and plans on doing the same with the Gateway program coaches soon. Frank got his info from one of the coaches and said it went real well. FC also said BS never did anything like this. (I could have the programs reversed) One of the guests on the show, Joel Goldberg a local tv sports guy, said he talked with T. Roundtree after he scored 40 in the State Tournament final and said that TR said he would have liked to have gone to SLU, but he never received an offer. It is incidents like the two above which probably led to the downfall of Brad, that is, a lack of ability to interact socially with key BB figures and a reluctance to pull the trigger on making "offers". (Can you say Lance S.?) BROY the quotation marks are for you-I know an official offer could not have been made by BS to TR, somehow SIU-C got the word to Roundtree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeseman Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Of course Brad could have made an official offer to Torres Roundtree - he had made offers to a number of 2008 kids as early as this past fall. Brad while a nice person - seem to keep hearing this from everybody and the media - but he just was not good at selling the program and evaluating talent. We should have seen that when he passed on Ahern even though Romar wanted him. Hind sight is always 20/20. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardball Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 RM will do the things that all good recruiters do and the Eagles meeting is just one example. It would also not surprise me if he meets with the SWIC coaches and begins to mend the fences there as well. This is what Big Time recruiters do. These types of calculated moves is why I am confident RM will be way more successful than most of you can imagine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Thinks that RM will be highly successful on the recruiting front. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Four Seventeen Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 It's the little things like this that makes so freaking happy we canned Brad Soderberg. God, I get goosebumps thinking about all the things Rick Majerus is going to do for our program that Brad never did. I pray every night for a miracle, and on April 17, 2007, we got a BIG FREAKING MIRACLE(that was five years overdue). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 bauman, if soderberg was at war or refused to meet with aau coaches, you probably have solved a lot of questions. it would explain how roundtree got offers from others and not from slu, it would explain why previously interested parties lost interest if that "slighted" aau coach wasnt in the loop and decided to direct a kid in a different more apprciating direction. whether a college coach likes it or not, you better make peace with the aau coaches. unfortunately they apparently have the ears and confidence of these kids and control a lot more than what they should but facts are facts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 hardball said, " It would also not surprise me if he meets with the SWIC coaches and begins to mend the fences there as well." well he could get his car washed at the same time. big time!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbofive Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 It seems ridiculous to me that Soderberg didn't meet w/ AAU coaches on a regular basis. AAU is the #1 talent filter there is; to leave those coaches out in the cold is asinine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 not defending this, but remember, soderberg was sitting with all the parents at every eagles game. probably thought he was ahead of the aau coaches because he was able to befriend all those families directly more so than any other coach. that said, if true was very shortsighted. i will say i believe it though. just the change in orange julius' tone over the last year was alarming imo. something was wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Four Seventeen Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 BS was the epitome of the old adage "nice guys finish last." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeseman Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Roy, good point about OJ - I noticed a slight change in his attitude also but could not put a finger on it but something was there. If Brad really was having trouble witht the AAU people then that was just stupid. Whether you want to kiss an ##### or not you better if that ##### is a key to your meal ticket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Roy, I was saying Brad had problem with some of the local AAU people for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 to be fair, it would be nice to know the details. also, this might tell us more about the unusual decision for kramer to not play aau this summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 And it is all second hand, so take it how ever you want to. A lot of these guys felt left out and not appreciated. They felt that Brad would rather take a lesser player from out of the area, because Brad would think the kid was better just because he was from outside the area. This left them feeling that their programs were not being appreciated for how good they actually were. Brad didn't really talk to them much and he never really asked them for their thoughts. It all started right after Brad first got the head coaching job. It only got worse and more wide spread each ensuing year. I have heard nothing on why Kramer isn't playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NashvilleBilliken Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 I just don't think Brad liked "playing the game". I can't really blame him. Who do these guys think they are? They are freakin AAU coaches. That's a part time gig at best, right? They should be role models and mentors for the kids they coach. They should not have a personal stake in it. It shouldn't be about them. It should be about the kids. They sound like sleaze bags to me. That being said, you still gotta do it. You gotta play the game. Just like in the real world...sometimes you have to kiss a little #####. