Maybe one day we can get where Loyola has gotten

[brianstl]

Moser having the Loyola job didn’t outlaw SLU offering the job to him when they decided to go with Crews. 

[kshoe]

1 hour ago, brianstl said:

Moser having the Loyola job didn’t outlaw SLU offering the job to him when they decided to go with Crews. 

That is some bs 20/20 hindsight 4 years after the fact. I don’t recall a single person on here advocating for that after we lost in San Jose.

[DeSmetBilliken]

I was getting ready to quote a post or two, but there were too many, so just consider this to be in response to the last 5-10 posts about Porter, Loyola, and the possibility that he could've been our coach.

One of the first thoughts I had when it became clear that Loyola was going to the Final Four was that if Porter just hadn't left to take the Loyola job, he would've been still on our staff when Majerus got sick, would've been the interim head coach when it happened, and the great season that resulted would've led to him becoming the permanent head coach here, and we would've had him instead of Jim Crews the Basketball Doofus. He would've been better able to recruit to the program than Crews, and the awfulness of the Crewsplatt era might have never happened.

Admittedly, it wasn''t as simple as that. Porter got an opportunity to take over a program in his hometown, at a school he identified with. He said tonight that Majerus told him he had to take it. We'll probably never know if Majerus knew he was 1.5 years away from dying.

Remember, Majerus had a bad experience at Marquette when he was elevated to the head coaching job after being an assistant. I remember him saying that he didn't think it was a good idea in hindsight for the assistant to get elevated to the head job. He may have thought that it wasn't a good idea for Porter to succeed him.    

Nevertheless, it's fun to think of the possibilities. Congrats to Porter for an incredible achievement!

[RiseAndGrind]

Porter is awesome

jim crews sucks 

chris May is the most average man of all time 

there, i summarized this thread.

[ChangeOfPace]

12 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

I was getting ready to quote a post or two, but there were too many, so just consider this to be in response to the last 5-10 posts about Porter, Loyola, and the possibility that he could've been our coach.

One of the first thoughts I had when it became clear that Loyola was going to the Final Four was that if Porter just hadn't left to take the Loyola job, he would've been still on our staff when Majerus got sick, would've been the interim head coach when it happened, and the great season that resulted would've led to him becoming the permanent head coach here, and we would've had him instead of Jim Crews the Basketball Doofus. He would've been better able to recruit to the program than Crews, and the awfulness of the Crewsplatt era might have never happened.

Admittedly, it wasn''t as simple as that. Porter got an opportunity to take over a program in his hometown, at a school he identified with. He said tonight that Majerus told him he had to take it. We'll probably never know if Majerus knew he was 1.5 years away from dying.

Remember, Majerus had a bad experience at Marquette when he was elevated to the head coaching job after being an assistant. I remember him saying that he didn't think it was a good idea in hindsight for the assistant to get elevated to the head job. He may have thought that it wasn't a good idea for Porter to succeed him.    

Nevertheless, it's fun to think of the possibilities. Congrats to Porter for an incredible achievement!

Porter has been at Loyola 7 years...I don’t understand how anyone can honestly think he was a legitimate replacement for Majerus.

[brianstl]

10 minutes ago, kshoe said:

That is some bs 20/20 hindsight 4 years after the fact. I don’t recall a single person on here advocating for that after we lost in San Jose.

I wasn’t advocating hiring Crews either.  

I Didn’t like the Crews hire at the time.  It showed a lack of vision from May and the others that made the decision.  Said at the time.  Took a massive amount of crap on here after the NC State game, along with @moytoy12 for questioning Crews.  

You are right, I was leading the hire porter brigade.  That said, I never worked with the guy on a daily basis.  You think May might have picked up on Porter’s ability by being around him on a daily basis for three years.  

Real leaders with vision pick up on that kind of stuff and stay away from the safe hire.   Barry Collier hired LaVall Jordan after one season at UW Milwaukee with 11-24 record.

[DeSmetBilliken]

12 minutes ago, ChangeOfPace said:

Porter has been at Loyola 7 years...I don’t understand how anyone can honestly think he was a legitimate replacement for Majerus.

He left to go to Loyola in 2011. Majerus passed away in 2012. Porter was the Associate Head Coach. If he had been at SLU when Majerus took his leave of absence, he would've been the guy to take over. 

Admittedly, I was skeptical about Porter's coaching ability, but given what he has done at Loyola, combined with the debacle that was the SLU program once Crews was solely in control of the program, I'll take Porter.

