slufan13 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Outside of Cheaney, none of our staff brings anything significant to the table.... Serious question...What does Cheaney bring? So far in his time here, we've struck out on all of our top targets (Not just Tatum) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMDG Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 I hope he wins as many titles at Dookie as he has at Chompyourrod. F this kid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 I bet Tatum commits to SLU if we were in the big east. He was never going to play in the A-10 the way it's currently constructed. It wouldn't have hurt. Still, I think it came down to the elite status of Duke and Coach K. If you're a genius protege in Math you'd likely select MIT or an Ivy over just about any other school. Think the same applies for most 5 star athletes. The elites like to be with the elites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMDG Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 And Crews has got to go. After not really doing anything with RM's kids except letting Jordair single handedly win a handful of games and quietly bow out of the tournament on the first weekend, and that abortion of a season last year, he needed to land Tatum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Well McBroom got minutes.... For awhile he did. But he also was the best option on a very thin bench. The thin bench was mostly Rick's fault. Manning, Glaze, and Mr. Selfie. Not much there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star_recruit Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Serious question...What does Cheaney bring? So far in his time here, we've struck out on all of our top targets (Not just Tatum) . Cheaney is one of the greatest players in the history of Indiana college basketball. The 2017 and 2018 classes are loaded in Indiana. The staff has been tracking the 2017 class for a couple of years now. They've targeted Ra Kpedi, Zach Gunn, and Cooper Neese for a reason. Those are guys who project as eventual starters at the A-10 level, however, they aren't sexy recruits who would be a priority for Big Ten teams. Gunn got an early offer from Indiana. He can play. Just an average athlete, though. Crean has offered a ton of players at Gunn's position so I'm not sure the offer is still good. If we can't build a pipeline to Indiana, then the Cheaney hire isn't worth the return on investment. We won't know the answer to that question for at least another year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Serious question...What does Cheaney bring? So far in his time here, we've struck out on all of our top targets (Not just Tatum) I don't get the constant Cheaney love from some. That said Cheaney and Bronson (saw he was taking heat too) are not to blame. It ultimately falls on the head coach to close the deal on the recruits we lost out on. The assistants get you in the door and build the relationship. We actually have had some success getting our main targets on campus to visit. In that respect, the assistants are doing their job. We just have not been able to close the deal and that is on Crews. Who was the last top 100 recruit Jim Crews landed? The guy has been a head coach for 27 seasons and the next top 100 player he signs will be his first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufan13 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Cheaney is one of the greatest players in the history of Indiana college basketball. The 2017 and 2018 classes are loaded in Indiana. The staff has been tracking the 2017 class for a couple of years now. They've targeted Ra Kpedi, Zach Gunn, and Cooper Neese for a reasion. Those are guys who project as eventual starters at the A-10 level, however, they aren't sexy recruits who would be a priority for Big Ten teams. Gunn got an early offer from Indiana. He can play. Just an average athlete, though. Crean has offered a ton of players at Gunn's position so I'm not sure the offer is still good. If we can't build a pipeline to Indiana, then the Cheaney hire isn't worth the return on investment. We won't know the answer to that question for at least another year. Fair enough. I really like Gunn and Neese. I'm just tired of idea that Cheaney is the only guy contributing to the staff right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Chitwood Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Good God people. Come off the ledge. I seriously doubt anyone here would pass up an opportunity to play at Duke and a chance for a national championship if you were only going to play college hoops for one season. This program did not get an increase in blue chip recruits when Hughes came nor would we if Tatum had come. People would have complained if they did not recruit Tatum just like they are now that they spent too much time on a kid who never was planning on coming to SLU anyway. The program is not in the toilet nor is this the death of the program. We played primarily freshman and sophomores last year. We are not Kentucky. Our freshman cannot come in and dominate from day one like Kentucky. Anyone who thinks Crews should have been dismissed after last season should not follow college basketball any longer. However, this is a big season from Crews. THe team has to improve or that seat will become hot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 The program is not in the toilet nor is this the death of the program. We played primarily freshman and sophomores last year. We are not Kentucky. Our freshman cannot come in and dominate from day one like Kentucky. So did a handful of other teams that beat us last year. Youth is not an excuse. Other young teams were simply better than our young team. Unless our players experience a dramatically higher improvement curve than other teams' players - something that hasn't happened under Crews yet - I'd expect more of the same this coming season. Not *quite* as bad, but still bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billboy1 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Real rub is that it did not seem the players improved a lot as the season went on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe_davola Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 So did a handful of other teams that beat us last year. Youth is not an excuse. Other young teams were