Majerus is stepping down

[cu05slu08]

FUOK THAT FUOKING COCKSUOKER. I hope Rick gets better soon, completely aside from basketball, and I hope for peace for Megan Boken and her family, but this, coupled with her murder, in addition to the law school fiasco, on the heels of anheuser-busch going down and the city going to hell in a hand basket in general, makes me now think my degree is worth FUOK ALL. I don't think I'm alone in that regard. I don't think it matters so much these days, but I'd always secretly hoped that we'd close the gap and people wouldn't just say "oh." when I said I didn't go to Wash U.

I want Biondi gone ASAP. In the past 5 years he's run off a quality, committed AD, basketball coach, and a dean. Who knows who else? He had his day, but he's a crotchety old arrogant fuoking PRICK and I'm sick of him. Oh. He ran off Father Doody, too.

Put that bastard out to pasture. I don't see how anyone in a position to oust him doesn't see that his ship had sailed.

First post. I couldn't agree more. The last month at SLU has been horrendous. As a law grad, I vote no confidence for Father Biondi and for our new law dean: http://molawyersmedi...ondis-butt-boy/ Pathetic!!! We surrendered a MD, JD for this? Her resignation letters ring more true as the days pass...

Striving to be the finest Jesuit university? Perhaps a Jesuit should be running our university, first.

[slu72]

Jeez, what an item to wake up to. First, let's just all wish RM a quick, speedy and full recovery. BB is one thing, but let's hope he comes out of this to live a long and healthy life whether he ever steps foot on a court again. I have no thoughts on why Crews was picked over Whitesell, except he's been successful, so let's get behind him and hope the Booby traits are gone. My concern is game planning first, and this year's recruiting second. But really what I'm hoping for is we don't return to, "damn, it's hard being a Billiken fan." Get well, RM.

[Bobby Metzinger]

Who replaces Crews on our bench as an assistant? Unless Conklin has a gig lined up, I say we bring him on as another grad-assistant, unless NCAA rules only allow for one. Or Luke Meyer - both of those guys would make great coaches.

[Box and Won]

FUOK THAT FUOKING COCKSUOKER. I hope Rick gets better soon, completely aside from basketball, and I hope for peace for Megan Boken and her family, but this, coupled with her murder, in addition to the law school fiasco, on the heels of anheuser-busch going down and the city going to hell in a hand basket in general, makes me now think my degree is worth FUOK ALL. I don't think I'm alone in that regard. I don't think it matters so much these days, but I'd always secretly hoped that we'd close the gap and people wouldn't just say "oh." when I said I didn't go to Wash U.

I want Biondi gone ASAP. In the past 5 years he's run off a quality, committed AD, basketball coach, and a dean. Who knows who else? He had his day, but he's a crotchety old arrogant fuoking PRICK and I'm sick of him. Oh. He ran off Father Doody, too.

Put that bastard out to pasture. I don't see how anyone in a position to oust him doesn't see that his ship had sailed.

This.

These last few weeks have been brutal for our alma mater.

[slufan13]

Crews has done recruiting this past year and he also has been in constant contact with the team. I know both of those things to be facts.

[slufan13]

Majerus is a great coach, but we all knew he didn't have a ton of time left in the program. As much as I love Rick, I think we should go out and have a coach ready to hire. You can't have that kind of uncertainty with recruiting and with the current players. I think Drew and Carter are both very very promising players, so I really hope we can get them to stick around. These next 2 years are obviously huge in recruiting. We may lose out on a couple recruits even if we do hire a new coach soon, but the last thing we can afford is to lose current players.

Still Sweet Sixteen bound in my opinion. At least Sweet Sixteen. The players will still get it done and Majerus has missed plenty of practices and games before. It'll be tough without the master tacitician on the sidelines, but this team is too talented and too dedicated to let this ruin the season.

[TheOldie]

Crews will fill in quite well. At the end of the year banquet, he replaced RM as the keynote speaker due to fact that RM was absent. Crews made a very good impression at this event

[AMDG]

So I was hoping this was a nightmare brought on by too much bourbon last night. This sucks.

