gordon's article

[mcglotherirvin]

i'm not too sure how i feel at this point about gordon's latest article. he says that it will be tougher for the bills to compete in the A-10 than it was in C-USA, which I completely disagree with. i don't see any A-10 teams that recruit the way pitino, calipari, and huggins do and academics are at least somewhat of a concern.

also, he mentions that tulsa will be in the new C-USA. i haven't been around for a while, but did i miss something. or did he mean to say tulane?

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/st...uck+in+neutral+

[Box and Won]

Tulsa joining CUSA was the one thing he got right in this article.

[Schasz]

Tulsa was added along with 4 other schools to NASCAR...I mean CUSA yesterday after the defections.

[3star_recruit]

Hey, I'm not a rocket scientist or anything but I thought a 5th place finish in 2002 and a 4th place finish in 2003 was a little better than middle of the pack.

[davidnark]

Tulsa has announced that they have accepted an offer to move to CUSA.

That was a lazy, sloppy article. It was written with the assumption that SLU intends to stay in C-USA. Everyone even remotely involved in this situation knows that SLU is not staying in the revamped C-USA. I also didn't get the feeling that Gordon has researched the A-10 for about eight years. At least Stu and Bernie are on top of this situation.

[3star_recruit]

I don't think Gordon did any research either. Rhode Island is a glitzy program? Yeah, maybe when Lamar Odom played there five years ago.

[Schasz]

What do you freakin expect from a former Antler???

[billiken_roy]

i agree david. has gordon been living in a cave? there was no chance of staying in cusa. the articles i read the last few days lead me to believe that cusa wanted us out in order to set up their rodeo show circuit. my guess is that assuming father biondi played this right, we were paid to leave cusa. at the very least no exit fee. gordon is getting lazy to even write something like that piece of trash.

stu help the guy out a little. my gosh he embarrassed himself and the post.

[xu95]

We have beat UC 5 of the last 7. Temple has won the most recent games as well.

I'm not saying that the A-10 is better but there isn't the drop off that most of you have seemed to think.

Our top is just as good as their top.

xu95

[jjray]

Is it time for another letter writing campaign: [email protected] ?

p.s. Saying "former antler" is like saying "former felon". It never comes off one's record.

[CentFLBilliken]

Agreed.

I dont think most of us here expect much of a drop off at all. Dont take much offense to this column. Jeff Gordon is one of the least knowledgeable of the St. Louis media. He is pretty much in Quin Snyder's pocket.

[billiken_roy]

here's my e-mail to the antler:

Jeff,

Havent you been paying attention recently? your most recent column titled, "SLU sits at the crossroads, stuck in neutral " seems very poorly timed, researched and based in fact. There was no chance the billikens would even consider staying in Conference USA or head to a lesser conference such as the Missouri Valley. And if you go check the most recent past few seasons final RPI rankings, you will see that the A-10 is almost an identical level of proficiency as Conference USA was only without all the football distractions.

So what was the point you were trying to make? Or were your Missouri roots showing and you felt it was time to get a patronizing jab in on the old Billikens? Everytime I think you are coming around to viewing the growth of the Billikens program fairly, you write some kind of condenscending nonsense like this. The sad part is that there are enough casual empathatic fans in the St Louis area that will read it and assume it has merit.

Thanks for nothing. If that is your best effort, let Stu handle it in the future.

Roy Mueller

Belleville, IL

[billiken_roy]

xu, i dont think the majority here think this move is a drop off. the casual sports fan in st louis might think it is, but remember, until we starting banging the drum a few weeks ago, even our own st louis media thought the mvc was a better conference. they will come around. they just need edumonkashun.

[Box and Won]

Well said, Roy. The sad thing is that all he has to do is spend 20 minutes reading the posts on this board for research purposes, and he's not even willing to do that. Just like most of his columns, this latest one sounds like he wrote it off the top of his head.

[billiken_roy]

and like i said, the sad part is that there are mostly casual and uninformed fans out there that read that b.s. and will take it for gospel. of course if our sports information department had some kind of working relationship, maybe they might have an ongoing agreeement to have columnists and reports run this type of thing by them first for input. he sure as hell didnt have any input on that crap.

[Tonka]

I agree, nice letter by Roy. But, I wouldn't reccommend that anyone research this board when looking for factual information either. As this board reflects opinion, there are a lot of inconsistencies and if any writer wrote based upon what they hear on here, the end result could be just as bad.

[Schasz]

Most people recognize him for what he is, and don't take him too seriously. The only aport that I ever felt that he even had a clue about was hockey.

[Box and Won]

True, but most of us (and hopefully most columnists) can discern fact from opinion. There is plenty of factual-based information here that I'm sure Stu uses when writing his articles or at least provides the inspiration for his articles. This board would be a good starting point for anyone wishing to write an article on Billiken basketball from an informed standpoint.

