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18 wins, which means they win 8 of their non-cons (losses to N Florida, Louisville, Wichita and K-State)...and 10-9 in conference games.

I think you're underestimating the talent and experience in this conference. We're still one of the youngest teams in the A-10. To go 9-9 would require us to leapfrog something like 6 teams. We don't have an all A-10 performer at any position. Milik could mature into such a player in a couple of years but he's still got some work to do.

Expecting 9-9 plus a win in the A-10 tourney really leaves no room for error. Possible, but no probable. In 2016-2017, when 5-6 teams lose 2 or more of their top scorers, we'll be in a strong position. This year, 8-10 in conference and being a tough out in the first round of the A-10 tourney would be a big leap forward for this team.

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They were terrible and terribly young. I'm not sure anyone is complaining too much about the playing time, but more so the odd coaching decisions.

I think you and I went to SLU close to the same time. Last year's team was the worst SLU team I can recall. But, I also see a good amount of talent. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I agree. I have seen really bad SLU teams with no youthful talent (mostly mid-Spoon tenure, Romar, and Soderberg). Last year's team was a really bad team with a good core of youthful talent, which is totally different.

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In many ways last years team was similar to (but better than) the team with Highmark Claggs etc as freshman. The dysfunctional older teammate (Melvin Robinson ) this time was McBroom and Lancona.... However if you watch that team you new there were good players.

yeah Jolly is our Bickel.

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The important thing in my mind is to give the team and the coach the support they deserve at least until they demonstrate they are not worthy of our support.

I completely agree.

Of course, Coach Crews demonstrated to me, last season, that he wasn't worthy of our support. I fully expect him to re-demonstrate his unworthiness this season.

Coach Majerus set a new standard of excellence for SLU, and Crews is clearly not up to the task. Watching the program slide back into another decade of mediocrity is almost as depressing as the thought of HRC as commander in chief.

Coach Crews, I know you read this site religiously, so be advised- 18 wins, or get the hell out of Dodge!

Wasn't Crews originally only supposed to be around for one year?

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I completely agree.

Of course, Coach Crews demonstrated to me, last season, that he wasn't worthy of our support. I fully expect him to re-demonstrate his unworthiness this season.

Coach Majerus set a new standard of excellence for SLU, and Crews is clearly not up to the task. Watching the program slide back into another decade of mediocrity is almost as depressing as the thought of HRC as commander in chief.

Coach Crews, I know you read this site religiously, so be advised- 18 wins, or get the hell out of Dodge!

Wasn't Crews originally only supposed to be around for one year?

"Infantile!"

--Old Guy

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The important thing in my mind is to give the team and the coach the support they deserve at least until they demonstrate they are not worthy of our support. This is not the eternal children's game of drawing lines in the sand accompanied by stern warnings of pulling a tantrum. If it becomes necessary to do anything like this then it may have to be done but only when it has to be done. This does not mean proclaiming threats and limits to the four winds now, BEFORE the playing season is done. Again, this is infantile behavior and as infantile as it is there are many that think their most weighty opinion and limits have real meaning. Whatever happens to the team and to Crews after this season, whatever the performance turns out to be, is in the hands of people who are not members of this board, and will be decided upon factors that will remain unknown to us.

-two questions.....

The important thing in my mind is to give the team and the coach the support they deserve at least until they demonstrate they are not worthy of our support. -- could someone have come to the conclusion that the coach is not worthy of support after last season and not be infantile in their behavior? I am not of that opinion, by the way

and will be decided upon factors that will remain unknown to us -- really? if we get to this point there might be some unknown factors but i think among the top factors going into such a decision will be the record and that will be evident to all and indisputable

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I agree. I have seen really bad SLU teams with no youthful talent (mostly mid-Spoon tenure, Romar, and Soderberg). Last year's team was a really bad team with a good core of youthful talent, which is totally different.

I couldn't disagree more about the level of talent between the Romar-Soderberg teams and this current roster. We have way less talent right now, and I don't think it's even close.

Youth is not an excuse in the current landscape of college basketball. Talent wins, and we don't have much.

