early saturday rambling roy in all lower case, no initials, who couldn’t care less about spelling and grammar errors right before the last game of the

[billiken_roy]

worst Billiken team since 1983

i swear, i had wrote the below prior to pistol doing similar thurday morning in the “negativity” thread. it is amazing how closely we agree, which leads me to think that there are a lot of long time billiken fans that know this past year was a serious, serious fall. bay area, taj, slu72 and i constantly harp on being there (the dark days of ekker) so we have a different perspective than most current newer fans. but i think what this will show you are that seasons like we are currently at the end of really are not the norm. they are few and far between. Now if we expand our thinking to “mediocre” not “worst” well then the number of teams to debate would expand dramatically the billikens have long been aligned with the word “mediocre”. great/memorable teams like we had the first two years that crews was the coach, or romar’s miracle in memphis or spoons three great teams or grawer’s two nit finalist teams are few and too far between:

i had to stop my search for the worst at 1983. i just can’t bring myself to think about the ekker years. those of you in an uproar (myself included) over this season, should have been there for the ekker years. the ekker years were the definition of a train wreck. i have tried to block it from my memory with the exception of watching david burns who remains the best, fastest and most exciting billiken point guard i have ever seen. beyond burns there was nothing good about ekker years. so here forward, when speaking in the negative we can use ekker years as our baseline. i.e. “…….the worst since ekker ran the program.”

so in reverse order the worst billiken teams since ekker ran the program:

5. 2010-2011 majerus - record was 12-19. The year of the situation. the only losing season of any team majerus ever coached. losing mitchell and reed for the year was huge. however, it also forced our freshmen that year to grow up quickly and they later were the heart and soul of three fine years. but even then, the a-10 was down. a very weak conference and we should have done better even with our inexperience and our two best players expelled.

4. 2004-2005 soderberg –record was 9-21. just stupid inexcusable losses. austin peay, eastern michigan, oral roberts, SEMO, east carolina. but did beat marquette and memphis in the then very good cusa. still probably the beginning of the end of soderberg.

3. 1982-1983 grawer – record was 5-23. i somewhat give grawer a pass on this season. it was his first and he had ekker’s players yet. only won 5 games though in the weak midwestern cities league. lost to siu edwardsville but did beat xaiver by 19 points in cincy.

2. 1991-1992 grawer – record was 5-23. final year grawer was our coach. just totally lost control of the team. carlos skinner quit in the middle of the night to go off and finish the season at a d2 school in kentucky somewhere. mcglother Irvin quit the team in the middle of a game. was subbed out by grawer and he just kept walking rather than take a seat on the bench. never won a single conference game in the first year of the old great midwest conference. that said, you could see by the last few games, the talent of claggett and highmark would emerge. They were the jett and mccall of their team and when they got H and donnie dobbs to go with them two years later, they were fantastic.

1. 1996-1997 spoonhour – record was 11-18. team led by sekue barentine. actually the team leaders were jeff harris, jamal walker, corey fraizer and virgil cobbin. but sekue played a lot. which is a horrible statement on the overall talent of the team. sekue could run fast, but anything to do with a ball was challenging for sekue. while i loved jeff harris, jeff harris should be the fifth guy that does the dirty work of rebounding and interior defense and is out of the spotlight, i.e. a role player. however, this team had such a need for talent, he was forced to be our main player. the roster was horrible. just a bunch of wipeout loss scores. lost to siu carbondale by 29 points. lost to umkc by 21 points. vandy beat them by 20. charolotte beat them by 29. marquette won by 21. the season ending loss to cincy was by a margin of 28. yet they also had a number of close losses to decent teams. i.e. this team made you crazy with inconsistency. someone told me yesterday that the team did not average 60 points a game. didn’t surprise me. they just were a horrible team that by year end, a loss didn’t even bother me. the only good thing that year was clinging to the thought that the legend was coming next year. that feeling fo not caring whether we lost or not for me hasn’t occurred again until this past week.

so where will this year’s billikens team fall in the above list. i think it will be amongst the 5 worst teams and knock the majerus situation team off the bottom 5 list. i am leaning to either 1 or 2 but am willing to let these last 2 games play out before committing.

a-10 bracketology

– it now appears that we have only three teams tracking towards the ncaa tourney unless there is a conference tourney surprise. vcu is a 5 or 6 seed, dayton is an 8 or 9 seed, davidson a 10 or 11 seed. nit teams would probably be richmond, rhode island and umass. george washington waited by the phone and never got a call. The rest of the a-10 is enjoying florida spring break.

no last game mention of mike beczkala

my biggest disappointment last night was not another loss (i have come to expect that) or the last goodbye to our seniors, it was the fact that saint louis university did nothing to say their final goodbye to mike beczkala the retiring pep band director. mike basically started our pep band and initially to have the parts covered, mike invited alumni and teachers and friends to play along with slu students. soon that aspect became the unique trademark of the billiken band and quickly grew to one of the biggest and strongest pep band’s in the world. i have had the privilege of knowing mike for over 20 years and have supported his efforts. a few years back when he made a plea to additional alumni to help fill in for the students that would be gone for xmas break, i volunteered. it’s now become a december tradition that i greatly look forward to being a part.

