Speculation: Now what??

[Taj79]

A couple of disclaimers .....

First, and most importantly, I have no insider information. Second, if you will recall, I was not in favor of getting rid of Soderberg, especially after a 20-win season. Third, despite the second, I was all for the hiring of Majerus, figuring such a Hall-of-Fame coach was about the only real thing the program could do to rise up from the doldrums. I thought that back as far as Al McGuire doing a game in St. Lous and begging him not only not to leave the broadcast but the city itself and make us rise up from our ashes. That didn't go over well, obviously.

Now, the question: regardless the recent Duke fiasco, what do you do if you have to replace Majerus? We all know Majerus has a self-specified shelf life. We all know or believe he was hoping to leave his mark on the college landscape by taking a long-dormant program, taking it to success, and walking away content that his legacy and reputation was intact, if not further glorified. But what do you do if, for whatever reason (mother is suddenly really ill, disgusted with the student court, can't get Reed and/or Mitchell reenrolled, bad health crops up,etc.), you are faced with the prospect of the program without a coach?

Some have annointed Porter Moser as the likely successor. Is that Lorenzo-to-Brad part two? I don't know, I'm just saying. I've called Saint Louis U. a graveyard for coaches. Is Majerus the next? C'mon, he is just eccentric enough to toss it in, you know he is. This could be his first-ever losing season ... like Joaquin used to say "youneverknow."

I am not saying we/the school/Biondi should but asking "what if?"

Thoughts?

[kshoe]

A couple of disclaimers .....

First, and most importantly, I have no insider information. Second, if you will recall, I was not in favor of getting rid of Soderberg, especially after a 20-win season. Third, despite the second, I was all for the hiring of Majerus, figuring such a Hall-of-Fame coach was about the only real thing the program could do to rise up from the doldrums. I thought that back as far as Al McGuire doing a game in St. Lous and begging him not only not to leave the broadcast but the city itself and make us rise up from our ashes. That didn't go over well, obviously.

Now, the question: regardless the recent Duke fiasco, what do you do if you have to replace Majerus? We all know Majerus has a self-specified shelf life. We all know or believe he was hoping to leave his mark on the college landscape by taking a long-dormant program, taking it to success, and walking away content that his legacy and reputation was intact, if not further glorified. But what do you do if, for whatever reason (mother is suddenly really ill, disgusted with the student court, can't get Reed and/or Mitchell reenrolled, bad health crops up,etc.), you are faced with the prospect of the program without a coach?

Some have annointed Porter Moser as the likely successor. Is that Lorenzo-to-Brad part two? I don't know, I'm just saying. I've called Saint Louis U. a graveyard for coaches. Is Majerus the next? C'mon, he is just eccentric enough to toss it in, you know he is. This could be his first-ever losing season ... like Joaquin used to say "youneverknow."

I am not saying we/the school/Biondi should but asking "what if?"

Thoughts?

Why bring this stuff up now? The loss to Duke?

As long as the kangaroos don't mess up the reinstatement of KM and WR, this program will be back on track and RM isn't walking away from it. This whole debacle set us back a year but we are still going to be a damn good team next season assuming nothing unexpected happens. RM isn't walking away...

[Pirahna]

Interesting thoughts. I don't think he will throw in the towel midseason, he has too much pride. Although you are right in the fact that he is eccentric enough to actually do something of that nature. IMO, I think he will finally retire when KM graduates and Porter will be the next coach. I do think there might be a situation where he will announce midseason that he will retire at the end of a season and announce Porter as his successor, similar to what Barry Alvarez did at Wisconsin with Brett Beilema, only Barry did this before his final season at Wisconsin. SLU needs to keep Porter, if RM is proving to be ineffective, SLU must think about turning RM loose, to keep other schools from taking Porter. (Note: I'm not calling for RM's head at all, in fact I'm a big fan of his, but a bigger fan of the SLU basketball program)

[Cowboy]

-is now the time to start this discussion?

[Westy03]

Why bring this stuff up now? The loss to Duke?

As long as the kangaroos don't mess up the reinstatement of KM and WR, this program will be back on track and RM isn't walking away from it. This whole debacle set us back a year but we are still going to be a damn good team next season assuming nothing unexpected happens. RM isn't walking away...

I agree. If they dont mess up the reinstatement we will be top 2 in the A-10 next year.

[JeffinMH]

A couple of disclaimers .....

First, and most importantly, I have no insider information. Second, if you will recall, I was not in favor of getting rid of Soderberg, especially after a 20-win season. Third, despite the second, I was all for the hiring of Majerus, figuring such a Hall-of-Fame coach was about the only real thing the program could do to rise up from the doldrums. I thought that back as far as Al McGuire doing a game in St. Lous and begging him not only not to leave the broadcast but the city itself and make us rise up from our ashes. That didn't go over well, obviously.