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 nah, i aint buying that. too general. and in fact just not true. if the roster had zero locals on it, that might fly, but we had two juniors (polk and meyer) two sophs (lisch and liddell) and two freshmen (maguire and knollmeyer) from the local area. there is something more specific or personal that would be at hand imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 spoon said on more than one occasion it was the part of the job he had really grown to hate and the longer he coached the more it became the necessity. what is especially ugly are the stories from the past about the likes of the dog from kansas city or the guy in chicago, butler i think was his last name, that were definitely looking for more than making sure the kids got an education. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 I can kind of understand this for Brad because the last 2 classes haven't been very impressive in St Louis. DM & AK were probably the 2 best players in the area for '06 and Powell was probably the best in '07. It sounds like Brad basically went elsewhere beyond those players because he didn't feel the talent was good enough locally in these classes. I could see where an AAU coach might not agree and would feel not appreciated about this. LM, DP, KL & TL show that Brad was recruiting locally, there will always be a local player or 2 passed over that will feel left out. The whole Roundtree verbal to SIU while saying he was interested in SLU is also kind of a wonder. I still think that Brad wasn't going to offer someone who could have problems with grades early, unless they were a can't miss type player like TL or Powell. I guess Brad didn't see Roundtree as in the same category as TL, others might, but Brad didn't. I also think Brad failing to get a LOI or 2 in the fall set back his '08 recruiting. Brad & staff were looking to fill 4 or 5 spots in the Spring and most time was probably being spent on that rather than working the '08 class as other schools were able to. This is on Brad and staff--they should have been making more offers last fall instead of just the 6 or so they made. Of course, if Brad knew Obi & HD would be gone shortly, he probably would have recruited for the Fall a lot differently. I am very excited about what RM brings to SLU and about how SLU has stepped up to get him. I just think some of the kicking Brad now that he is gone needs to be put in some perspective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star_recruit Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Yeah, but all these kids were recruited through their parents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Four Seventeen Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 Just like Billy Cole at U of Illinois. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheeseman Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 I don't think anybody is kicking Brad now that he is gone. What I think is happening is that people are just now finding out through various sources all the things that were happening regarding Brad and his recruiting in the local area in particular. Unless he was let go, some of this would never have come out because the parents or the AAU coach would not want to create a situation that could harm another player who might really want to go to SLU but might not get offered because of their association. We all knew something was up but wanted to hope for the best - now that he has moved on, we are now more open to raising our private questions/concerns and to hearing the reasons why. The picture being painted is not very pretty and shows that giving Brad one more year would have been fruitless. Father Biondi made the right decision and fortunately he found a big time coach to replace Brad. So things are about as good as they could be given all that has happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 that is a good point 3 star. but it also illustrates the nonsensical reasoning of the aau coach. i.e. the aau person would be upset that instead of going thru the coach they talked to the kids parents? talk about misplaced reasoning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted May 11, 2007 Share Posted May 11, 2007 I am still of the belief that Brad was making in-roads locally. I think some of this is justified with RM keeping Brad's top assistant coach around because of his connections to both the team and to the local kids being recruited. If Brad & staff were such failures at keeping local kids interested there would be no reason to retain AT. Just guessing here, but when an AAU coach feels left out or not appreciated, it sounds like what we used to hear about Irons when SLU wouldn't take some of his players in the past that just weren't Div 1 kids. We will never know for sure what another year with Brad would have looked like. That being said, RM is a great hire both because he is a very good coach and because he forced Biondi to step up and support the program at a level where success should come. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thetorch Posted May 12, 2007 Share Posted May 12, 2007 RM said in an interview during the NCAA tourney here on the radio that he could go the rest of his life without talking to another AAU coach. He is though because you have to. Soderberg took the "high" road a few too many times. You don't have to suck up to these AAU guys, you make them work for you. With a billiken legend on the eagles staff SLU should never be left out in regards to players in that system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidnark Posted May 12, 2007 Share Posted May 12, 2007 >Just guessing here, but when an AAU coach feels left out or >not appreciated, it sounds like what we used to hear about >Irons when SLU wouldn't take some of his players in the past >that just weren't Div 1 kids. There is a big difference between the appropriateness of Irons having those feelings and the St. Louis Eagles coach having those feelings. Irons record of placing good D1 players is spotty at best. By contrast, the Eagles place at least 3 D1 players every year and have placed as many as 8 D1 players from the same team in the same class! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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