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10 of the 14 A10 teams ranked 200th or worse by kenpom in terms of experience last year. So even if this "talent" gets better with experience, won't everyone else?

In short, yes.

Incremental improvement isn't enough when other young teams in the league (Fordham, George Mason, etc.) will experience the same thing.

We need a major injection of talent to turn things around. Expecting totally different results with the same coaching staff (which lacks a track record of 'coaching up' talent) and mostly the same roster is irrational.

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In short, yes.

Incremental improvement isn't enough when other young teams in the league (Fordham, George Mason, etc.) will experience the same thing.

We need a major injection of talent to turn things around. Expecting totally different results with the same coaching staff (which lacks a track record of 'coaching up' talent) and mostly the same roster is irrational.

I get that we should all have our pitchforks out for Crews but to say he lacks a track record of coaching up talent when just 2 and 3 years ago he led us to our most successful seasons EVER in the modern era seems to be a bit much. Yes, they was talent on those teams, but its not like we had 3-4 NBA players running the courts. Those teams over-performed nearly every national pre-season expectation.

This thread will go on an on just like the Tatum thread with people hashing and rehashing the same arguments over and over. Can't wait for the games to start as its the only way this one has a chance of dying.

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10 of the 14 A10 teams ranked 200th or worse by kenpom in terms of experience last year. So even if this "talent" gets better with experience, won't everyone else?

How many of those teams were 300th or worse? How many of them lost key players from last season?

Our young guys need to improve, a lot. I don't think anyone is denying this. But last season was not quite the same situation as a team like Davidson, who was 283rd in experience, but had the senior POY, two other junior guards, and one breakout sophomore.

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I couldn't disagree more about the level of talent between the Romar-Soderberg teams and this current roster. We have way less talent right now, and I don't think it's even close.

Youth is not an excuse in the current landscape of college basketball. Talent wins, and we don't have much.

Really? Just look at the caliber of schools that offered the current group of sophomores. Roby had multiple SEC offers. Bartley had a Big 12 and Big 10 offer. Milik was listed with a Big 10 and SEC (Auburn) offer. Even Miles Reynolds selected SLU over an SEC offer (LSU). Outside of Lisch and Liddell, not a single Soderberg recruit was at this level. Romar's only recruit at this level (Hollins) never made it to campus.

So many fans have decided they dislike Crews they disregard the facts. We have a good core of talent.

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Really? Just look at the caliber of schools that offered the current group of sophomores. Roby had multiple SEC offers. Bartley had a Big 12 and Big 10 offer. Milik was listed with a Big 10 and SEC (Auburn) offer. Even Miles Reynolds selected SLU over an SEC offer (LSU). Outside of Lisch and Liddell, not a single Soderberg recruit was at this level. Romar's only recruit at this level (Hollins) never made it to campus.

So many fans have decided they dislike Crews they disregard the facts. We have a good core of talent.

I'm sorry but this is a terrible argument. Glaze chose us over UNLV. Lancona chose us over Kansas St. Crawford is our best scorer and he chose us over SIUE

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I'm sorry but this is a terrible argument. Glaze chose us over UNLV. Lancona chose us over Kansas St. Crawford is our best scorer and he chose us over SIUE

I think a lot of those offers could be debated as to how legitimate they were too (Roby was likely offered as part of a package and Miles' offer from LSU likely went away when Jalyn Patterson committed). I am sure Romar and Sodie had plenty of players who could have claimed similar offers at one point in time.

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Justin Johnson originally committed to K St. and had a Big East offer from Rutgers. Adam Knollmeyer had an offer from Purdue at one time. Relphorde had power conference offers. The F'er from Minnesota had major conference offers. Luke Meyer had an offer from Nebraska. Even Obi had major conference offers at one time. Reggie Bryant was a transfer, but was a big time recruit.

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This thread will go on an on just like the Tatum thread with people hashing and rehashing the same arguments over and over. Can't wait for the games to start as its the only way this one has a chance of dying.