Now, the question: regardless the recent Duke fiasco, what do you do if you have to replace Majerus? We all know Majerus has a self-specified shelf life. We all know or believe he was hoping to leave his mark on the college landscape by taking a long-dormant program, taking it to success, and walking away content that his legacy and reputation was intact, if not further glorified. But what do you do if, for whatever reason (mother is suddenly really ill, disgusted with the student court, can't get Reed and/or Mitchell reenrolled, bad health crops up,etc.), you are faced with the prospect of the program without a coach?

Some have annointed Porter Moser as the likely successor. Is that Lorenzo-to-Brad part two? I don't know, I'm just saying. I've called Saint Louis U. a graveyard for coaches. Is Majerus the next? C'mon, he is just eccentric enough to toss it in, you know he is. This could be his first-ever losing season ... like Joaquin used to say "youneverknow."

I am not saying we/the school/Biondi should but asking "what if?"

Thoughts?

YOU DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BASKETBALL.

[NashvilleBilliken]

I agree. If they dont mess up the reinstatement we will be top 2 in the A-10 next year.

Agreed. Just about our entire deficit was a result of points off turnovers. We defended them well (er..well considering they are the best team in all of college ball). We couldn't hit the broad side of the barn in arguably the hardest arena to play in across the country. We got smacked, but it could have been worse. There were glimmers of hope on Saturday. I know i'm the eternal optimist, but things really could have been worse. We cut our turnovers in half and up our shooting percentage just a few....then we're looking at a very respectable loss instead of the blow out. All is not lost and if we get those two guys back, we're looking up over the next two years.

[SLUDrew]

Agreed. Just about our entire deficit was a result of points off turnovers. We defended them well (er..well considering they are the best team in all of college ball). We couldn't hit the broad side of the barn in arguably the hardest arena to play in across the country. We got smacked, but it could have been worse. There were glimmers of hope on Saturday. I know i'm the eternal optimist, but things really could have been worse. We cut our turnovers in half and up our shooting percentage just a few....then we're looking at a very respectable loss instead of the blow out. All is not lost and if we get those two guys back, we're looking up over the next two years.

Agreed. We STILL have more "talent" on this team than any in the past 15 years. If Willie and Kwamain were here we would have a great opportunity to be better than the Waldman, Claggett and Highmark teams which, at their time, were the best Billiken teams in over half a century.

I think Mike McCall and Rob Loe are All-Conference type talents if they stick around with Jordair Jett and Dwayne Evans not far behind. Cody Ellis needs to find his stroke but he is only at the beginning of his sophomore season. If you bring back Kwamain and Willie we will be a very tough team to beat.

Discussing the end of RM's tenure at this point is asinine in my opinion

[MB73]

The answer is, we are toast if Majerus leaves in the next year or two. Getting Majerus was a fluke, a gift, a circumstance in which we finally "got lucky".

He needs to stay 4-5 more after the Dubourg Hall kangaroos took WR and KM away. He needs to reestablish us to a point where there would be enough positive publicity on the program so the Beal types consider playing here.

If we had WR & KM, this yr, we probably make the NCAA, maybe win a game, and next yr, if both stay, we could crack the top 25 and begin to attract an even better level of recruits.

Losing WR and KM is the issue... a mid major loses by far their best two players... whoever you consider 3rd is a DISTANT third... it is a disaster, look at Butler, lost Hayward and one or two others and they are 5-4.

If we had WR and KM, we keep the Duke game around 10 at half, and they pull away to 16, 18, who knows. A completely different game, a completely different attitude by our whole team. Big WR is the one we miss the most against a superior team like Duke.

Next coach? Not appropriate to discuss.

Again, if Majerus stays another 4-5-6 yrs, we will have a foundation to bring in someone top notch. If not, we get another up-and-coming-junior-birdman asst-coach who, if he does OK, leaves and upgrades to a BCS, and if he doesn't, we fire him. Back into the death spiral.

[jjray]

It's self-defeating to enter into this discussion now. Agree with MB73. We're toast if RM leaves so no use speculating on it.

[MKE_Billiken]

Now, the question: regardless the recent Duke fiasco, what do you do if you have to replace Majerus?

My thought... you cannot call that performance against a Duke a fiasco.

They are the number one team in the country and you played them at home. SLU was NEVER expected to win the game, and with KM and WR out, they were not even expected to stay close- there was only upside to this game. This game was put on the schedule, well before the suspensions, as a game that was to, among other things, put SLU on national TV; provide them an A1 talent, on a hostile court, to play against; give Duke indoubtedly another notch on their non-conference home win-streak; and pad SLU's athletic departments coffers. Its a sad fact, but fact nonetheless... No one in the country, outside of some delusional SLU fans, thought SLU would contend. No one outside of the SLU community and maybe a couple of well knowledged fans and analysts were aware that SLU was missing two of their stars. I can garauntee you that no one upon hearing about KW and WR gave SLU much empathy.