being close to the band was a must when my wife and i picked out our seat location. I just love being near that energy. yesterday when that last minute on the pregame clock was ticking down, the band was blasting out their outstanding version of the bruno mars hit, “ runaway baby” (I have playing that triangle solo on my lifetime bucket list) and it again struck me how great of a band we have the priviledge of listening to each game. there they were putting their soul into that song and making more noise and excitement that a game with saint louis university and st bonaventure ever deserved. And there in the top row playing a trumpet was mike.

Mike Beczkala, here’s to your efforts and your legacy. i hope you enjoy retirement to the nth degree and you and your wife love florida when you take off permanently after the current school year ends.

mike, thanks for your billiken contribution! you've done more to enhance the experience than most realize.

[slu72]

Actually, I missed the Ekker years. This was before the Internet and games being available on the multiple sports networks we have today. I was pretty much limited to just looking at the scores in the paper. I knew we were bad but didn't know the particulars as to why. I was lucky while at SLU since they were the Polk, Wiley, Rogers, Irving years. We were pretty good my last two years, although we had no post season bids. Also, the first years were played in the cavernous arena in front of very sparse crowds. (4 to 5 thousand at the most). Tarheel can feel the pain of those days. It was so much better when we returned to the old Kiel. It should be noted the Blues were the sport du jour in those days and probably hurt the Bills. In fact, those were the salad days for the Bills fledgling hockey program.

I'd agree with B'Roy that this is probably the worst I've seen since the mid 90s. By then the Internet and more TV was coming into play, so info on the team was much more accessible to non STL based fans. The 04-05 season was bad but was due primarily to lack of any talented vets. Still, that team competed, they didn't give up as it appears this year's edition has done. I know others will disagree on the giving up comment, but watching this team over the past few games appears to be a group going thru the motions and totally lost.

I guess we'll learn a lot more in the off season about what's been going on and what our immediate future holds. So, it's kind of fruitless to make any predictions for next season until the dust settles. And, there is always the hope they catch lightning in a bottle in Brooklyn, but I expect it will be a one and done tourney for us.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Roy, I think your fine post accurately describes the state of the program. In my opinion, this is the worst season since the Ekker Era overall. I would list #2 (the worst other than this season) as '91-'92 Grawer, Coach Grawer's last season at SLU. '91-'92 would be my #1 on your list of past seasons.

#2 on your list for me would be your #5, '10-'11, the infamous SLU Situation Year, including the events thereof. That year promised to be an NCAA Tournament season for SLU, which would have yielded the first of 4 in a row, not 3 (the first of which began the following season). Would things have been different in the 4 months of Dec.'12-Mar.'13, when a big decision about SLU's fate was being made elsewhere? Or would that have not counted too?

Bending the ground rules a bit, I'd have to include Ekker's 4th and final year '81-'82 and in breaking it down further, what occurred after 12/30/81 to the end of that season. I don't even want to type out what all happened the last 2+ months of the Ekker Era, my last semester as a SLU undergraduate student. SLU went from 5-2 to finish 6-21.

I was Student Government Associaton (SGA) Student Athletic Committee Chairman my Senior year at SLU, Ekker's last. There was real concern in March '82 that SLU was going to drop out of D-1. So my applicable emotion then was fear, along with embarrassment at the in season events, but primarily fear. We went to the press conference at Busch Center. There was real relief here when the announcement was made that SLU was staying in D-1, but moving (dropping down) from the Metro to the Midwestern City Conference (now Horizon League). I said I wouldn't have gone to SLU had SLU not been a Division 1 school. There were other options.

Turning to this season, in the last 2 games, George Mason and St. Bonaventure, I have felt emotions I have never felt before in following the SLU team closely since 1978, namely numbness and hopelessness. Those are different than the fear of '82.

[brianstl]

By all the computer ratings systems this is the worst team since the beginning of the Grawer era.

[Bay Area Billiken]

There were some good players during the Ekker Era. Roy mentions David Burns, the super fast guard. SLU's Slogan in '80-'81 was Billiken Basketball Burns 'Em. Burns was a JUCO who played at SLU in Ekker Years 2 and 3, '79-'80 and '80-'81.

Another JUCO, 6'7" Center Kelvin Henderson deserves mention. Kelvin Henderson played at SLU during Ekker Years 1 and 2, '78-'79 and '79-'80.

