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The House That Rick Built Podcast


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1 minute ago, billiken_roy said:

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.  

Stats show Erwin Baker, Jr., a 6-0, 190 lb. 2022 G/F who averaged 2.5 PPG for Madison this past season. He did come on stronger down the stretch, common for a younger guy playing up on varsity. Also plays football.

Javonnie Moore is the other nephew and put up big numbers this season - 19.2 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 2.9 APG - but he was a senior this season. I can't find what he's doing for college.

Here's a piece about Mo and his nephews. The elder Baker is the coach.

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11 minutes ago, Pistol said:

Stats show Erwin Baker, Jr., a 6-0, 190 lb. 2022 G/F who averaged 2.5 PPG for Madison this past season. He did come on stronger down the stretch, common for a younger guy playing up on varsity. Also plays football.

Javonnie Moore is the other nephew and put up big numbers this season - 19.2 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 2.9 APG - but he was a senior this season. I can't find what he's doing for college.

Here's a piece about Mo and his nephews. The elder Baker is the coach.

it's moore i was thinking of.   thanks Pistol!

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1 hour ago, Pistol said:

 

People forget that McClain and Edwin were both 4-star, top-100 recruits.

-I forgot this or never knew it, wow

-one of my favorite Romar memories was after we beat a big time team, might have been Louisville when they were #2, I went up to the end zone bar at Scottrade to celebrate a bit and after a while there was Romar walking across the floor with his family in a big group hug just as happy as can be, it was a really neat moment

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Regarding the Miles recruitment, if you ever listen to his podcast with Quentin Richardson, Knuckleheads, which is VERY GOOD, he talks about his recruitment and Romar on the podcast he did with Nate Robinson. He said Romar very nearly posterized him with a dunk. Very complimentary of Romar and was indeed very high on SLU.

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Romar has proven to be over a much longer time period what everyone outside of SLU fans claims Travis Ford is - a great recruiter, but a bad coach.

Romar brought a ton of talent to Washington and never had as much success as you'd assume based on the talent level.  He also seemed to bring in a lot of guys especially at SLU see Edwin, McClain, Pulley, etc. that never quite lived up to their star rankings / hype.

It is still early, but I'm hopeful that Ford for is just as good or better at recruiting, a better coach, and better at developing talent.

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6 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

Romar has proven to be over a much longer time period what everyone outside of SLU fans claims Travis Ford is - a great recruiter, but a bad coach.

Romar brought a ton of talent to Washington and never had as much success as you'd assume based on the talent level.  He also seemed to bring in a lot of guys especially at SLU see Edwin, McClain, Pulley, etc. that never quite lived up to their star rankings / hype.

It is still early, but I'm hopeful that Ford for is just as good or better at recruiting, a better coach, and better at developing talent.

In Romar's defense, he took over a mediocre Washington program and proceeded to average 20 wins over 15 years. He made 3 Sweet Sixteens and 3 other NCAA tournaments. While he didn't win as many games as the recruits he landed might suggest they should. I think Romar's tenure at Washington is absolutely a success. 

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12 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

I'm listening to the podcast with guest Chris Sloan.  It's just awesome.  Great job 05!

My recollection is the SLU game vs. St. Bonaventure under Brad Soderberg was in Rochester, NY, not Buffalo.

Correct. The game was Saturday, November 30, 2002 at Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, NY. SLU was coming off an 0-2 start after embarrassing home losses to Tennessee-Martin and Missouri State. St. Bonaventure was coming back from the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where they lost to BYU in the title game. They beat Michigan and Virginia Tech in the first two rounds.

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12 hours ago, Billiken Rich said:

The legend of what could've been Romar's recruiting is like a fish story compared to his actual recruiting.  Maybe if he'd have stayed he'd have the recruiting gravitas to hold Travis's jock strap, as it is he doesn't deserve mention in the same breath ......

Not a level playing field when todays recruits see Chaifetz arena and yesterday’s recruits see West Pine Gym.

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9 minutes ago, VeniceMenace said:

Not a level playing field when todays recruits see Chaifetz arena and yesterday’s recruits see West Pine Gym.

plus budgets and asst coach salaries are not even close to the same.    

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55 minutes ago, VeniceMenace said:

Not a level playing field when todays recruits see Chaifetz arena and yesterday’s recruits see West Pine Gym.

That's true, but our conference affiliation was much stronger when Romar was here playing the likes of Cinci (Huggins), Memphis (Calipari), Louisville (Crum/Pitino), Marquette (Crean), Depaul, etc. The list of coaches that Sloan rattled off was pretty crazy.

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2 hours ago, VeniceMenace said:

Not a level playing field when todays recruits see Chaifetz arena and yesterday’s recruits see West Pine Gym.

