Grawer's Final Days

[Box and Won]

Tom T. has some good stuff in his most recent blog posting:

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/article_506c7798-0a24-11e0-9e04-00127992bc8b.html?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d0beca87ea48ac5,0

[Number1SLUFan33]

Hopefully this isnt a sign

[GOSLU68]

Hopefully this isnt a sign

Anxiety grows as we near a solution. Soon we can get over talking about the five players who could not play this semester and on to talking about the team we have.

[kevinfootes]

Tom T. has some good stuff in his most recent blog posting:

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/article_506c7798-0a24-11e0-9e04-00127992bc8b.html?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d0beca87ea48ac5,0

Grawer still had talented freshmen on that team, despite all of the turmoil.

[thetorch]

Grawer's corner cutting in recruiting finally caught up to him. Paraphrasing Joel Buschbaum, the Billikens were a team full of All Conference players from the neck down.

At the time many were really sour on Grawer but despite his success he had been behind the 8 ball for quite some time. If he had more support from Biondi, like a contract extension after he made his NIT runs, a larger budget, & leeway with a player like Upchurch, he never would have had those headcases in the program.

Funny how that writer thought Jorge Wallace would have been a starter. He was horrible. He had only started previously because Grawer was feuding with better players.

[GOSLU68]

because Grawer was feuding with better players.

[/partial quote from the Torch]

Grawer obviously while at SLU preferred the guy he could develop over the ones who had dominant talent.

Make your own list but I was embarrassed at his benching of

Footes, Douglas, Claggett, Skinner, Robinson, etc.

AB was one of the few talents that worked so hard and maybe Grawer trusted him because he never really developed the jumpshot to go with that prototypical 4 body

[kevinfootes]

because Grawer was feuding with better players.

[/partial quote from the Torch]

Grawer obviously while at SLU preferred the guy he could develop over the ones who had dominant talent.

Make your own list but I was embarrassed at his benching of

Footes, Douglas, Claggett, Skinner, Robinson, etc.

AB was one of the few talents that worked so hard and maybe Grawer trusted him because he never really developed the jumpshot to go with that prototypical 4 body

I believe Skinner transferred to KY Wesleyan, and Stewart was at Okie City (not Okie State, Okie City). They were both complete a-holes, and I was never embarassed by benching those guys. An assistant coach had to go up to Robinson's dorm room every morning to wake him up, otherwise he wouldn't get out of bed and go to class. That one didn't embarass me so much either. Do you think RM would have put up with Robinson?

The program was better off without Skinner and Stewart. By letting the young guys play, the 5-23 season led to the tourney teams a couple of years later.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Coach Grawer was derailed by the Craig Upchurch Fiasco.

Coach Grawer took over at SLU after my Senior year. The program was at rock bottom when he was hired; we were very concerned that SLU was going to drop to D-2. In his 4th year, Grawer produced a winning season, the first at SLU since Bob Polk was the coach.

Grawer had 1 team that went 25-10, and another that went 27-10. He had 3 NIT teams, and 2 teams that lost the NIT Championship game. I always thought several of those Grawer teams should have been in the NCAA Tournament, but SLU was in the MCC then, the MCC was a 1 bid league, and SLU could not get past Xavier.

Grawer also recruited the two prime players (Erwin Claggett and Scott Highmark) that led SLU into the NCAA Tournament 2 years after Grawer's last year, under Coach Spoonhour.

Rich Grawer saved the SLU Basketball Program. He is SLU's Moses- he led SLU to the brink of the Promised Land (the NCAA Tournament), but was unable to enter it himself.

Another irony- in that year before Grawer was hired, we knew big changes were coming. As I recall, a U-News sportswriter advocated that SLU hire a Marquette assistant- named Rick Majerus.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Tom T. has some good stuff in his most recent blog posting:

I read that article and wondered the purpose for resurrecting this.

Bay Area Billiken (BAB) was at Melvin "Big Chill" Robinson's last game for SLU, which was at the then Toso Pavilion at Santa Clara before a sparse crowd. We were sitting close and behind the SLU bench, as BAB tried in vain to will the team to victory. However, SLU, with all those freshmen, lost a close game.

Anyway, Big Chill fouled out and walked off the court, taking his time to depart, and as fate would have it, walked away from SLU.

But 2 seasons later, two of those freshmen were juniors, SLU started the season 14-0, drawing comment from then President Clinton, and SLU was NCAA Tournament bound. And the Billikens won the first round game over Minnesota.

[MusicCityBilliken]

The Orlando Stewart game.

[Bay Area Billiken]

The Orlando Stewart game.

I remember it well. The game started at 11 p.m. in STL, 9 p.m. out here on the Left Coast. I always liked watching hoops at Kiel Auditorium, which I thought was a much better home court for the Billikens than The Arena/Checkerdome, where the team played in my SLU undergraduate days.

Those were the days.

[Duff Man]

Grawer had 1 team that went 25-10, and another that went 27-10. He had 3 NIT teams, and 2 teams that lost the NIT Championship game. I always thought several of those Grawer teams should have been in the NCAA Tournament, but SLU was in the MCC then, the MCC was a 1 bid league, and SLU could not get past Xavier.

The MCC sent 2 teams (Evansville and Xavier) in 1989. Evansville as an at-large. SLU finished 2nd in the league (behind Evansville) but lost to Xavier by 23 in the MCC Tourney semifinal, and that was that.

The Orlando Stewart game.

I posted that to youtube to rally the base following SLU's 20-pt game in 2008. Subsequently one of Orlando's ex-ladies started talking trash in the comments, and before long one of Orlando's friends asked me (on 'Lando's behalf) to delete the negative comments. I hope one day I get the opportunity to do such a favor for Dan Patrick...

[Quality Is Job 1]

I read that article and wondered the purpose for resurrecting this.

Bay Area Billiken (BAB) was at Melvin "Big Chill" Robinson's last game for SLU, which was at the then Toso Pavilion at Santa Clara before a sparse crowd. We were sitting close and behind the SLU bench, as BAB tried in vain to will the team to victory. However, SLU, with all those freshmen, lost a close game.

Anyway, Big Chill fouled out and walked off the court, taking his time to depart, and as fate would have it, walked away from SLU.

But 2 seasons later, two of those freshmen were juniors, SLU started the season 14-0, drawing comment from then President Clinton, and SLU was NCAA Tournament bound. And the Billikens won the first round game over Minnesota.

Actually, when Claggett and Highmark were juniors, they lost in the first round to Joe Smith's Maryland squad in the 1994 NCAA Tournament's very first game. The win against Minnesota came when they were seniors.

[thetorch]

Footes, Douglas, Claggett, Skinner, Robinson, etc.

Footes was total headcase. NBA level skill with a basketball IQ of 5.

Claggett didn't play his freshman year because Highmark and Winfield played the same positions and performed better than him the first half of the season and he wouldn't defend at all.

Skinner wasn't that good and had several incidents with the team and staff.

Robinson was a total punk buffoon who had Floyd Irons in his ear telling him he was a future NBA All Star when he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time until his sophomore year. Funny how the Big Chill accepted this advice from Irons who only let him start TWICE in his entire HS career.

Footes and Skinner should have been both kicked off the team by Rich. The fact that he didn't throw them off after what they did to him allowed Biondi to lose any faith he had in Grawer's leadership skills.

Big Chill shouldn't have played at SLU. Irons was manipulating him the whole time. Grawer should have seen that coming a mile away.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Actually, when Claggett and Highmark were juniors, they lost in the first round to Joe Smith's Maryland squad in the 1994 NCAA Tournament's very first game. The win against Minnesota came when they were seniors.

Correct, sorry.