Burns was drafted by the NBA and played a few NBA games. But other than that, I do not know what ultimately happened to either one of them, where they are, etc. And they were SLU's 2 best players of the Ekker Era.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Actually, I missed the Ekker years. This was before the Internet and games being available on the multiple sports networks we have today. I was pretty much limited to just looking at the scores in the paper. I knew we were bad but didn't know the particulars as to why. I was lucky while at SLU since they were the Polk, Wiley, Rogers, Irving years. We were pretty good my last two years, although we had no post season bids. Also, the first years were played in the cavernous arena in front of very sparse crowds. (4 to 5 thousand at the most). Tarheel can feel the pain of those days. It was so much better when we returned to the old Kiel. It should be noted the Blues were the sport du jour in those days and probably hurt the Bills. In fact, those were the salad days for the Bills fledgling hockey program.

I'd agree with B'Roy that this is probably the worst I've seen since the mid 90s. By then the Internet and more TV was coming into play, so info on the team was much more accessible to non STL based fans. The 04-05 season was bad but was due primarily to lack of any talented vets. Still, that team competed, they didn't give up as it appears this year's edition has done. I know others will disagree on the giving up comment, but watching this team over the past few games appears to be a group going thru the motions and totally lost.

I guess we'll learn a lot more in the off season about what's been going on and what our immediate future holds. So, it's kind of fruitless to make any predictions for next season until the dust settles. And, there is always the hope they catch lightning in a bottle in Brooklyn, but I expect it will be a one and done tourney for us.

My infamous pre-internet story was my first SLU season after I had moved to California, 1986. I picked up the Sports Page of the San Francisco Examiner, then San Francisco's afternoon paper, to see how how the Billikens had done the night before against Butler (yes, that name again). The score was among the many listed nationally, in the Midwest sub-section: St. Louis 60 Butler 55. Indeed! For the next 2 weeks or so, I thought SLU had won the game. Then I somehow learned that the SF Examiner had the score reversed, and that SLU had actually lost the game by the same score!

Those were the pre-internet days.

[TheOldie]

Roy, I think your fine post accurately describes the state of the program. In my opinion, this is the worst season since the Ekker Era overall. I would list #2 (the worst other than this season) as '91-'92 Grawer, Coach Grawer's last season at SLU. '91-'92 would be my #1 on your list of past seasons.

#2 on your list for me would be your #5, '10-'11, the infamous SLU Situation Year, including the events thereof. That year promised to be an NCAA Tournament season for SLU, which would have yielded the first of 4 in a row, not 3 (the first of which began the following season). Would things have been different in the 4 months of Dec.'12-Mar.'13, when a big decision about SLU's fate was being made elsewhere? Or would that have not counted too?

Bending the ground rules a bit, I'd have to include Ekker's 4th and final year '81-'82 and in breaking it down further, what occurred after 12/30/81 to the end of that season. I don't even want to type out what all happened the last 2+ months of the Ekker Era, my last semester as a SLU undergraduate student. SLU went from 5-2 to finish 6-21.

I was Student Government Associaton (SGA) Student Athletic Committee Chairman my Senior year at SLU, Ekker's last. There was real concern in March '82 that SLU was going to drop out of D-1. So my applicable emotion then was fear, along with embarrassment at the in season events, but primarily fear. We went to the press conference at Busch Center. There was real relief here when the announcement was made that SLU was staying in D-1, but moving (dropping down) from the Metro to the Midwestern City Conference (now Horizon League). I said I wouldn't have gone to SLU had SLU not been a Division 1 school. There were other options.

Turning to this season, in the last 2 games, George Mason and St. Bonaventure, I have felt emotions I have never felt before in following the SLU team closely since 1978, namely numbness and hopelessness. Those are different than the fear of '82.

Worse season since Ron Coleman's one and done, which, gave rise to Ekker

[Bay Area Billiken]

Oldie, I was a high school Senior that Ron Coleman Year ('77-'78) and actually was present for one of SLU's 7 wins (7-20) that season, a Saturday night win over Tulane at Old Kiel Auditorium, when I was visiting SLU. That SLU team had some good players, Metro Conference Freshman of the Year Ricky Frazier, a 6'6' forward, fellow freshman Mark Alcorn, a guard from DeSmet, and Senior Forward Carl Johnson, who reminded me of the old White Sox OF, Walt "No Neck" Williams, except a 6'5" or so version thereof. That team also pulled off a near miracle at Marquette, which was one year removed from winning the National Championship, suffering a close, low scoring, loss. I remember listening to that game in Quincy on KMOX Radio, with Bob Costas on the play by play.

My memories of that Tulane game included Marc Fletcher of Collinsville and son of the legendary Collinsville Coach Vergil Fletcher playing for Tulane. And I really liked the then SLU Jazz Band playing "Three Blind Mice" when the refs made bad calls. Could you imagine how many times the current SLU Pep Band could play "Three Blind Mice" with these A10 refs?

Of course, Ricky Frazier and Mark Alcorn were both gone after their freshman years, Frazier to Mizzou and Alcorn to LSU.