[DeSmetBilliken]

23 minutes ago, brianstl said:

I wasn’t advocating hiring Crews either.  

I Didn’t like the Crews hire at the time.  It showed a lack of vision from May and the others that made the decision.  Said at the time.  Took a massive amount of crap on here after the NC State game, along with @moytoy12 for questioning Crews.  

You are right, I was leading the hire porter brigade.  That said, I never worked with the guy on a daily basis.  You think May might have picked up on Porter’s ability by being around him on a daily basis for three years.  

Real leaders with vision pick up on that kind of stuff and stay away from the safe hire.   Barry Collier hired LaVall Jordan after one season at UW Milwaukee with 11-24 record.

I questioned the full-blown Crews hire, even after his coach of the year awards. I may have been called a "message board moron", but I don't recall. 

I wasn't calling that we should hire Porter, but in hindsight, it wouldn't have been a bad idea, given what happened when Crews was the head coach. 

[ChangeOfPace]

45 minutes ago, brianstl said:

I wasn’t advocating hiring Crews either.  

I Didn’t like the Crews hire at the time.  It showed a lack of vision from May and the others that made the decision.  Said at the time.  Took a massive amount of crap on here after the NC State game, along with @moytoy12 for questioning Crews.  

You are right, I was leading the hire porter brigade.  That said, I never worked with the guy on a daily basis.  You think May might have picked up on Porter’s ability by being around him on a daily basis for three years.  

Real leaders with vision pick up on that kind of stuff and stay away from the safe hire.   Barry Collier hired LaVall Jordan after one season at UW Milwaukee with 11-24 record.

If Porter had the same trajectory here that he had at Loyola would he have ever made it to this point? I think the answer is an easy no but I am open to an alternative answer.

I am a giant May hater, however, questioning him for not picking out Porter 7 years ago is beyond bananas.

[ChangeOfPace]

27 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

He left to go to Loyola in 2011. Majerus passed away in 2012. Porter was the Associate Head Coach. If he had been at SLU when Majerus took his leave of absence, he would've been the guy to take over. 

Admittedly, I was skeptical about Porter's coaching ability, but given what he has done at Loyola, combined with the debacle that was the SLU program once Crews was solely in control of the program, I'll take Porter.

That’s fair, but you are ignoring how long it has taken him to be successful at Loyola. He needed that time to grow and I doubt he would’ve been given it at SLU.

[thetorch]

This if Moser was here topic is really innane. Who cares.

[HenryB]

Good for Porter.  I am more than happy that Ford is our  coach now.

[Schasz]

15 minutes ago, HenryB said:

Good for Porter.  I am more than happy that Ford is our  coach now.

Agree things happen for a reason. It wasn't meant for Porter Moser to be HC at SLU. He and Loyola have had a super feel good run this year and I am happy for him. At the same time I'm pleased to have Travis Ford as our HC and hope he has many exciting seasons of Billiken Basketball. He should continue to get our full support. He appears to be putting a roster together that hopefully will make us all very excited next year about our possibilities for success.

[cheeseman]

7 hours ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

I was getting ready to quote a post or two, but there were too many, so just consider this to be in response to the last 5-10 posts about Porter, Loyola, and the possibility that he could've been our coach.

One of the first thoughts I had when it became clear that Loyola was going to the Final Four was that if Porter just hadn't left to take the Loyola job, he would've been still on our staff when Majerus got sick, would've been the interim head coach when it happened, and the great season that resulted would've led to him becoming the permanent head coach here, and we would've had him instead of Jim Crews the Basketball Doofus. He would've been better able to recruit to the program than Crews, and the awfulness of the Crewsplatt era might have never happened.

Admittedly, it wasn''t as simple as that. Porter got an opportunity to take over a program in his hometown, at a school he identified with. He said tonight that Majerus told him he had to take it. We'll probably never know if Majerus knew he was 1.5 years away from dying.

Remember, Majerus had a bad experience at Marquette when he was elevated to the head coaching job after being an assistant. I remember him saying that he didn't think it was a good idea in hindsight for the assistant to get elevated to the head job. He may have thought that it wasn't a good idea for Porter to succeed him.    

Nevertheless, it's fun to think of the possibilities. Congrats to Porter for an incredible achievement!

