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OT: Ford’s seat getting warm


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It might seem out there right now, but there needs to be a sudden trend upward soon or else this title will be a news article soon. If Ford cannot pull it together by the end of this year plus next year, I would not be surprised to see both him and Chris May removed. 

Ford’s recruiting has been top of the line, however his ability to coach and retain key players is F grade. 

To start off, we had 3 players decide to go to subpar schools instead of play for Ford with Bartley, Malik, and Miles. Those were all players we could have used in Ford’s first season. Then Bishop, Graves, Adonys and almost Goodwin. Remember that Goodwin, whom I love to death, was almost kicked off the team by sit 2. Then Jalen, Thor, Santos, Gordon. Yes Zeke left as well. 

This season and past season can be blamed on a lack of depth. Losing to Richmond would not have happened with Gordon and that’s a fact. Foreman should never be on a starting roster. 

This lack of depth we all know about is 100% on Travis Ford. Was situation 2 Ford’s fault? No of course not, but remember as a leader you are responsible for everything that those whom you are taking responsibility over, do. It’s a fact of leadership. Is us being a poor FT shooting team on Ford, Yes, he is the coach and as a coach players need to develop underneath you. 

The two greatest achievements Ford has had IMO is Goodwins triple double and putting Bess in the NBA ( as it looks rn ). 

Onto coaching. This board likes to say things like (obviously coach is working with what he sees at practice). Well now it’s about 20 games in and he has made ZERO CHANGES to our offense. Our “top” defense is no more and we have one of the worst offenses in American collegiant basketball. We have the most althletic team in the A10, yet we don’t press when we clearly should and we have our top althete sit over a turnover machine. Foreman and Isabell have played significantly way too much, and our freshmen have been given zero time to develop until too late in the season. Thor could have been a weapon if he played more than a single minute this year. Isabell has regressed more and more. Goodwin has regressed as well. This team is done playing for Ford it seems. 

You may disagree with bits and pieces of what I’ve had to say, but you can’t deny that if we do not trend upward fast, next year is going to be make or break. 

Rant over. 

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Travis Ford has gotten out Coach the last three games. Why would you wait to the last two min and press with your second best defender on the bench the entire second half. Thatch haven’t produced much offense but he’s one hell of a defense player I notice everytime him are Hankton make a mistake he pulls them out this is our future how will they develop if he want give them a chance for trial and error. The upper class players are not getting it done except for Bess. He needs to fix this are hit the road. 

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Reality check:

—Ford essentially has to go with mostly Jim Crews roster year 1

—He has a talented core of freshman and sophomore players and a nice incoming class that meets needs (better shooting and a point guard).

—He had no viable upperclassmen so he got after it with transfers. Some worked out (Bess, DJ) others had character issues. I credit Ford for taking his chances to build a winner, which he’s done. What he said at the press conference about this being the city’s team and him immediately going after local recruits has proven true.

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1 hour ago, slufan13 said:

Not sure Ford's seat is getting hot but I do think he has underacheived with this roster. Ford has to make the tournament at least once with Goodwin and French. I would say he should make it twice with them but we won't hold him that accountable. 

Goodwin and French aren't as good as so many seem to think they are. They are both good defenders and great rebounders. Offensively they both are lacking. Maybe severely lacking. Neither can shoot. French 45% from the floor and 36, 36 fu.king % from the line. If I had a tech to be shot with my 6th grade girls French would be about the 5th option. Goodwin shoots 39/25/57 and frequently makes poor decisions with the ball. They are athletic and can dunk, I'll give them that. I like them and are glad they are both Bills despite how this post sounds. However to assume they are so good it's a shame we don't make the tourney with them is wrong imo. I expected to make the tourney this year. I'll be surprised if we do and part of that is due to the play of French and Goodwin who imo have underperformed much of the season and it's a shame neither have increased their shooting skills

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7 hours ago, Glorydays2013 said:

It might seem out there right now, but there needs to be a sudden trend upward soon or else this title will be a news article soon. If Ford cannot pull it together by the end of this year plus next year, I would not be surprised to see both him and Chris May removed. 

Ford’s recruiting has been top of the line, however his ability to coach and retain key players is F grade. 

To start off, we had 3 players decide to go to subpar schools instead of play for Ford with Bartley, Malik, and Miles. Those were all players we could have used in Ford’s first season. Then Bishop, Graves, Adonys and almost Goodwin. Remember that Goodwin, whom I love to death, was almost kicked off the team by sit 2. Then Jalen, Thor, Santos, Gordon. Yes Zeke left as well. 

This season and past season can be blamed on a lack of depth. Losing to Richmond would not have happened with Gordon and that’s a fact. Foreman should never be on a starting roster. 