Unfortunately, SLU didnt do much to sway the nations opinions. It is unfortunate that SLU couldn't have had its full team to field a different result, but the fact of the matter is that the outlook for the rest of year is not changed based off of Saturdays loss. I know that your question was purely hypothetical, but this game was not the career barometer for Majerus.

In a game where SLU had nowhere to go but up, the mercury never rose.

[BillikenDoc]

My thought... you cannot call that performance against a Duke a fiasco.

They are the number one team in the country and you played them at home. SLU was NEVER expected to win the game, and with KM and WR out, they were not even expected to stay close- there was only upside to this game. This game was put on the schedule, well before the suspensions, as a game that was to, among other things, put SLU on national TV; provide them an A1 talent, on a hostile court, to play against; give Duke indoubtedly another notch on their non-conference home win-streak; and pad SLU's athletic departments coffers. Its a sad fact, but fact nonetheless... No one in the country, outside of some delusional SLU fans, thought SLU would contend. No one outside of the SLU community and maybe a couple of well knowledged fans and analysts were aware that SLU was missing two of their stars. I can garauntee you that no one upon hearing about KW and WR gave SLU much empathy.

Unfortunately, SLU didnt do much to sway the nations opinions. It is unfortunate that SLU couldn't have had its full team to field a different result, but the fact of the matter is that the outlook for the rest of year is not changed based off of Saturdays loss. I know that your question was purely hypothetical, but this game was not the career barometer for Majerus.

In a game where SLU had nowhere to go but up, the mercury never rose.

Agree with your take on this completely MKE. Can add one more reason why RM scheduled this game with Duke - to boost our SOS rating in a year where the team was predicted to be a potential "bubble" team.

[billikendave]

This game was put on the schedule, well before the suspensions, as a game that was to, among other things, put SLU on national TV; provide them an A1 talent, on a hostile court, to play against; give Duke indoubtedly another notch on their non-conference home win-streak; and pad SLU's athletic departments coffers. Its a sad fact, but fact nonetheless...

I have asked the question before but why did our AD schedule this game NOW? The AD should know that there was an incident involving our best two players with pending code of conduct hearings well in advance of scheduling this game. If they were blindsided by the suspensions (as I suspect given the AD put KM and WR on season tickets/billboards), how can the administration put the AD and Basketball team in that position? Do you think Chris May would have scheduled this game NOW if he knew about this or would he have scheduled a cupcake schedule to start off as he has in the past few years knowing he had a young team.

While I dont like losing WR and KM, i think the bigger story is that the Administration still views the Athletic dept a red headed step child who should be seen but not heard.

[slu72]

I have asked the question before but why did our AD schedule this game NOW? The AD should know that there was an incident involving our best two players with pending code of conduct hearings well in advance of scheduling this game. If they were blindsided by the suspensions (as I suspect given the AD put KM and WR on season tickets/billboards), how can the administration put the AD and Basketball team in that position? Do you think Chris May would have scheduled this game NOW if he knew about this or would he have scheduled a cupcake schedule to start off as he has in the past few years knowing he had a young team.

While I dont like losing WR and KM, i think the bigger story is that the Administration still views the Athletic dept a red headed step child who should be seen but not heard.

Actually a little surprised they didn't sacrifice the supposed $75k we got for this to avoid a national beat down. In Oct they could have gone to CBS and Duke and said, hey, we got a problem and that game we were so excited about, could you maybe find a substitute? But it's done. It'll be forgotten along with every other team that Duke mauls this year. Good for the team. And agreed we do have some good looking Frosh. This is a much better recruiting class than last year by far. In fact, unless CE steps it up last year's class is going to look pitiful in comparison.

[Cowboy]

Actually a little surprised they didn't sacrifice the supposed $75k we got for this to avoid a national beat down. In Oct they could have gone to CBS and Duke and said, hey, we got a problem and that game we were so excited about, could you maybe find a substitute? But it's done. It'll be forgotten along with every other team that Duke mauls this year. Good for the team. And agreed we do have some good looking Frosh. This is a much better recruiting class than last year by far. In fact, unless CE steps it up last year's class is going to look pitiful in comparison.

-maybe some of the administration that was in attendance got an idea or two about areas where we could improve

-maybe some of the donors that were in attendance got an idea or two about areas where we could improve and can get the administration to do some things to improve our program

[Bay Area Billiken]

YOU DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BASKETBALL.

Taj knows about basketball.

[Bay Area Billiken]

I have asked the question before but why did our AD schedule this game NOW? The AD should know that there was an incident involving our best two players with pending code of conduct hearings well in advance of scheduling this game. If they were blindsided by the suspensions (as I suspect given the AD put KM and WR on season tickets/billboards), how can the administration put the AD and Basketball team in that position? Do you think Chris May would have scheduled this game NOW if he knew about this or would he have scheduled a cupcake schedule to start off as he has in the past few years knowing he had a young team.

