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The House That Rick Built Podcast


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On 4/30/2020 at 9:33 PM, Clock_Tower said:

Interesting take.  Best fast breaks I ever saw were lead by H.  When he was able to push the offense, it was fun to watch.  Half court offense, though, was more difficult and  when our outside shots didn’t fall. It was tough. But Spoon was a really good  game coach, we ran a motion offense, w set pieces, set alot of screens and our offense clicked. And yes, the inside was mostly wide open which gave our undersized and less skilled bigs a chance - but I still believe a more balanced inside game would have made things easier on Highmark and Claggs

I agree with e everything you are saying here. It was fun to watch and H made some amazing bullet bounce passes.  If we had only had a legit big man, we would have been been much more consistent.  As it was, we occasionally knocked off really good teams, but an inside game would have made us one of the really good teams.  My only disappoint in Spoon, was he didn't get the big men we really needed.

Those were good days to be a Billikens fan.  The crowds were amazing.  I will describe those games like this. Our opponent starts the game with a 2 point basket. The Bills come back and hit a 3. Our opponent goes up the floor and gets another 2 point basket. The Bill's hit another 3. Our opponent takes the ball up the floor again making a 2 point basket with a perfect start scoring on each of thier first 3 possessions.  The Bill's however bring the ball up the floor again, and drain another 3.  Opposing coach calls time out, as the Billikens are up 9-6... and the fans are going crazy. That was Spoon Ball.

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3 hours ago, Aquinas said:

I agree with e everything you are saying here. It was fun to watch and H made some amazing bullet bounce passes.  If we had only had a legit big man, we would have been been much more consistent.  As it was, we occasionally knocked off really good teams, but an inside game would have made us one of the really good teams.  My only disappoint in Spoon, was he didn't get the big men we really needed.

Those were good days to be a Billikens fan.  The crowds were amazing.  I will describe those games like this. Our opponent starts the game with a 2 point basket. The Bills come back and hit a 3. Our opponent goes up the floor and gets another 2 point basket. The Bill's hit another 3. Our opponent takes the ball up the floor again making a 2 point basket with a perfect start scoring on each of thier first 3 possessions.  The Bill's however bring the ball up the floor again, and drain another 3.  Opposing coach calls time out, as the Billikens are up 9-6... and the fans are going crazy. That was Spoon Ball.

Yep. And multiple PGs, physical defense, hard nosed tough play, recovered most loose balls and we seemed to never lose close games. I watched many of Spoon’s practices.  His coaches would put 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds on the clock and the offense would practice, and practice and practice “closing out a game.”  Same on defense: practice without fouling, practicing who to foul, when to foul and where to foul...  whistles blown. Spoon would yell stop, guys would freeze, then he would teach. Spoon was a master.

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1 hour ago, Clock_Tower said:

Yep. And multiple PGs, physical defense, hard nosed tough play, recovered most loose balls and we seemed to never lose close games. I watched many of Spoon’s practices.  His coaches would put 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds on the clock and the offense would practice, and practice and practice “closing out a game.”  Same on defense: practice without fouling, practicing who to foul, when to foul and where to foul...  whistles blown. Spoon would yell stop, guys would freeze, then he would teach. Spoon was a master.

That is very cool.

Those were good times and we are in good times again. Though, this time I think our ceiling is higher.

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Yep. We got burned by 6’9” athletic guys.  And when teams could match our shooting but also dominate the interior, we lost, and lost big.  I recall very close games at home, often wins against Cincy, UAB ... but blowout losses on the road at The Shoe (Cincy) and on Bartow’s home court (UAB).  We are built differently now. 

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The Chris Sloan podcast is excellent. Good storytelling and plenty of good stories. His description of Izik Ohannan’s time at SLU is great and I especially liked the Channing Frye dunk story and the Dayton return plane flight. SLU owning a bunch of old airplanes is funny in its own right.

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10 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

The podcast has become a really interesting oral history project.  A Billikens version of StoryCorps.

There’s so much to uncover with a lot of these teams I feel like we just keep chipping away with every player. I really want to talk to Chris Heinrich next 

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You really are doing a good job.  I am playing catch up on the player interviews during pandemic walks.  Just finished Sloan.  

Loved learning Ahearn wanted to transfer to SLU and was told no again.  Adds to the legend of Ahearn. 

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8 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

There’s so much to uncover with a lot of these teams I feel like we just keep chipping away with every player. I really want to talk to Chris Heinrich next 

I loved me some Chris Heinrich.  Defensively a stud and offensively not what we are now used to.  I remember Romar saying, "you're going to miss him."  We did for a while.....

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1 hour ago, Billiken Rich said:

I loved me some Chris Heinrich.  Defensively a stud and offensively not what we are now used to.  I remember Romar saying, "you're going to miss him."  We did for a while.....

