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The Gray Seasons


moytoy12

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Saw this on Nate's Twitter.

I don't know 2 spits about what is going on with Shimmy and the women's team, but thought this was pretty cool.

I don't know either. Looking at their stats it's pretty clear they don't shoot the ball well. They have only 3 players shooting over 40% from the field and 2 of those are bigs one Soph and one Sr. The other is a freshman guard who has only taken 22 shots on the year. So basically only 2 bigs.

I really like Shimmy and want them to do well, but I'd also say the arrow needs to start pointing up. Over half their minutes are played by underclassmen, so maybe that's a good thing.

We have our annual "night with the Billiken's" on Tuesday. We are bringing almost 300 people to the game and our 7th and 8th grade teams are playing a halftime scrimmage. We have a few pretty good players in 7th and 8th those teams are a combined 20-2 on the year. If anyone is at the game, come over and say hello.

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I don't know either. Looking at their stats it's pretty clear they don't shoot the ball well. They have only 3 players shooting over 40% from the field and 2 of those are bigs one Soph and one Sr. The other is a freshman guard who has only taken 22 shots on the year. So basically only 2 bigs.

I really like Shimmy and want them to do well, but I'd also say the arrow needs to start pointing up. Over half their minutes are played by underclassmen, so maybe that's a good thing.

We have our annual "night with the Billiken's" on Tuesday. We are bringing almost 300 people to the game and our 7th and 8th grade teams are playing a halftime scrimmage. We have a few pretty good players in 7th and 8th those teams are a combined 20-2 on the year. If anyone is at the game, come over and say hello.

I think she has 3 recruits coming in and none of them averaged 8 pts a game their junior years. That doesn't sound very promising.
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When I threw in the towel on the men's team I checked out the women's schedule and it is just the same as before below .500

I was hoping she could turn it around once in the new building. I'm willing to give a couple more seasons for her to make something happen. There have been tough breaks but you got to find a way to overcome things or you just end up a loser.

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Short of Anne Kordes and Lorenzo Romar (who really went home to Alma Mater U. at what I would argue was in a downward trend with his "star"), what Saint Louis University coach (in any sport) has used this stop as a spring board in theoir overall coaching career?

In my career, the basketball coaches were Randy Albrecht (fired) went back to community college, Ron Coleman (fired) disappeared, Ron Ekker (fired) went to lower level NBA jobs, Rich Grawer (fired) back to high school, Charlie Spponhour retired before resurfacing at UNLV for a short time, Romar, and Soderberg (fired) to lower level college athletics.

There are no Pete Gillen-Skip Prosser-Sean Miller- Thad Matta stories. Graveyard. All-around graveyard. Is Shimmy's headstone being carved now?

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We have our annual "night with the Billiken's" on Tuesday. We are bringing almost 300 people to the game and our 7th and 8th grade teams are playing a halftime scrimmage.

Your group will single-handedly multiply the attendance by 30.... Good for you.

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Short of Anne Kordes and Lorenzo Romar (who really went home to Alma Mater U. at what I would argue was in a downward trend with his "star"), what Saint Louis University coach (in any sport) has used this stop as a spring board in theoir overall coaching career?

In my career, the basketball coaches were Randy Albrecht (fired) went back to community college, Ron Coleman (fired) disappeared, Ron Ekker (fired) went to lower level NBA jobs, Rich Grawer (fired) back to high school, Charlie Spponhour retired before resurfacing at UNLV for a short time, Romar, and Soderberg (fired) to lower level college athletics.

There are no Pete Gillen-Skip Prosser-Sean Miller- Thad Matta stories. Graveyard. All-around graveyard. Is Shimmy's headstone being carved now?

I would point out that Grawer didn't coach after getting canned by SLU. He went "back to high school" to take the best paying job in the area as Clayton's AD, not coach. I do agree with your overall point that this hasn't been a springboard in general. Didn't we lose our softball coach to a D2 school?

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Short of Anne Kordes and Lorenzo Romar (who really went home to Alma Mater U. at what I would argue was in a downward trend with his "star"), what Saint Louis University coach (in any sport) has used this stop as a spring board in theoir overall coaching career?

In my career, the basketball coaches were Randy Albrecht (fired) went back to community college, Ron Coleman (fired) disappeared, Ron Ekker (fired) went to lower level NBA jobs, Rich Grawer (fired) back to high school, Charlie Spponhour retired before resurfacing at UNLV for a short time, Romar, and Soderberg (fired) to lower level college athletics.

There are no Pete Gillen-Skip Prosser-Sean Miller- Thad Matta stories. Graveyard. All-around graveyard. Is Shimmy's headstone being carved now?