My opinion is that SLU should have canceled or deferred the game, if there was any way to do so. Being completely noncompetitive throughout and losing by 37 points was not the type of publicity that was needed. Fortunately, very little was said about The Situation.

[moytoy12]

My opinion is that SLU should have canceled or deferred the game, if there was any way to do so. Being completely noncompetitive throughout and losing by 37 points was not the type of publicity that was needed. Fortunately, very little was said about The Situation.

We should have forfeited kind of like Coach Taylor's first game with the East Dillon Lions.

[Bay Area Billiken]

We should have forfeited kind of like Coach Taylor's first game with the East Dillon Lions.

Hopefully,you're jesting there.

I can't go as far as a forfeit.

[kshoe]

My opinion is that SLU should have canceled or deferred the game, if there was any way to do so. Being completely noncompetitive throughout and losing by 37 points was not the type of publicity that was needed. Fortunately, very little was said about The Situation.

The easiest way to ensure that we never get another nationally televised game or to become a laughingstock or to never get a BCS home and home would be to try and cancel the game (and piss off CBS, Duke, etc.) because the players we thought we would have were not available.

Cancelling the game a week before practices start was not an option. In fact I've never heard of any team doing that.

[Bay Area Billiken]

The easiest way to ensure that we never get another nationally televised game or to become a laughingstock or to never get a BCS home and home would be to try and cancel the game (and piss off CBS, Duke, etc.) because the players we thought we would have were not available.

Cancelling the game a week before practices start was not an option. In fact I've never heard of any team doing that.

No, I'm not saying a week before practice started. That would have been far too late. And agree, that could have been damaging.

My point is the right arm knowing what the left arm was doing. There had to have been warning signs earlier than Oct. 14. I don't even know if even September would have been adequate time to scrap the game.

So maybe there was just nothing to do but play the game and try to make the best of it.

This being said, the second easiest way to ensure against national TV appearances is to be completely noncompetitive in the rare ones you get and thereby be unable to hold a TV audience. I hate to type this.

[moytoy12]

Hopefully,you're jesting there.

I can't go as far as a forfeit.

But you should see how the East Dillon Lions have responded. Don't question Coach Taylor.

sorry BAB, I've got Friday Night Lights on the brain. For those who have never seen it, here's who you've missed:

[slu72 fan]

I have asked the question before but why did our AD schedule this game NOW? The AD should know that there was an incident involving our best two players with pending code of conduct hearings well in advance of scheduling this game. If they were blindsided by the suspensions (as I suspect given the AD put KM and WR on season tickets/billboards), how can the administration put the AD and Basketball team in that position? Do you think Chris May would have scheduled this game NOW if he knew about this or would he have scheduled a cupcake schedule to start off as he has in the past few years knowing he had a young team.

While I dont like losing WR and KM, i think the bigger story is that the Administration still views the Athletic dept a red headed step child who should be seen but not heard.

First, the basketball coaching staff, principally PM, does the scheduling. The AD is only in the loop if they are asked for input. Second, there is no way to back out of the contract without paying a major fee. I'm sure, that was never considered by RM or CM.

[slu72 fan]

No, I'm not saying a week before practice started. That would have been far too late. And agree, that could have been damaging.

My point is the right arm knowing what the left arm was doing. There had to have been warning signs earlier than Oct. 14. I don't even know if even September would have been adequate time to scrap the game.

So maybe there was just nothing to do but play the game and try to make the best of it.

This being said, the second easiest way to ensure against national TV appearances is to be completely noncompetitive in the rare ones you get and thereby be unable to hold a TV audience. I hate to type this.

As I've reported before, the AD was submarined by the University. The Athletic Department was told the hearing was not a big deal, and they communicated that to the student/athletes. Clearly, they were all screwed by the Good Father's actions.

[The Pelican]

My opinion is that SLU should have canceled or deferred the game, if there was any way to do so. Being completely noncompetitive throughout and losing by 37 points was not the type of publicity that was needed. Fortunately, very little was said about The Situation.

There was no possibility of this happening for so many reasons. This is not a CYO league. They don't even do this in high school. I can think of about 1000 reasons more why you would want this game than not. Our tune would be different if we were more competitive and this conversation would not even exist. Playing the #1 team in the country will put Temple, et al in perspective for this very young team.

How much buzz would UM Baltimore County at home created vs. playing Duke at Cameron on National TV? Think about how dumb SLU would look if they canceled the Duke game? You would never get an opportunity to play a BCS team ever again. You would get 1000x more bad press from this than taking a beating at Duke.

The more time I waste explaining myself the dumber I realize the notion of canceling is and I am going to stop typing.