In his book Life on a Napkin - RM talked about his situation at Marquette.  I am not sure he was against all assistants taking over for the HC.  What I remember him saying was that he was not ready for the elevation given that he was following two legends and that he needed to make his own path not try to be who the last two were.  In Porter's case, he has actually embraced RM's style of play so taking over for him here would not have been the same problem.  The reason Porter was advised to leave is that when you get an opportunity to go to your hometown and start over you should not pass it up.  Going home was a big deal for Porter and his wife (family).  It was the perfect storm for him and Loyola.  What if thinking almost always leads you down a bad path - things just don't replicate the same in life.  Porter got a lucky on his transfers, if Custer doesn't have his best friend at Loyola does he end up there for one example.  Bottom line, life is quirky and how it rolls is how it rolls.  Remember, man plans and God laughs.

[kshoe]

7 hours ago, ChangeOfPace said:

That’s fair, but you are ignoring how long it has taken him to be successful at Loyola. He needed that time to grow and I doubt he would’ve been given it at SLU.

Again, that doesn't fit with the real timeline. If Porter never gets offered Loyola, he is the Associate Head coach when Majerus gets sick. He takes over the program and a junior laden team that earned a 4 seed in San Jose. Even if he isn't as good a on-court coach as Crews at that time, he still takes that team to the NCAA tournament. That likely gets him a long-term deal like Crews got. The next year we again go to the NCAA tournament.

As long as Porter recruited at SLU the way he did under Majerus and has done at Loyola, we never would have fallen off the Crews cliff the following two seasons. Suggesting that SLU wouldn't have given him the same amount of time as Crews seems crazy and as long as you believe Porter could maintain this program better than Crews, you have to believe he's still have his job at SLU a couple years after Crews was fired.

It took him a long time to be successful at Loyola because they were a dumpster fire when he took over. SLU was a well run machine with 2 built in NCAA tournaments to start his career if he had taken over for a sick Majerus.

[slufan13]

8 minutes ago, kshoe said:

Again, that doesn't fit with the real timeline. If Porter never gets offered Loyola, he is the Associate Head coach when Majerus gets sick. He takes over the program and a junior laden team that earned a 4 seed in San Jose. Even if he isn't as good a on-court coach as Crews at that time, he still takes that team to the NCAA tournament. That likely gets him a long-term deal like Crews got. The next year we again go to the NCAA tournament.

As long as Porter recruited at SLU the way he did under Majerus and has done at Loyola, we never would have fallen off the Crews cliff the following two seasons. Suggesting that SLU wouldn't have given him the same amount of time as Crews seems crazy and as long as you believe Porter could maintain this program better than Crews, you have to believe he's still have his job at SLU a couple years after Crews was fired.

It took him a long time to be successful at Loyola because they were a dumpster fire when he took over. SLU was a well run machine with 2 built in NCAA tournaments to start his career if he had taken over for a sick Majerus.

Great post. Was just typing out basically the same thing.

I was on board with the Crews hire in 2013. I would have liked for us to use our momentum to shoot for better (and even better than Porter) but I thought Crews could at least keep us respectable. Instead he tanked the program and hired a friend who has no business being on a college bench (Platt). Crews was the easy way out. 

I'm happy with Ford. A final four run takes some luck even for the best teams. That's not meant to knock Loyola's run. I'm not sure Ford will ever give us a final four but he basically took over a program in the same spot as Loyola when Porter took over so hopefully he can lead us to the same success in the next 5 years.

[Cowboy]

-as I recall the games that CMajerus missed and Porter coached we did not do well and there were many more voices saying Porter should not be our coach

-when Porter left I recall many wishes of good luck to him but I don't recall a great amount, or much, support for him staying to be our coach

-either I am not remembering correctly  or there is a lot of history being rewritten here with Porter's success in this tournament which is great for him and LUC

[cheeseman]

25 minutes ago, Cowboy said:

-as I recall the games that CMajerus missed and Porter coached we did not do well and there were many more voices saying Porter should not be our coach

-when Porter left I recall many wishes of good luck to him but I don't recall a great amount, or much, support for him staying to be our coach

-either I am not remembering correctly  or there is a lot of history being rewritten here with Porter's success in this tournament which is great for him and LUC

You remember correctly.  I guess the only issue in defense of those who are now claiming Porter would have been a hit here is that had we known that RM was so sick we probably would have supported his hire for the sake of continuity.  While Crews was here before he did not really  recruit - one of his requirements to  come and help RM after Jensen pissed on RM and he basically only ran practices from what I remember.   He did not recruit the players here nor did he evaluate them as recruits.  Hence, his poor track record of evaluating and recruiting talent once he took over not being surprising.  I was not a supporter of hiring Crews nor of the idea of hiring Porter from Loyola.  Who knows how this all would have played out - trying to predict the future is risky business.  By the way, good chance that without S2 we would have been in the Dance this year and hopefully next year so Ford would have accomplished the task in a much shorter time frame than Porter did at Loyola.  Does this mean Ford is better than Porter - who knows.