[Basketbill]

I get the sense that Bruno, Tranghese and CUSA teams got together and negotiated the moves......Ie CUSA agreed not to fight if the A10 would help out. The A10 was happy not to lose teams....(ie Xavier to the big east which would have made more sense than Depaul and arguably Marquette) so they said sure. SLU and Charlotte were happy to have a place to go.....only one who got screwed was Memphis

[thetorch]

This is why Gordon is not allowed to have collumn in the actual newspaper.

[jjray]

Dear Jeff:

I have read your article “SLU sits at the crossroads, stuck in neutral†several times to try and understand the thrust of the piece. First, there is no “crossroads†in the sense that some sort of momentous decision is to be made. CUSA has become a southern football conference (we call it the “NASCAR Conference†on billikens.com). The Bills absolutely have to leave and the A10 has welcomed us with open arms--the Cincinnati Enquirer has already reported that the A-10 has voted to give SLU and Charlotte an invitation: http://www.enquirer.com/xavier/2003/11/05/wwwxu1a.html .

A no-brainer—SLU leaves NASCAR / CUSA for the A-10 with old rivals Xavier and Dayton plus very solid b-ball programs in St. Joseph’s and Temple. BTW, your article failed to mention the existence of the preseason #18 team in the country, St. Joseph’s (a private, Catholic school in a major city), as an A-10 member.

So there is no decision to be made—it’s a done deal. In the middle of the article, you start to tack on another angle—the crossroad is not a decision but some sort of crisis brought about by this change: “But making it big in that conference affiliation will be an even bigger chore than it was in the old C-USA.†At first read, it appeared that your point was that it would be even harder for the Billikens to compete in the A-10 than it was in the old CUSA. Last year, with a new coach and a bunch of last minute player losses at the time LoRo jumped for Washington, the Bills had wins against Memphis, Louisville, Cincy, and DePaul (twice) as well many other quality wins. We have consistently finished in the upper 1/3 of CUSA and won the conference tournament just a few years ago. Last year, in the CUSA American division, we finished 3rd ahead of both Cincy and DePaul.

On a further and closer read, I have deduced the latent point of the article: the A-10 is less sexy than the old C-USA which will make it harder for SLU to take it’s team to the next level. The implication is that the move from CUSA to the A-10 somehow makes life much harder for the Billikens. First, remember that CUSA starting this year abolished the old American / National division meaning that SLU loses a game each year against both Louisville and Cincy (this move is totally unrelated to league realignment). Second, Xavier, Dayton, and St. Joseph’s are all private, urban b-ball schools that have thrived in the A-10 and are regular participants in the NCAA tourney. This is where the Bills want to be so joining with like-minded schools devoid of the conference dictates of football is a positive development.

So your article “SLU sits at the crossroads, stuck in neutral†was meant to point up the brewing crisis at SLU over exchanging games against Marquette, Cincy and Louisville for Xavier, Dayton, St. Joseph and Temple? That’s the crisis? I’ll miss Huggins scowling from the bench at Savvis but life goes on. DePaul, I am sure, will play us out-of-conference should we so desire. Given that Marquette has a large alumni population in STL and would likely wish to keep up its presence in metro area recruiting, don’t be surprised if they schedule us out-of-conference as well come 2005.

Maybe you are right Jeff. Maybe this is a big deal and we SLU faithful are deluding ourselves that the A-10 is a strong conference (getting only stronger with the addition of SLU and Charlotte) that is populated with more like-minded institutions of higher learning that CUSA ever was or will be. …. But I doubt it.

Best wishes,

Joe Raymond

St. Louis, MO

[Billiken Law]

actually Marquette's alumni base in STL is smaller than I thought. I think it's around 400 or so.

I wouldn't be surprised if Marquette and DePaul didn't schedule SLU and instead went with the usual Big East MO of playing a weaker non-conference schedule due to the immense strength of the Big East.

[gister]

Great letter. My reaction was the same after reading it once. I really didn't get his point. Unlike you, I did not go back to read it again for better understanding.

[billiken_roy]

nm

[Quality Is Job 1]

These columnists are becoming, in general, less and less worth reading. Their changes are more volatile than the St. Louis weather in spring or autumn (folks, that ain't easy to do!). They flip-flop easily, saying one thing one week and the opposite the next, so long as it's convenient for them and their goal of selling newspapers. They don't write based on informed opinion and well-reasoned analysis. Gordon's column was some of the worst trash I've EVER read (and I work in a high school). It looks like he took stuff he wrote about SLU 15 years ago out of a drawer and rehashed it to get more circulation for the Post today, and he didn't even bother to verify their truth. Gordon should be ASHAMED.