John Manning

[Box and Won]

Anyone who interpreted my post as an expectation for JM (John Manning) to turn into Jeff Withey, please turn your login over to Steve and never come back. The point was as follows: my hope is his progression would follow a path similar to Withey's (marked improvement each of his junior and senior seasons when he begins to play legitimate minutes) rather than CH (Chris Heinrich)'s (essentially no improvement other than being on the floor a few more minutes per game in his junior and senior years).

NO, HE NEEDS TO BECOME WITHEY!!!!

People are being way too hard on JM. He's a work in progress. Let's see how he looks at the end of this season before writing him off.

[Billikenswin]

" I agree they would not have been been ahead of mitchell, mccall, jett, evans ellis, and 4th year conklin in deserved minutes played. again. The top of the rotation was/is wonderful. But that ends at about the 7 man mark the last couple of years."

Your quote here is pretty interesting. The Billikens have developed a team that was very solid, maybe the best in the modern history of the men's bb team, with wonderful players from 1-7 in the rotation. In my mind, that quote alone demonstrates that we have made huge strides in recruiting and developing players. Not many teams in the country, not at the top of the food chain in recruiting and name recognition, can make that statement about the team and the players. Adding some new and apparantly skilled and tough players to the mix in recruiting, and a big man with a lot of potential, means we have the potential to keep things moving forward. I really don't understand why some folks cannot see the postives and let a player like Manning, who has yet to get a real chance to prove himself, develop and keep trying to improve. For those who have such warm memories of Chris H, I would point out that my memory is that I was incredibly frustrated and going crazy with all of his missed easy shots and mistakes and dumb fouls during the first 2 and one half years of his time with the Bills. Then late in his junior year and during his senior year he seemed to "get it" and he was a tough inside force, particularly on defense. Why not give Manning a chance to develop?

[b.hayes]

Sophomore versions of meyer and sloan were better than glaze, loe, reneken, and barnett. I agree they would not have been been ahead of mitchell, mccall, jett, evans ellis, and 4th year conklin in deserved minutes played. again. The top of the rotation was/is wonderful. But that ends at about the 7 man mark the last couple of years.

Season GP MPG PPG FG% 3FG% FT% APG RPG BPG SPG

2005-06 25 17.0 3.9 32.7 23.3 82.8 0.8 2.4 0.1 0.3

That is sophomore LM (Luke Meyer)'s stat line. 3.9 PPG, 2.4 rpg, 32.7% FG%, 23.3% 3FG%. You really think that's better than Glaze, Loe, Remekun and Barnett??

Also, if you're going to be such a proponent of spelling out the players' names, have a little respect and take the time to spell them correctly. It's lazy not to.

[ACE]

Sophomore versions of meyer and sloan were better than glaze, loe, reneken, and barnett. I agree they would not have been been ahead of mitchell, mccall, jett, evans ellis, and 4th year conklin in deserved minutes played. again. The top of the rotation was/is wonderful. But that ends at about the 7 man mark the last couple of years.

Wow! Even better than Loe?

Sloan averaged 1 ppg as a freshman and followed it up with 3 ppg as a sophomore... this while playing on mediocre squads. Yet, somehow we are to believe that he could have cracked the rotation for the 16th ranked team in the country?

[b.hayes]

Wow! Even better than Loe?

Just for more info, here are CS (Chris Sloan)'s sophomore year stats:

Season GP MPG PPG FG% 3FG% FT% APG RPG BPG SPG

2001-02 31 20.2 3.7 42.7 12.5 60.9 1.0 3.2 0.3 1.2

20.2 minutes per game, 3.7 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 1.2 spg, 42.7% FG%,

[b.hayes]

Essentially the only things LM (Luke Meyer) and (CS) Chris Sloan were better at as sophomores than GG (Grandy Glaze), RL (Rob Loe), JB (Jake Barnett), CR (Cory Remekun) and 2nd year BC (2nd year Brian Conklin) were getting on the floor and passing to their higher-skilled teammates.

[jimbofive]

Essentially the only things LM (Luke Meyer) and (CS) Chris Sloan were better at as sophomores than GG (Grandy Glaze), RL (Rob Loe), JB (Jake Barnett), CR (Cory Remekun) and 2nd year BC (2nd year Brian Conklin) were getting on the floor and passing to their higher-skilled teammates.

fixed it for you.

[b.hayes]

fixed it for you.

nirringrazzjak

[jimbofive]

nirringrazzjak

ha! i learned my one thing today. party. bonus.

nirringrazzjak.