I didn’t realize how long he played pro ball overseas. Does not get enough credit for his time at SLU and professionally. 

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Classic Heinrich story...I was at Kemper Arena Dec 30 1999 when we were playing well and up by a few points on Kansas in the second half. Heinrich was all by himself under the hoop , went up for a dunk and put the ball awkwardly to the bottom of the rim and fell to the floor. 18000 Jayhawk fans let out a roar that was almost like they were laughing ...we lost all momentum and after a Boschee three we were done. Think we lost by 11 but it all fell apart after that disastrous try for a dunk. 

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3 hours ago, billikenblue said:

Classic Heinrich story...I was at Kemper Arena Dec 30 1999 when we were playing well and up by a few points on Kansas in the second half. Heinrich was all by himself under the hoop , went up for a dunk and put the ball awkwardly to the bottom of the rim and fell to the floor. 18000 Jayhawk fans let out a roar that was almost like they were laughing ...we lost all momentum and after a Boschee three we were done. Think we lost by 11 but it all fell apart after that disastrous try for a dunk. 

So, at that time, elsewhere, little Brett Jolly was being given a bath, and the rest is history.

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6 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

I didn’t realize how long he played pro ball overseas. Does not get enough credit for his time at SLU and professionally. 

He had the advantage of being a German citizen so he didn't fall under the restrictions of foreign players.  He played in Bundesliga till '14.

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28 minutes ago, Box and Won said:

I damn near fell out of my chair when I heard that part.

 

On 5/3/2020 at 6:17 AM, billikenbill said:

The Chris Sloan podcast is excellent. Good storytelling and plenty of good stories. His description of Izik Ohannan’s time at SLU is great and I especially liked the Channing Frye dunk story and the Dayton return plane flight. SLU owning a bunch of old airplanes is funny in its own right.

I don't know if it came across but I'd been pushing him to do the episode since San Jose last year. When we finally set a date a switch must have flipped in his head, especially after we sent him notes. He replied back with almost an equally long text with a ton of stories he wanted to tell.

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At one point you talk about the tournament in LasVegas played at Valley High School. The reason it was played there was the game was originally supposed to be played in the Paris Hotel. The NCAA stepped in and said the games couldn’t be played in a casino. ( exhibition hall connected) . So they moved the games to the high school gym which was bigger than any around here. 

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2 hours ago, willie said:

At one point you talk about the tournament in LasVegas played at Valley High School. The reason it was played there was the game was originally supposed to be played in the Paris Hotel. The NCAA stepped in and said the games couldn’t be played in a casino. ( exhibition hall connected) . So they moved the games to the high school gym which was bigger than any around here. 

Thanks Willie! 

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Sloan's list of high level recruits that visited during Romar's tenure was mindblowing.  I had only heard about 1/4 of those names in connection with SLU.  The Darius Miles story had me rolling.  

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11 hours ago, thetorch said:

Sloan's list of high level recruits that visited during Romar's tenure was mindblowing.  I had only heard about 1/4 of those names in connection with SLU.  The Darius Miles story had me rolling.  

He was off on some details throughout the podcast - mostly being off by a year on the timing of certain things - but I think the only recruiting thing that struck me as off was that Miles actually did commit to St. John's, whereas Sloan made it sound like we still had a shot for a one-and-done year. But yeah, we were in the mix for him, Mo Baker, Chuck Hayes, and some others before I was there.

He was right about the others during my time there, though, and he even left some out. We wound up with Seyfert and Pulley in the class of 2001 (my HS class) and the staff thought until the 11th hour it would be Jamal Sampson and Travis Diener. For 2002, we had actually signed both Nick Kern and Ryan Hollins; when Romar left, they were released. Kern went to Mineral Area College for a while and Hollins went to UCLA before the NBA. He also had Taj Gray lined up as a preferred walk-on for a year who would redshirt and then go on scholarship. Gray went to Redlands CC for two years, then went to Oklahoma and was a two time first-team all-Big 12 player.

The local HS players also loved Romar. Things would've gone a lot differently had he stayed. It may have taken a couple more seasons to start bearing fruit but it was crazy to think about how close we were to being a big-time program at the end of the CUSA era.

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8 minutes ago, Pistol said:

He was off on some details throughout the podcast - mostly being off by a year on the timing of certain things - but I think the only recruiting thing that struck me as off was that Miles actually did commit to St. John's, whereas Sloan made it sound like we still had a shot for a one-and-done year. But yeah, we were in the mix for him, Mo Baker, Chuck Hayes, and some others before I was there.