This lack of depth we all know about is 100% on Travis Ford. Was situation 2 Ford’s fault? No of course not, but remember as a leader you are responsible for everything that those whom you are taking responsibility over, do. It’s a fact of leadership. Is us being a poor FT shooting team on Ford, Yes, he is the coach and as a coach players need to develop underneath you. 

The two greatest achievements Ford has had IMO is Goodwins triple double and putting Bess in the NBA ( as it looks rn ). 

Onto coaching. This board likes to say things like (obviously coach is working with what he sees at practice). Well now it’s about 20 games in and he has made ZERO CHANGES to our offense. Our “top” defense is no more and we have one of the worst offenses in American collegiant basketball. We have the most althletic team in the A10, yet we don’t press when we clearly should and we have our top althete sit over a turnover machine. Foreman and Isabell have played significantly way too much, and our freshmen have been given zero time to develop until too late in the season. Thor could have been a weapon if he played more than a single minute this year. Isabell has regressed more and more. Goodwin has regressed as well. This team is done playing for Ford it seems. 

You may disagree with bits and pieces of what I’ve had to say, but you can’t deny that if we do not trend upward fast, next year is going to be make or break. 

Rant over. 

Are you sure it's significantly way too much? It seems to me it's significantly just a little too much

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I think French is a really good A-10 big. He just has no room to work because we don't have shooters on the floor. We really don't have scorers either. When a defense is allowed put their entire team in the paint, it makes any post player look worse. When (if) we start hitting enough perimeter shots to force the defense to respect it, French will become more effective.

 

But in regards to the hot take topic above, I don't think any reasonable AD or admin would have Ford anywhere close to a hot seat already. The coach came in to win NOW so some of these risks aren't getting home yet. It's clear as hell that much better days are ahead of us. We just aren't championship ready with what we have left of this roster.

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Travis Ford's seat isn't warm. Get serious.  

However, Oklahoma State fans felt the same way. We were lulled into a sense of okay-ness with the first few years the team being better than expected. Expectations those years were tempered by the Katherine Weathers Situation and an overall lack of talent year 1. This team isn't a tournament team. This team has very little chance of winning 3 in a row in the A10 tournament. The roster is flawed and was flawed even before the Santos and Gordon departures. Good big men are great, but if you have a team that can't shoot the ball the opponents can just pack it in and stop that pretty easily. 

It would appear Ford has addressed the glaring weakness - offense - with the Perkins and Jimmerson signings for next year. Perkins should be expected to be a starter Day 3. Jimmerson a key role player that can open things up. 

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The factors for the underachieving are

1. Jordan Goodwin has not lived up to his billing

It's not fair to put everything on him, but the reality is he was a highly touted local recruit that was expected to be the next great Billikens guard. While he can do many things well, he's shooting 38% from the field (24.1% from 3) for his SLU career over 47 games. He was expected to be a go-to offensive scorer and shut down defender. He's neither, and I'm not sure how much improvement we can expect going forward.

2. Too many players who were expected to perform are gone after playing little or not at all (esp Henriquez, Graves, Santos, Gordon)

3. The grad transfers were band-aids, not replacements or upgrades

Maybe some of the above is on Ford, and maybe Ford has been outcoached in some close losses but overall I think he's done well to hold things together and keep the recruiting train running.

 

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1 minute ago, Duff Man said:

 

1. Jordan Goodwin has not lived up to his billing

 

Idk, I guess i was hoping he would take a bigger jump from his 1st year to his 2nd, but hes averaged 10 ppg his first two years.   Thats pretty good.

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8 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

The factors for the underachieving are

1. Jordan Goodwin has not lived up to his billing

It's not fair to put everything on him, but the reality is he was a highly touted local recruit that was expected to be the next great Billikens guard. While he can do many things well, he's shooting 38% from the field (24.1% from 3) for his SLU career over 47 games. He was expected to be a go-to offensive scorer and shut down defender. He's neither, and I'm not sure how much improvement we can expect going forward.

2. Too many players who were expected to perform are gone after playing little or not at all (esp Henriquez, Graves, Santos, Gordon)

3. The grad transfers were band-aids, not replacements or upgrades

Maybe some of the above is on Ford, and maybe Ford has been outcoached in some close losses but overall I think he's done well to hold things together and keep the recruiting train running.

 

I hope we get a few more underachievers like Goodwin next year. The guy is capable of getting a triple double any night. I cant wait to see what he does as an upperclassman

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1 minute ago, wgstl said:

Idk, I guess i was hoping he would take a bigger jump from his 1st year to his 2nd, but hes averaged 10 ppg his first two years.   Thats pretty good.

Not good enough.

Kwamain averaged 11 PPG his freshman year and 15.9 his sophomore year and was 2nd team all A10.

