SaintLouisAlum Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Considering that SLU Baseball is horrible this season, even by our pedestrian standards, MU should be humiliated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesycow Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 I wouldn't sell the billikens baseball team short. I'm not in the know, but aren't they hindered by a horrible coach? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoat Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Absolutely not. Coach Hughes is hardly horrible. What you need to learn about SLU baseball is that for us to get players to sign away from the bigger baseball schools in the area (SMS, SEMO, Mizzou) is next to impossible with our funding, facilities and overall history of the baseball program. Basically we can only offer I think somewhere in the neighborhood of scholarships for 1/3 of the team. Not exactly sure on that #, but we had this discussion earlier this year. Now, I will grant you we have had some exceptional players in the past who have had cups of coffee in the minors and it seems as if this year would be exciting with all the newer guys that were brought in (including assistant coaches) but for whatever reason, it just hasn't come together. Seems like heart and will can only take you so far in a game that requires such a high level of talent to be consistenly good at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiken Law Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 You are right - Coach Hughes does the best he can do with the situation he has in terms of facilities, funding, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tseugnekillib Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 SLU and Missouri can give the same number of baseball scholarships, as limited by the NCAA. For example, let's say a total of only 10 scholarships can be divided among the 20 team members. The key difference is in the school's tuition cost. If each of the 20 players at Missouri get a half athletic scholarship, Dad has to pay the other half or it has to come from some academic scholarship award. If a state school's tuition cost is $12,000 annually Dad pops for the $6,000 or hopes his kid is a true scholar-athlete. If SLU has the same 20 players and SLU's tuition cost is $30,000 annually, the Dad has to pop for $15,000 or hope his kid is a true scholar-athlete. SLU's baseball has won the C-USA baseball academic award several times in the past eight years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesycow Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 I thought I recalled a conversation on this board a while back about an incompetent baseball coach. maybe I was thinking about softball? In any case, I apologize for my ignorance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoat Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Well, Coach Hughes has caught some flak in the past, but undeservedly. Coach Malloy, the softball coach, has been a little nutty in the past, and some think his methods are a little strange, but no matter what sport you are talking about at SLU, if you are not Mens Basketball or any of the soccer programs, then you are gonna have trouble with funding, fan attendence, and losing better players to cheaper schools. Those are just the facts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheesycow Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 I've always thought the SLU soccer team to be the most succesful of the SLU teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 bobby hughes has forgotten more about baseball the all of us combined know. he is tremendously hampered in recruiting by a combination of available scholarships and costs to attend slu. i.e. the average cost of tuition of housing combined with having to mainly survive on walkons and partial scholarships makes it essential that he take the kid that excels more in the classroom than on the diamond. couple that with the southern schools have the preferred weather, conference usa is one mean baseball conference to compete in. many times he heads to a houston or a southern miss and might have one pitcher that can maybe match up with one of 5 that the cougars and golden eagles might have. after that it is batting practice. add to those two schools, south florida, tulane, uab, memphis,.....no the "nascar league" is tough to compete in. i think the a-10 will actually help most of our other sports become better recordwise immediately. conference usa is too tough in the non-revenue sports. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 amazingly soccer only has like 9 or 10 scholarships available each year as well. considering he carries like 20 players on the soccer team, i think the fact our soccer team is as good as it is every single season is amazing. donnigan is a god. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoat Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Thats what I was saying, soccer IS one of the exceptions both mens and womens and especially mens. Truth is that Mens basketball, men soccer and womens soccer, are the only money making sports at SLU. Now, that is not a cut on the rest of the sports, but it is just the truth. So, if you are not playing one of those sports, then your team can expect to have less funding, less opportunity to succeed b/c of less funding and overall less exposure, I mean how many of us on here talk about the Field Hockey team(although they did just recently do quite excellently at a tournament in Indiana). I don't like it, but that is the way it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoat Posted April 8, 2004 Share Posted April 8, 2004 Agreed BRoy. There are many sports that are going to benefit from the move to the A-10------> Baseball, Softball, Field Hockey, Basketball(M&W). However, sports like Soccer I'm afraid are really going to have to up their non-conference schedule to be able to compete in my opinion. We had a pretty nice situation with Mens soccer in CUSA with lots of challenging teams, now I feel that it will just be that much easier to walk to the conference championship in upcoming years b/c of the lack of competition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
courtside Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 Let's be fair about Danny Donigan...of whom I am a big fan. He has more budget, and a full time paid assistant coach and a good one...Joe Clarke had similar success with much less to work with. Winning a title would put Donigan over the top. Not easy to do with some great teams to compete against. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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