He was right about the others during my time there, though, and he even left some out. We wound up with Seyfert and Pulley in the class of 2001 (my HS class) and the staff thought until the 11th hour it would be Jamal Sampson and Travis Diener. For 2002, we had actually signed both Nick Kern and Ryan Hollins; when Romar left, they were released. Kern went to Mineral Area College for a while and Hollins went to UCLA before the NBA. He also had Taj Gray lined up as a preferred walk-on for a year who would redshirt and then go on scholarship. Gray went to Redlands CC for two years, then went to Oklahoma and was a two time first-team all-Big 12 player.

The local HS players also loved Romar. Things would've gone a lot differently had he stayed. It may have taken a couple more seasons to start bearing fruit but it was crazy to think about how close we were to being a big-time program at the end of the CUSA era.

i always said romar was the guy that coulda really brought slu to the national scene.   i loved the guy.   tremendous personality and had the knack to make you feel like you were part of his inner circle.    

that all said, i believe that travis ford is even a better recruiter than  romar was.   

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11 hours ago, thetorch said:

Sloan's list of high level recruits that visited during Romar's tenure was mindblowing.  I had only heard about 1/4 of those names in connection with SLU.  The Darius Miles story had me rolling.  

I had no idea we recruited Kirk Snyder.  Sounds like we could've had him.  It's too bad he fought one of our players!

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2 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

i always said romar was the guy that coulda really brought slu to the national scene.   i loved the guy.   tremendous personality and had the knack to make you feel like you were part of his inner circle.    

that all said, i believe that travis ford is even a better recruiter than  romar was.   

Ford and Romar are the only two coaches in the modern era of SLU basketball who could even be compared to one another in terms of recruiting. Majerus had a preternatural feel for the game and knew how to find guys to mold, but Ford and Romar are on a different level.

The difference is that Ford has already been here longer and he had some big wins right away. Goodwin, French, and Gordon in particular represent a level of early success that Romar didn't have. I think had Romar been around 5-6 years it may have been a different conversation, but unfortunately we'll never know.

He had to re-recruit Marque Perry, who was committed to Spoon but going to leave and then was all in on Romar. That may have also been true for Jeffers coming out of JUCO. He also hung onto Diener and Braun. Brought in Fisher and Varner, who he recruited to Pepperdine. People forget that McClain and Edwin were both 4-star, top-100 recruits. Pulley was being recruited by power conference schools for both basketball and football. Seyfert was raw as a freshman but could've actually been a solid 4-year big in the mold of Heinrich had he hung around. And with Hollins and Kern and Gray coming in, even though he may have lost a couple guys due to academics, things were starting to fall in place. It was just a longer build.

So yeah, you have to give the title to Ford because he was so strong out of the gate by landing Goodwin and French and continued to have success in each subsequent class.

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33 minutes ago, Pistol said:

He was off on some details throughout the podcast - mostly being off by a year on the timing of certain things - but I think the only recruiting thing that struck me as off was that Miles actually did commit to St. John's, whereas Sloan made it sound like we still had a shot for a one-and-done year. But yeah, we were in the mix for him, Mo Baker, Chuck Hayes, and some others before I was there.

 

Yeah, I'm only 30 minutes into the podcast (it's awesome so far) but he definitely was a little bit off on Darius Miles as he was signed with St. Johns, in the fall I believe.

From his wiki page:

Miles was born in Belleville, Illinois and attended East St. Louis Lincoln High School and East St. Louis Senior High School in East St. Louis, Illinois. Before declaring to enter the 2000 NBA Draft, Miles had signed a National Letter of Intent to play for the St. John's Red Storm men's basketball team, alongside fellow top recruit Omar Cook. Mike Jarvis, the head coach for the Red Storm at the time, has stated that Miles' commitment significantly helped obtain Cook and the other incoming freshmen from the recruiting class.

 

Mo Baker was a really big miss. He would have been a huge player for us.

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2 minutes ago, kshoe said:

Yeah, I'm only 30 minutes into the podcast (it's awesome so far) but he definitely was a little bit off on Darius Miles as he was signed with St. Johns, in the fall I believe.

From his wiki page:

Miles was born in Belleville, Illinois and attended East St. Louis Lincoln High School and East St. Louis Senior High School in East St. Louis, Illinois. Before declaring to enter the 2000 NBA Draft, Miles had signed a National Letter of Intent to play for the St. John's Red Storm men's basketball team, alongside fellow top recruit Omar Cook. Mike Jarvis, the head coach for the Red Storm at the time, has stated that Miles' commitment significantly helped obtain Cook and the other incoming freshmen from the recruiting class.

 

Mo Baker was a really big miss. He would have been a huge player for us.

im pretty sure baker has a nephew or son that is at Madison high school right now and a diamond in the rough talent.   maybe coach314 or 3 star can elaborate.  

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