simply better than our young team. Unless our players experience a dramatically higher improvement curve than other teams' players - something that hasn't happened under Crews yet - I'd expect more of the same this coming season. Not *quite* as bad, but still bad. I still have faith that this team can get a lot better. At least I hope so anyways. I know we all want to make the tourney in 2016, but I don't think anyone is realistically saying we are. If we can compete and get some big wins this year, Crews may have one more year to prove he can make the tourney with this class as juniors. If their record is the same this year as it was last, he's toast and I would stand behind that decision. This year is do or die. Fringe NIT team will most likely buy him another year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Real rub is that it did not seem the players improved a lot as the season went on The team got worse as the season went along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 One idea I want to address that I see gaining steam here since Tatum's decision is that Crews and his staff wasted their time, energy, and resources in recruiting Jayson Tatum until the bitter end. This is utterly false. There's a dumb narrative growing from clueless "experts" who don't really know any more about his recruitment than the people who read this board regularly. It's that Duke has been the favorite for a year or more, and that he was just stringing SLU (and some others, I guess) along this whole time. Think about what that would take: a 16-year-old kid, his parents, his grandparents, his coaches, his teammates, his friends, and anyone else who enters his orbit in a close way to all keep perfect poker faces despite constant media attention and intense scrutiny from fans and media alike. It's just not possible. There is no conspiracy. This storyline has emerged because it enhances the current Coach K narrative that the college basketball media is selling: that Coach K is outsmarting every other coach at their own games. He's out-Caling Calipari. Out-Pitinoing Pitino. And so forth. He's evolving faster than college basketball itself. And that's how he's able to get the top two players to become best friends and secretly commit to Duke over a year before making that information public. Right? Wrong. The truth is that he's doing what the other best coaches are doing, and currently winning at it: He's recruiting the best players. Sometimes Calipari has the best players. Sometimes Pitino does. Sometimes Boeheim does. Sometimes Izzo does. And when they do, their teams win. It's nothing revolutionary. Talent wins. And right now Coach K is riding a wave of talent to win a national championship and attract more talent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tonka Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 - I may now fall in the camp that believes that SLU had very little chance at landing JT. I know some are saying that we had a legitimate shot and that we were in it to the end, but I question that. JT could have been saying anything to win favor with SLU and the community. Had he said we were not in consideration from the beginning, he would have been just another top talent that left from the bright lights. I think he milked this thing and enjoyed the ride by saying he was interested in SLU. He made some good friends on our current team and enjoyed hanging with them, but all in all he was looking for more. - Jayson has no idea how big he really could have been for the one year he was here. He would have been 10 times larger than Larry the Legend ever was. With every young kid having iphones, tablets and ipads, and 24X7 access to highlight reals, twitter feeds, etc. - he would have been big. I saw two young boys playing one on one in basketball and the one kid said he wanted to be LeBron and the other said: you can be LeBron and I will be Jayson Tatum. I really think Jayson didn't know how large he would have been. - The silver lining in all of this (and this is a stretch) is that I just don't see Crews doing much at SLU and now with no JT, we don't have to delay the inevitable and can rid of him when things don't go well and I don't think they will. - I like something Skip said - now that JT is not coming I would not want him on campus playing games with our guys. - Roy, not sure I agree that Justin Tatum would be better than any assistant on our current staff. I love Justin Tatum but he is not at the level of some of our assistants. That being said, I would have loved if they added him to the staff. I would also love it if they still added him to the staff even without Jayson. Great local connections and with the success Jayson will more than likely have moving forward I would think he would be appealing to recruits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 So part B of my Taj-long post is this: SLU did not waste its time, efforts, and resources. If you accept my premise that there's no grand conspiracy that in addition to being the best high school basketball player in the country, Jayson Tatum is also a mastermind of controlling everyone around him and keeping a year-long major secret, then you accept that SLU was a legitimate finalist in his recruitment. No, being second does not help us. But what good is it not to try? How often does a local player come along who is that good and has that many ties to the program? There was no reason not to throw everything we had at this kid. To do otherwise is a little brother (ahem, chicken little) mentality. A loser's mindset. The kind of we're-never-good-enough pathetic mentality that so many SLU fans are stuck with. You're not going to win every local kid, especially early on in a coach's tenure. But not even trying is not a long-term solution, especially when we arguably have a lower level of talent right now than we've seen in over two decades. We were right to recruit him with everything we had until the bitter end. Now, the only question is: Did we throw everything we had into his recruitment? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowboy Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 -I'll post it here but this could easily be in the 2016 recruiting thread, the board isn't on total meltdown like I expected and this is a good thing, very good -props to most on this -would have been nice to have on the scroll last night while watching the Cardinals and see Saint Louis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pistol Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 -I'll post it here but this could easily be in the 2016 recruiting thread, the board isn't on total meltdown like I expected and this is a good thing, very good -props to most on this +1 Not nearly as bad as I'd thought. Have we grown up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Agree with Pistol that the opportunity presented by JT was unique and that the coaching staff had to try its best to make it happen. The fact that it did not happen does not negate the value of their efforts. Many things in life do not turn out according with our wishes, hard work, and needs, they go in the wrong direction. This is what happened with JT. Now the whole issue of JT is one about what it could have been, opportunity lost. However the fact that it went the wrong way for us had nothing to do with the lack of effort by the coaching staff to make it happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheChosenOne Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 - Jayson has no idea how big he really could have been for the one year he was here. He would have been 10 times larger than Larry the Legend ever was. With every young kid having iphones, tablets and ipads, and 24X7 access to highlight reals, twitter feeds, etc. - he would have been big. I saw two young boys playing one on one in basketball and the one kid said he wanted to be LeBron and the other said: you can be LeBron and I will be Jayson Tatum. I really think Jayson didn't know how large he would have been. That is why I raised the question of whether the staff truly threw everything at him. That was the unique opportunity we had to offer and I wonder whether we did a good enough job of delivering that message to Jayson. I know there was a clip of him riding thru campus on a golf cart while the band played and 100+ people cheered and the student section doing a cheer during one of the games he attended, but that seemed fairly weak considering the magnitude of what him playing in a Billiken uniform would have done for the program and the city. I go back to when Mizzou had DGB on campus for his official visit and there were reports of fans with signs on overpasses as he made the trek from Springfield to Columbia. He pulled up to more fans cheering his name and holding signs and walked into a celebration in the MATC that included the band playing the fight song and everyone cheering him as he walked up to the football offices. The visit finished with him getting a standing ovation as he walked to his court side seat at the basketball game again with fans cheering his name. The kid got the full rock star experience (one that the elite out of state schools recruiting him could not replicate as he was just another top recruit visiting their programs) and it ended with him heading to Columbia and man did that end poorly. Regardless, that is the type of footage I was expecting to see at some point with regards to the recruitment of Tatum and we just got that golf cart ride thru campus which was nice, but underwhelming. This was the coaching staff's opportunity to blow it out of the water and I don't think they did that. Oh well, if things don't go well this winter, they could be looking for jobs partly due to that failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillikensBlog Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Based on what has been reported and what I've heard from Justin Tatum and then a couple people a little more removed from the situation, I'd say that SLU did everything they were supposed to do, but maybe not everything they could do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiseAndGrind Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 I don't know where to put this, but they should have hired Justin. That was a mistake. Nark seems to suggest that possibility was vetted, but not pursued. If true, what the hell is wrong with the men's basketball team? You'll schedule a campus visit during a dead period but won't hire a reputable and respected coach because "compliance"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufan13 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 I'll pass some blame to Crews on this even if it wasn't realistic, he needed to close the deal and land Tatum. It's not really fair but I think it's reality. If we don't succeed in plan B (assuming there is one), then Crews deserves all the criticism in the world. We never seem to land our top targets so I hope a plan C is in place too. And if we suck and no recruit wants to come here and our current players want to leave, I hope plan D is good. I agree with Pistol kind of. It wasn't a waste of time and resources while we did it. But for me any recruit you don't get is a waste of time and resources in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu06 Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Man, remember when we scored 20 points against GW when Majerus was our coach? Seriously, let's all take a deep breath. Everyone has to admit that the odds of landing Tatum were low AND (speak up if I am wrong) no one knows the actual facts of what were/were not done to recruit him. But really, who cares when the other schools were Duke, Kentucky, etc.? I was just happy the see SLU listed in every national article covering his recruit. Why doesn't everyone relax a bit and see how the players pan out this season. I think we have had an uptick since Majerus - at least the recruits on paper are much more appealing than when I was in school. Oh, and the average guy on the street (and recruit???) has heard of our program. With that said, I am looking for / expect improvement this year from our guards. Just hope a big man can decide to get nasty on the inside and protect the rim/rebound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheChosenOne Posted July 13, 2015 Share Posted July 13, 2015 Why doesn't everyone relax a bit and see how the players pan out this season. I think we have had an uptick since Majerus - at least the recruits on paper are much more appealing than when I was in school. Oh, and the average guy on the street (and recruit???) has heard of our program. You honestly believe this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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