And like the Tatum thread we will find out in a handful of months whether the blind optimism crowd had reason to be so. I remember how idiotic the Tatum thread got with one poster claiming if Tatum wanted to play in a Final 4 he would be coming to SLU, how do you respond to that delusion?

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Justin Johnson originally committed to K St. and had a Big East offer from Rutgers. Adam Knollmeyer had an offer from Purdue at one time. Relphorde had power conference offers. The F'er from Minnesota had major conference offers. Luke Meyer had an offer from Nebraska. Even Obi had major conference offers at one time. Reggie Bryant was a transfer, but was a big time recruit.

Really? Don't remember either of those. Obi had some good interest early in his HS career, then had a major injury, ballooned up and seemingly had no interest when Sodie signed him.

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Really? Don't remember either of those. Obi had some good interest early in his HS career, then had a major injury, ballooned up and seemingly had no interest when Sodie signed him.

Knollmeyer was committed to Mizzou at one point early in his high school career.

Didn't Luke Meyer chose SLU over Stanford or am I remembering that wrong?

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Really? Just look at the caliber of schools that offered the current group of sophomores. Roby had multiple SEC offers. Bartley had a Big 12 and Big 10 offer. Milik was listed with a Big 10 and SEC (Auburn) offer. Even Miles Reynolds selected SLU over an SEC offer (LSU). Outside of Lisch and Liddell, not a single Soderberg recruit was at this level. Romar's only recruit at this level (Hollins) never made it to campus.

So many fans have decided they dislike Crews they disregard the facts. We have a good core of talent.

Nark.

I agree with you that we have a really nice core of youngsters and I remain hopeful. You are correct in that we do have real talent and that the future will be better than the present. At the same time, I do believe you are ignoring some real obvious flaws from last year. Our youngsters did not all appear to improve as the season went along. Our team NEVER gelled or came together. Instead, some of our games at the end of the year were brutal. Your scenario of blaming last year on our youth is flawed in that we should have steadily improved as the season went along -- and we didn't.

Personally, I believe Jim Crews made some mistakes assessing/keeping/relying upon our upper class men from last year who simply let us down -- bigtime. These included Manning and McBroom -- who should have been our leaders last year, albeit on a mediocre, rebuilding year team. Instead, our Center and PG positions were our biggest weaknesses last year. Add to that the injuries to Glaze (along with his off the court conduct causing him to be off the team last year and not on the team this year), regression and attitude from Lancona, Ash who played decent and contributed but who did not carry us as planned when we desperately needed to be carried, injuries to Crawford and Reggie which hampered their development/production along with Freshmen who were/are talented but simply not able to lead and carry the team -- and we had a disaster of a year.

Yes, Crews made mistakes. After being nominated National COY, had Crews been able to land 2 kids that Spring who could have contributed these past 2 years -- instead TL was an enigma who left and Reggie who is a still a long term project with a favorable upside. Had Crews been able to get more production from the scholarship given to Ash -- a redshirt 2 years ago and a player last year. Had Crews not wasted all that time with McBroom as his PG. Had we been more lucky with regard to injuries to Manning, Glaze, Crawford and Reggie... things would have been better.

At the same time, just because Crews stumbled out of the gate and made mistakes does not mean that he sucks, that our team has no talent and that he should be gone immediately.

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I get that we should all have our pitchforks out for Crews but to say he lacks a track record of coaching up talent when just 2 and 3 years ago he led us to our most successful seasons EVER in the modern era seems to be a bit much. Yes, they was talent on those teams, but its not like we had 3-4 NBA players running the courts. Those teams over-performed nearly every national pre-season expectation.

This thread will go on an on just like the Tatum thread with people hashing and rehashing the same arguments over and over. Can't wait for the games to start as its the only way this one has a chance of dying.

"Coaching up" and "coaching" are two different things. He inherited a hell of a team from Majerus. That's not the point.

Who has improved significantly on Crews' watch? We had this discussion in the spring and my takeaway was "not many, if any."

I also can't wait for the season to start so this can all bear itself out. Memories are short when it comes to sports fans; last season was a historical low in terms of performance and talent.

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