Can you imagine being a top 100 recruit and being walked thru West Pine Gym on your recruiting visit?!?! Really highlights just how nice it is to have Chaifetz Arena.

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Just now, TheChosenOne said:

Can you imagine being a top 100 recruit and being walked thru West Pine Gym on your recruiting visit?!?! Really highlights just how nice it is to have Chaifetz Arena.

We both heard Romar and Soderberg lament the part of recruiting visits where they came back to the WPG to see the practice gym, locker room, weight room, and office. They both said they would usually save it for last to build up goodwill on the rest of the visit first.

I'm weird, but I actually like the atmosphere of old gyms. The gym part wouldn't have been a big downer for me. The weight room and locker room, though, were substandard for any division, let alone major D-I.

For those who never saw it, the locker room and weight room were in the basement. Being an old building, the basement ceiling was about 8 feet high - which means if you're a 6-10 center lifting weights above your head, you can't go very far before the ceiling is in your way. The locker room was small and in three segments- you walked into a middle "rec" room with a TV and sofa and coffee table, there were showers over to the left behind the rec room, and the lockers were on the right. White drywall, low ceilings, bad lighting, old sofa, old carpet, no character at all.

The offices were on the first floor. The WPG had narrow hallways; the men's basketball office was down the back right. You'd walk into the reception area, which was pretty small. Grad assistant/DBO and the third assistant basically shared an office on the right end, then you'd have the top two assistants' offices down the main hallway to the left before getting to the HC's office. It was a decent size and they did what they could to spruce it up - but again, all plain white walls, not many windows, low ceilings, no character.

I have a hard time believing there were many D-I programs at the time with worse facilities for locker rooms and offices and weight rooms. Maybe comparable practice gyms, but even then you had to deal with a department led by a do-nothing AD like Woolard and a penny pincher like Lori Flanagan as his assistant AD. The main rim at the south end was bent for like a month one year before we could get anyone to fix it. It's unreal in hindsight to think about how that department was run at the time.

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9 minutes ago, Pistol said:

 

 Lori Flanagan as his assistant AD

grrrrrrrr a major culprit in our history of follie.

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On 5/5/2020 at 8:10 AM, 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’m going to have to listen to the Sloan episode.

Romar’s tenure was when I started following SLU news on websites like this and it’s predecessors. I was constantly checking recruiting updates and would get excited about the possible recruits Romar would get.

Since he was from California and that’s where his connections were, he tried relentlessly to start a California pipeline, but repeatedly missed out on several pretty good California players. Finally got Ryan Hollins in his last year, who was probably much less heralded than some of the guys we missed on in previous years, but he ended up at UCLA and going to the NBA.

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2 hours ago, Pistol said:

We both heard Romar and Soderberg lament the part of recruiting visits where they came back to the WPG to see the practice gym, locker room, weight room, and office. They both said they would usually save it for last to build up goodwill on the rest of the visit first.

I'm weird, but I actually like the atmosphere of old gyms. The gym part wouldn't have been a big downer for me. The weight room and locker room, though, were substandard for any division, let alone major D-I.

For those who never saw it, the locker room and weight room were in the basement. Being an old building, the basement ceiling was about 8 feet high - which means if you're a 6-10 center lifting weights above your head, you can't go very far before the ceiling is in your way. The locker room was small and in three segments- you walked into a middle "rec" room with a TV and sofa and coffee table, there were showers over to the left behind the rec room, and the lockers were on the right. White drywall, low ceilings, bad lighting, old sofa, old carpet, no character at all.

The offices were on the first floor. The WPG had narrow hallways; the men's basketball office was down the back right. You'd walk into the reception area, which was pretty small. Grad assistant/DBO and the third assistant basically shared an office on the right end, then you'd have the top two assistants' offices down the main hallway to the left before getting to the HC's office. It was a decent size and they did what they could to spruce it up - but again, all plain white walls, not many windows, low ceilings, no character.

I have a hard time believing there were many D-I programs at the time with worse facilities for locker rooms and offices and weight rooms. Maybe comparable practice gyms, but even then you had to deal with a department led by a do-nothing AD like Woolard and a penny pincher like Lori Flanagan as his assistant AD. The main rim at the south end was bent for like a month one year before we could get anyone to fix it. It's unreal in hindsight to think about how that department was run at the time.

I seem to remember someone once mentioning that there wasn't even a women's restroom in West Pine for some time, even though the women's team was playing there.

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10 minutes ago, SluSignGuy said:

I seem to remember someone once mentioning that there wasn't even a women's restroom in West Pine for some time, even though the women's team was playing there.

That wouldn't surprise me, but that would've been before my time. There was a women's restroom on the east side of the building in the hallway. Would've been just behind the scorer's table between the benches if you were at a women's game there.