[cheeseman]

If you can not talk about players who are not in the rotation then this will make for a limited discussion board. Maybe the reason they are not in the rotation is worth of discussion

[MB73]

I will get crucified, but beyond our guards and 4th year conklin, ellis and evans. Dont count me in the believers of a great deep roster in the last two years. Our success was all about our three high quality guards, evans, ellis and 4th year Conklin.

nirringrazzjak?

Xbала!

Roy, you say, we have not been "deep" the last 2 years?

I say, we have had a deep roster, and that our deep bigs have been the key to our success. Sure, Mitchell, McCall, and Jett were superb. But guards are easy.

We've had 5 legit, diverse bigs to rotate and wear the other teams down, take fouls, give the quality bigs some rest, etc, finally, after all of these years.

Sure the six players you cite were the core stars, but especially Loe, then Remekun and Glaze all contributed, and Barnett (a "3") last year, too.

When you have all these bigs, it makes the guards look better, to boot.

Majerus understood this, we used to be DONE when "V" got his 3rd foul.

[Clock_Tower]

Taj.

To answer your question, I say it is fair to judge JM after 4 or 5 regular season games this year. League games are way different than OOC games which can be misleading.

Yes, I am one of those who preach that big men take longer to develop, etc. but the college game is limited to 4 years. If a kid cannot contribute for 2 of his 4 years, then his college career would generally be disappointing. Does a player need to be a star for his 2 of 4 years? No. Is it expected that a kid's SR year should be his best? Sure. But 1 good year out of 4 is not good for the program.

As to my opinions I frankly did not expect a lot from JM these past 2 years due to his inexperience, his relative lack of strength, etc. This year, I do expect solid play from him as our back-up center. Not if, but when RL gets in early foul trouble and/or during a close game, we will need JM - big time. His first 2 years were to get him to this point. Now its time to shine --- and I think he will.

[Box and Won]

Major props to B. Hayes for being the first person here to incorporate an Excel spreadsheet in a post. I consider this a major milestone for Billikens.com. #theceilingcantholdus

[RiseAndGrind]

Major props to B. Hayes for being the first person here to incorporate an Excel spreadsheet in a post. I consider this a major milestone for Billikens.com. #theceilingcantholdus

It's obviously not busy season. The guy is crunching more numbers on Billikens.com than at work.

[ACE]

Just for more info, here are CS (Chris Sloan)'s sophomore year stats:

Season GP MPG PPG FG% 3FG% FT% APG RPG BPG SPG

2001-02 31 20.2 3.7 42.7 12.5 60.9 1.0 3.2 0.3 1.2

20.2 minutes per game, 3.7 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 1.2 spg, 42.7% FG%,

Yep, pretty clear that the sophomore versions of Sloan and Meyer wouldn't have even seen the floor if they were playing on the Bills the last two years. Heck, Grandy put up nearly identical numbers as the sophomore version of Sloan in 8 fewer minutes per game.

[GOSLU68]

Sloan was a nice player once he found a way to stop playing like a high school center; I mean that as a compliment that is a tough transition to make and his basketball skills were pretty good by senior year

[Bobby Metzinger]

Sloan was a nice player once he found a way to stop playing like a high school center; I mean that as a compliment that is a tough transition to make and his basketball skills were pretty good by senior year

I'm pretty sure college is four years. If we wanted a flash in the pan, why not just recruit guys with a 5th year of eligibility who are enrolled as graduate students? Weak argument.

[cheeseman]

Using the argument that players should not really be expected to contribute until their junior year would mean you would have half your team potentially being bench warmers. You could not survive that way. You do need your underclassmen to be good enough to produce at a reasonable level.

[kshoe]

Using the argument that players should not really be expected to contribute until their junior year would mean you would have half your team potentially being bench warmers. You could not survive that way. You do need your underclassmen to be good enough to produce at a reasonable level.

Agree to an extent. If you always have a full roster of 13, you could have 4 bench warmers and be perfectly fine. With 3-4 players that aren't needed, that could be your freshman class every year. It never works out that perfectly but its certainly not a problem if you have a few players in the program that only produce meaningfully their junior and senior years.

[BACKHANDtheRICAN]

Unwarranted? He's soft and timid. Husak at least tried to attack the basket. You must not be watching the same game. How are they "personal" when all I know about the kid is from his appearances on the basketball court. I haven't said anything about him personally. I'm sure he's a great person and all, but we're not here to talk about that. What he does off-the-court is none of my concern, but he hasn't shown me much on the court.