Jett was the 2nd man off the bench his soph year and didn't take many shots, but he did make the  A10 all defensive team.

Lisch averaged 17.7 PPG his soph year and was all conf defensive team, honorable mention all conf

Claggett averaged 19.7 PPG his soph year and was 1st team all conf.

Most importantly, come crunch time - Goodwin is not a guy we can count on to get buckets.

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10 minutes ago, wgstl said:

Idk, I guess i was hoping he would take a bigger jump from his 1st year to his 2nd, but hes averaged 10 ppg his first two years.   Thats pretty good.

At this pace he's going to be way behind Tommie Liddell on the scoring list. If you would have told me that 2 years ago,  I wouldn't have believed you.

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1 minute ago, billikenfan05 said:

This is hilarious. GloryRavs was ready to anoint this team and Travis Ford hall of fame and lifetime contracts respectively preseason and now he’s leading the mob with their torch and pitchforks Are we supposed to take you seriously? 

Maybe I have changed my mind and no longer drink the koolaid of recruiting? There is no roster I would have switched with in the A10 at the beginning of the season. Losing at home to Richmond is the catalyst for a change of heart. We are 14-7 when we should be 17-4. I legitimately think other coaches could have taken our roster to top 25. We have one of the worst offenses I have ever seen. 

How much longer are we going to say “at least the recruiting is good” 

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8 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

Not good enough.

Kwamain averaged 11 PPG his freshman year and 15.9 his sophomore year and was 2nd team all A10.

Jett was the 2nd man off the bench his soph year and didn't take many shots, but he did make the  A10 all defensive team.

Lisch averaged 17.7 PPG his soph year and was all conf defensive team, honorable mention all conf

Claggett averaged 19.7 PPG his soph year and was 1st team all conf.

Most importantly, come crunch time - Goodwin is not a guy we can count on to get buckets.

Lisch averaged 14.9. I think you're looking at per 40 minute stats. But your point still stands. We've seen much better scoring numbers from top 150 recruits than we've seen from Goodwin. The way they scored points in high school translated to college.

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7 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Lisch averaged 14.9. I think you're looking at per minute stats. But your point still stands. We've seen much better scoring numbers from top 150 recruits than we've seen from Goodwin. The way they scored points in high school translated to college.

yeah, I was - either way the 4 modern era guards (excluding 1 and done Larry Hughes) on the "All Century team" - Claggett, Lisch, Mitchell, and Jett were all bonafide studs at this point in their careers - with Jett's coming as a bench player on the most loaded team we've ever had.

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12 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

This is hilarious. GloryRavs was ready to anoint this team and Travis Ford hall of fame and lifetime contracts respectively preseason and now he’s leading the mob with their torch and pitchforks Are we supposed to take you seriously? 

Exactly lol he was saying we were going to be blowing out these teams by 20 every night. It's hilarious. 

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8 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

yeah, I was - either way the 4 modern era guards (excluding 1 and done Larry Hughes) on the "All Century team" - Claggett, Lisch, Mitchell, and Jett were all bonafide studs at this point in their careers - with Jett's coming as a bench player on the most loaded team we've ever had.

I think a bigger problem than even the shooting on this team, is there just aren't enough guys on this team that are good enough at finding and setting up players in a good position to score. If you are running a deliberate offense you need those guys. I think the lack of those guys hurts the shooting numbers. The teams that Majerus built had multiple guards and bigs that were good at it.  Even Brad's Kevin and Tommie teams had multiple guys that were good at it.  Ian became really good at it over his last two seasons.

I think that is hurting everyone's scoring numbers.  It makes what Bess is doing right now even more impressive.

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Goodwin averages 7 rebounds per game as a point guard. Nearly averages a double double (as a PG...) and he does everything and anything to win games. He has the only triple double in program history. From everything I've heard he's a great leader and a vocal supporter of our program. He was the first and main reason for this turn around and pulling our program out the shitter after Crews ruined it. It's people like him that have recruits wanting to come play for SLU. Can't believe this board is calling him out after everything he has gone through here. It's disgusting. Athletes have bad games let the kid play. 

Ford needs to ramp up the tempo. Problem is we only have 8 players now so it's hard to sustain that for a whole game. Once again Ford is handcuffed by things that are out of his control. Gloryravs take a hike. This is exactly what we warned you about when you were talking about how this is the best team SLU has ever had. 

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As long as Ford is the coach I still believe nothing has changed other than I will be changing my season tickets from the upper bowl to the lower bowl next season.

I was at the game last night drove back to my home in the snow to Cedar Hill in the center of Jeffco and never felt it was a waste of my time for a single second just disappointed in a loss at home to Richmond.

I figured some on the board would be in meltdown mode and would say silly things after the loss, one of my favorites is about a forward that gets double double each night against the A10.

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