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http://enquirerdemocrat.com/blackburns-double-ot-loss-slu-brings-back-memories/

Yes, in 1984-85, Coach Rich Grawer's Billikens played 2 weekday afternoon matinees at West Pine Gym against Blackburn and Greenville.

The Blackburn game was a near miss disaster.  The Billikens were booed off the court at halftime, rallied to send the game into overtime, and won in Double OT.  That was Tony Brown's greatest game as a Billiken.

SLU blew out Greenville, Thank God.

The Rec Center opened at SLU during my Senior year, 1981-82.  Before that everyone was at West Pine Gym, Division 1 varsity athletics, intramural athletics, runners on the 2 tracks, swimmers.  I have vivid memories of playing goalie at West Pine Gym in intramural soccer.  I felt like a human pinball bouncer.  And we played intramural hoops at West Pine Gym.  One of my good friends, a soccer player, shot a famous air ball up into the stands.  

My then SLU roommate and I had our (in)famous meeting with then Coach and AD Ron Ekker in his office at West Pine Gym, when we finally convinced him to let us restore the Billiken mascot.  One of us told Ekker:  "Coach, we aren't leaving until you let us have back the Billiken."

When Coach Grawer arrived at SLU in 1982, the old gym was painted that hot summer, and Grawer brought out and hung the old Missouri Valley Conference banners, Wichita State, Bradley, etc., even though SLU was moving from the Metro to the then Midwestern City Conference (now known as the Horizon League).  

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Best memory of West Pine Gym:  buying lunch (baloney sandwich). at Usselmann's which was north across street from what was later Humphreys.  I would then sit in gym and watch noon practice with about 3 other people.  Those were the days.  It took a long time and the help of Farther Biondi , Chaifetz, and others for the program to take a step forward

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9 minutes ago, papal said:

Best memory of West Pine Gym:  buying lunch (baloney sandwich). at Usselmann's which was north across street from what was later Humphreys.  I would then sit in gym and watch noon practice with about 3 other people.  Those were the days.  It took a long time and the help of Farther Biondi , Chaifetz, and others for the program to take a step forward

I also seem to remember registration for classes at West Pine Gym.

2 more stories:  When I was a freshman at SLU in '78-'79, word leaked into Griesedieck Hall that DeSmet, then coached by Rich Grawer, was practicing one afternoon at West Pine Gym.  That DeSmet team had Center Steve Stipanovich, who was being heavily recruited nationally, and Frank Cusumano.  So we walked down to West Pine Gym to check out Stipo.  Coaches in the stands that weekday afternoon watching the DeSmet practice were Dean Smith of North Carolina, Digger Phelps of Notre Dame (sucking on a Tootsie Pop) and Norm Stewart of Mizzou.  We actually wrote a letter to Stipo trying to convince him to come to SLU.  He chose Mizzou.

Later word leaked into the dorm that the Los Angeles Lakers were practicing at West Pine Gym on a Friday night.  Again we made the short walk down to the old gym, and there they all were, Showtime right at our West Pine Gym:  Coach Pat Riley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Michael Cooper.  

Those were the days.

 

 

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54 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

http://enquirerdemocrat.com/blackburns-double-ot-loss-slu-brings-back-memories/

Yes, in 1984-85, Coach Rich Grawer's Billikens played 2 weekday afternoon matinees at West Pine Gym against Blackburn and Greenville.

The Blackburn game was a near miss disaster.  The Billikens were booed off the court at halftime, rallied to send the game into overtime, and won in Double OT.  That was Tony Brown's greatest game as a Billiken.

SLU blew out Greenville, Thank God.

The Rec Center opened at SLU during my Senior year, 1981-82.  Before that everyone was at West Pine Gym, Division 1 varsity athletics, intramural athletics, runners on the 2 tracks, swimmers.  I have vivid memories of playing goalie at West Pine Gym in intramural soccer.  I felt like a human pinball bouncer.  And we played intramural hoops at West Pine Gym.  One of my good friends, a soccer player, shot a famous air ball up into the stands.  

My then SLU roommate and I had our (in)famous meeting with then Coach and AD Ron Ekker in his office at West Pine Gym, when we finally convinced him to let us restore the Billiken mascot.  One of us told Ekker:  "Coach, we aren't leaving until you let us have back the Billiken."

When Coach Grawer arrived at SLU in 1982, the old gym was painted that hot summer, and Grawer brought out and hung the old Missouri Valley Conference banners, Wichita State, Bradley, etc., even though SLU was moving from the Metro to the then Midwestern City Conference (now known as the Horizon League).  

If I remember correctly a seldom used substitute by the name of Paul Janson (not the referee) was the hero of the Blackburn game. 

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