Taj. Get your point and somewhat agree. In short, Fr. Biondi has been the absolute worst thing for Billiken basketball. Before him, the adminstration dropped hockey, cut back other sports and was ready to drop basketball to D3 but then were willing to give Grawer one last chance. Fr. Biondi came to SLU in 1987 during the height of what Grawer built before knocking the legs out from under St. Rich with the Craig Upchurch fiasco as well as continuation of his general lack of support for the program. Since then, we have not really hired young coaches who could springboard like X. Grawer is unique situation, a local guy who never coached basketball again, and a family man with alot of young kids to whom he felt he needed to give attention having given his prior 10 years to SLU. Spoon was a great hire for us and, IMO, recruited and won games b/c of his own reputation and despite SLU's reputation and facilities. Conf USA helped as well. At this age, Spoon was looking to end his career here at SLU. Because of Fr. Biondi and the lack of real support for the program, he left earlier than he had hoped for and expected which caused him to get back into coaching at UNLV. Romar did exactly what you indicate the Xavier guys did. IMO, unlike Spoon, Romar could not recruit here at SLU and is extremely lucky to have inherited a good team and gotten out of town before the program crashed on the court. Brad rebuilt the program, to a degree, but also did it despite Fr. Biondi and SLU. Brad was an up and coming guy from Wisc, but IMO and with the benefit of hindsight, he already proved he was not the best head coach (Wisc Green Bay) and he certainly would fall into the graveyard category. Which leads us to RM who, b/c of his health and age, I don't see every coaching again elsewhere. In short, our track record is really 50-50. Romar moved on but Brad did not.

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I admit I don't follow the women's program. I do know, however, that Shimmy has been here at SLU in April 2005. SLU was already in the A10 at that time so moving from Conf USA to A10 is no excuse. Also, Chaveitz has been a reality for most of her time -- been open for 2 years and she could show the plans/construction to the recruits before that -- so facilities is really no excuse. No doubt travel and Fr. Biondi's lack of support are present.... Maybe there are other issues, I don't know, but she certainly has had an easier situation than her precedessors.

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Taj. Get your point and somewhat agree. In short, Fr. Biondi has been the absolute worst thing for Billiken basketball. Before him, the adminstration dropped hockey, cut back other sports and was ready to drop basketball to D3 but then were willing to give Grawer one last chance. Fr. Biondi came to SLU in 1987 during the height of what Grawer built before knocking the legs out from under St. Rich with the Craig Upchurch fiasco as well as continuation of his general lack of support for the program. Since then, we have not really hired young coaches who could springboard like X. Grawer is unique situation, a local guy who never coached basketball again, and a family man with alot of young kids to whom he felt he needed to give attention having given his prior 10 years to SLU. Spoon was a great hire for us and, IMO, recruited and won games b/c of his own reputation and despite SLU's reputation and facilities. Conf USA helped as well. At this age, Spoon was looking to end his career here at SLU. Because of Fr. Biondi and the lack of real support for the program, he left earlier than he had hoped for and expected which caused him to get back into coaching at UNLV. Romar did exactly what you indicate the Xavier guys did. IMO, unlike Spoon, Romar could not recruit here at SLU and is extremely lucky to have inherited a good team and gotten out of town before the program crashed on the court. Brad rebuilt the program, to a degree, but also did it despite Fr. Biondi and SLU. Brad was an up and coming guy from Wisc, but IMO and with the benefit of hindsight, he already proved he was not the best head coach (Wisc Green Bay) and he certainly would fall into the graveyard category. Which leads us to RM who, b/c of his health and age, I don't see every coaching again elsewhere. In short, our track record is really 50-50. Romar moved on but Brad did not.

Agree, I always thought Biondi always squandered chances. 2 major ones are:

First chance was with Grawer and Upchurch. No need to expand on that.

Second was in 1998 when Hughes left. That date to me was the end of Billiken Golden Age (the 5 years prior we had 3 NCAA appearances with 2 second rounds and a NIT appearance)and average attendance of 16000+. It was then Biondi should planned the arena. With the team still flying high on popularity and with economy still in the 90's boom SLU could have attracted maybe a 1/2 dozen Chaifetz level donors and built 15,000 seat arena with no problem filling it. Also, given Spoon a RM level raise. He would have probably stayed a few more years and, when he retired, we could have attracted an established successful coach. What happens: Biondi shows no vision and nickel and dimes the program resulting in Spoon saying 'hasta la vista'. This leads to a lost decade of mediocrity which may turn out to be another lost decade.

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