Mods - Please place a temporary ban on Metz for his repeated personal attacks on JM

[cheeseman]

Agree to an extent. If you always have a full roster of 13, you could have 4 bench warmers and be perfectly fine. With 3-4 players that aren't needed, that could be your freshman class every year. It never works out that perfectly but its certainly not a problem if you have a few players in the program that only produce meaningfully their junior and senior years.

We are not disagreeing - my point simply was that some underclassmen have to provide some meaningful production if only when the upperclassmen need a breather or get in foul trouble therefore, we can not let all the underclassmen off the hook until their junior year. Of course all this takes into account that you have an even distribution of schollies each year (4-3-3-3) and that is not always the case. If the schollies are unevenly distributed then you have a bigger mess to deal with if the underclassmen do not contribute. If there are injuries or redshirts that even adds to the need for underclassmen to be able to contribute. Our last two years have been the exception with our underclassmen schollies being out of balance but as Is said before, eventually you have to pay the piper.

[GOSLU68]

although i would like to see JM in the ball game at the same time as RL; I also expect that some of his minutes will come when RL needs a breather. Ellis was used quite well not starting the game and came in as the others were starting to take a blow from the first few minutes of all out war trying to control the ball after opening tip. It made him seem a little faster than he really was and somehow he came in with an edge.

this team needs all six foot 10 or 11 of Manning to show up and if he does we get a true back to the basket center with three point and hooks from either hand capability. The little action he has seen is like the hurried minutes JB had his first year with us trying to prove you fit in with three minutes of play until you get pulled is the equivalent of being a pinch hitter in baseball who sits at the end of the bench game after game and is expected to keep his own skills sharp so he can deliver a big blow in a crucial moment and bat over .300.

That is rare air.

I like what I see in Manning and with his height and speed to recover down the floor I would hope the coaches give him lots of OOC game time. I suspect most of CR's better games were first semester although I know he he had decent moments in league he had to be close to the eighth man in the A10 and NCAA tournaments. At least that is the way I remember it.

P.S. Metz seems to be back to his old ways I guess he will be rooting for someone else if the Bills drop off after this year.

[JMM28]

We are not disagreeing - my point simply was that some underclassmen have to provide some meaningful production if only when the upperclassmen need a breather or get in foul trouble therefore, we can not let all the underclassmen off the hook until their junior year. Of course all this takes into account that you have an even distribution of schollies each year (4-3-3-3) and that is not always the case. If the schollies are unevenly distributed then you have a bigger mess to deal with if the underclassmen do not contribute. If there are injuries or redshirts that even adds to the need for underclassmen to be able to contribute. Our last two years have been the exception with our underclassmen schollies being out of balance but as Is said before, eventually you have to pay the piper.

I don't think it is out of the question for one of the freshmen to contribute this year. I also expect Austin McBroom (an underclassmen) to contribute as well. The 2 and 3 position is the easiest spot to come in and contribute right away to start a season.

The level of 6'10-7' center type that SLU is recruiting will take time to develop. That could be 2 or 3 years. If Manning is contributing at the start of this season, I will be very pleased with his development.

[Clock_Tower]

We are not disagreeing - my point simply was that some underclassmen have to provide some meaningful production if only when the upperclassmen need a breather or get in foul trouble therefore, we can not let all the underclassmen off the hook until their junior year. Of course all this takes into account that you have an even distribution of schollies each year (4-3-3-3) and that is not always the case. If the schollies are unevenly distributed then you have a bigger mess to deal with if the underclassmen do not contribute. If there are injuries or redshirts that even adds to the need for underclassmen to be able to contribute. Our last two years have been the exception with our underclassmen schollies being out of balance but as Is said before, eventually you have to pay the piper.

Agreed. In theory, a team could have 13 players with 1 redshirting each year to then leave 12 active players. Of this group of 12, 6 could be upperclassmen (JRs and SRs) carrying most of the load with the other 6 being Frosh and Sophs waiting in the wings for their chance to shine while they develop their game. Of course, this is not reality as there will usually be 1 to 2 players who just don't turn out to be good and contributing college players (even as JRs and SRs) and therefore the team will need to rely upon the Frosh and Sophs. Same can be said if injury occurs to the upperclassmen or if guys leave due to NBA ....

[TheChosenOne]

Sloan was a nice player once he found a way to stop playing like a high school center; I mean that as a compliment that is a tough transition to make and his basketball skills were pretty good by senior year

Sloan played the 4 out of necessity, he always wanted to play as more of a true guard. He would get fustrated at practice having to go through all of the big man drills when he felt more natural as a guard. I think his ability gets overlooked since he had to play out of position so much.