[JeffinMH]

So many Crews haters.  

Jim Crews accolades:

Awards
3× MCC Coach of the Year (1987, 1989, 1992) MVC Coach of the Year (1999) 2× Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year (2013, 2014) Sporting News National Coach of the Year (2013) NABC Coach of the Year (2013)   I guess nobody was too hard on him in 2013/2014! Funny how our memories work.

[RiseAndGrind]

3 minutes ago, JeffinMH said:

So many Crews haters.  

Jim Crews accolades:

Awards
3× MCC Coach of the Year (1987, 1989, 1992) MVC Coach of the Year (1999) 2× Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year (2013, 2014) Sporting News National Coach of the Year (2013) NABC Coach of the Year (2013)   I guess nobody was too hard on him in 2013/2014! Funny how our memories work.

*footnote: he was awful and was fired 

[WVBilliken]

15 minutes ago, RiseAndGrind said:

*footnote: he was awful and was fired 

Time passed him by.  If you cannot recruit talent, you cannot win.

[Duff Man]

9 hours ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

He left to go to Loyola in 2011. Majerus passed away in 2012. Porter was the Associate Head Coach. If he had been at SLU when Majerus took his leave of absence, he would've been the guy to take over. 

Admittedly, I was skeptical about Porter's coaching ability, but given what he has done at Loyola, combined with the debacle that was the SLU program once Crews was solely in control of the program, I'll take Porter.

If Loyola hadn't hired Moser someone else would have immediately after the 2011-12 season before Majerus' medical leave of absence.

Also, Crews replaced Jensen not Moser. Whitesell replaced Moser as associate head coach and they still went with Crews.

also, in defense of Crews

Still the only SLU coach to win an outright regular season conference title since Eddie Hickey....and he did it twice. Also one of 2 SLU coaches ever to win a conference tournament.

Yeah, he wasn't up to the task at recruiting...but at least he salvaged the last 2 years of the Jett/Evans/McCall/Loe nucleus and got the program into the top 10 in the polls.

If you want to bash him fine, but please provide the link to your post from spring 2013 where you said he shouldn't be retained.

 

[Box and Won]

46 minutes ago, JeffinMH said:

So many Crews haters.  

Jim Crews accolades:

Awards
3× MCC Coach of the Year (1987, 1989, 1992) MVC Coach of the Year (1999) 2× Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year (2013, 2014) Sporting News National Coach of the Year (2013) NABC Coach of the Year (2013)   I guess nobody was too hard on him in 2013/2014! Funny how our memories work.

[Duff Man]

In 1990 (Bonner's last year), SLU played in an 8-team MCC. Since the breakup of that MCC lineup (following the 1990-91 season), 5 of the 7 other teams have made the Elite 8 and 3 have made the Final 4

Butler: 5 Sweet 16s, 2 Final 4s
Marquette: 5 Sweet 16s, 1 Final 4
Loyola: 1 Sweet 16, 1 Final 4
Xavier*: 7 Sweet 16s, 3 Elite 8s
Dayton: 1 Sweet 16, 1 Elite 8

*excluding their Sweet 16 run in 1990

SLU (7 NCAA bids, 5 first round wins, has zero Sweet 16s) did manage to outperform Detroit Mercy (3 NCAA bids, 2 first round wins) and Evansville (3 NCAA bids, 0 wins, sup Crews)
 

 

 

[Old guy]

10 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

In 1990 (Bonner's last year), SLU played in an 8-team MCC. Since the breakup of that MCC lineup (following the 1990-91 season), 5 of the 7 other teams have made the Elite 8 and 3 have made the Final 4

Butler: 5 Sweet 16s, 2 Final 4s
Marquette: 5 Sweet 16s, 1 Final 4
Loyola: 1 Sweet 16, 1 Final 4
Xavier*: 7 Sweet 16s, 3 Elite 8s
Dayton: 1 Sweet 16, 1 Elite 8

*excluding their Sweet 16 run in 1990

SLU (7 NCAA bids, 5 first round wins, has zero Sweet 16s) did manage to outperform Detroit Mercy (3 NCAA bids, 2 first round wins) and Evansville (3 NCAA bids, 0 wins, sup Crews)
 

 

 

What this table means is that we need a couple of sweet 16's if we are going to be at the same level with Butler, Marquette, Loyola, Xavier and Dayton. I believe this is something we can achieve under Ford.