[bbtds]

About Jim Crews. He was head coach of the University of Evansville Purple Aces from 1985-86 to 2001-02, 17 years. It was in December 1977 that the whole team at Evansville was killed in a DC-3 plane crash when taking off from Evansville's Regional Airport. The Vietnamese/American pilot by the name of Pham had forgotten to remove the blocks on the flaps (sorry can't remember the official name). These blocks are put in when there is freezing weather so the flaps don't freeze shut. The plane was doomed as soon as they took off because there was no way to get any lift and the plane crashed into a hillside. I used to work with a guy in Indy who was a student at UE in 1977. We were driving that night in a thick fog that made it really hard to see, from Valpo to St.Louis. I was 16 and had gotten my drivers license that year and was helping the family drive to my grandmother's funeral. The fog was so thick that night that driving was much slower than usual and everyone had to take a shift. It was near Effingham, IL when I was driving and was getting ready to switch out drivers that we heard the announcement on the radio (probably KMOX) that the whole UE basketball team was killed. At the time Evansville had just left the conference (Indiana Collegiate Conference) that Butler, Valpo, DePauw, Wabash, St Joe and Indiana Central played in at the time. So we had been somewhat familiar with their coaches and team. That is one night I will never forget.

The other thing was that Valpo was supposed to fly on the same charter plane service that Evansville used but cancelled the plane because the AD thought it was too dangerous (and probably a lot cheaper). Valpo went by bus. The weather had been snowy in Valpo that day so it was worse than in Evansville.

Anyway, when Jim Crews took over the UE head coaching job they hadn't had much success since the team started over. Jim had taken over a program that before the tragedy had been very successful and won a few "college division" national championships in the 50's and 60's. They were starved for a winning season. It only took Jim Crews, who had played on Indiana's 1976 undefeated national championship team (with Quinn Buckner, Kent Benson, etc.), two years to turn Evansville back into a winner. By 1988-89 UE was 25-6. If there is a guy who is good at handling a team in a stressful situation it is Jim Crews.

[TheOldie]

Great post.

[billiken_roy]

crews was also fired from army for abuse and cruelty of his players. my gosh, cadets. really. the guys that over the summer eat sand and bugs and dont sleep or bath for weeks at a time. the same guys that will go on to be rangers and lead our soldiers day in and day out. he was too tough for them. yeah, let's make him the coach.

[Taj79]

Crews is a dinosaur. Just like Majerus. Ony Majerus has hall-of-fame numbers that create more slack for him than for Crews. Whitesell is old enough to be a dinosaur. How he relates to today's brand of ballplayer, I don't know. Maybe they do,maybe they don't. All I can say right now is I don't think I want either leading us onward and upward. We lost the one thing that made any difference over the last few years, the one item that raised us above the low mid-major programs, and that was "playing for Rick Majerus." What other reason would kids come here from the Down Under? What other reason would Keith Carter and John Manning leave Chicago and Virginia respectively? Chris heinrich and Justin Love enrolled to "play with Larry Hughes." There hasto be a hook, and for SLU to stand on itrs own, well there is none. No tradition. No history. No nothing. Majerus might have been one of those once-in-a-lifetime coups -- doing what he loves, resurrecting a corpse of a program, cementing his legacy, lore and place in the game. I still recall thinking "no fouking way" when the announcement came down and Soderberg was shown the door. Like itor not, I believe we've lost the one special plank in our platformthat gave us a chance. Only time will tell.

Much like a recruit has to ask "what's in it for me" I think a coach will ask the same. I have said SLU is a place coaches come to die, not advance and move on. I meant that figuratively despite Rick's current and obviously serious condition. Despie the morbidness of the comment, the fact still rings true. As somehave noted, we allknew rickhadonly somkuch gas left in the tank and this day was coming. I had hoped he could ride off into his chosen sunset and left us with a legacy of wins and sustainability with a successor in place to step up and continue on. I was willing to trade Rick an enduring legend and place in history for an ongoin, relevant program.

I don't think Jim Crews is it.

[cheeseman]

This idea that SLU is a place where coaches go to die - is just silly. We have had very good coaches who have moved on to decent jobs that were upgrades. Romar - Washington, Bennington Mich State, Spoon - UNLV to name a few - the others were victims of Biondi looking for a cheap hire and not willing to invest in the program. It has been shown that when Biondi lets adequate money flow to the program then it can succeed. My concern through all this is the whole SLU mess in general - that how do you get anybody of quality to come and stay if Biondi is always throwing his weight around - really, if he is not pissing on somebody he just does not seem happy. At this point he needs to retire and let the University find someone else who is not living in the 1970s.

[Box and Won]

I was out for a run through the Shaw neighborhood this morning and noticed the famous "SLUperman" Majerus poster hanging in the front window of a two-family. Brought a smile to my face.