Congratulatins Team Blue 2020

[Clock_Tower]

What an exciting end to the regular season and finish in front of us - the home fans!!

More wins than last year.  More conference wins than last year in an improved A10 conference.  Higher end of regular season finish.  A higher A10 Tourney seed.  23 wins (22 without Maryville).

A lot more still to go but not many predicted this.  I thought 20 wins was possible - but only with Thatch and Jimerson.   When Thatch was not playing,, I thought 20 wins was still possible with a healthy rest of the team..   But when Jimerson went down, I though 18 to 19 wins would be our max.   I have sure been pleasantly surprised.   Next man up mentality.  This is Goodwin's team - and it shows.

Not trying to cherry pick, but attached is the box score from one of our better early season wins - maybe our then best performance of the season - on the road against Boston College.

 https://slubillikens.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2019-20/boston-college/boxscore/7633

Note:  Jimerson was tied for second leading scorer with 28 minutes, Fred logged 6 minutes and thereafter we were told he had cramping but would return soon, Perkins was just starting to get minutes (yet taking a lot of shots - many not wise) and not very efficient (3 of 12), Yuri started logging more minutes while going 0-5, 0-1 and 0-1 but ran the offense well (got 4 assists while making 4 turnovers)  yet Yurimania had begun.  Yuri's play freed up Goodwin on the wing to be Goodwin - 20 points and 14 rebounds and both he and French both obtained double-doubles (French with 11 points and 11 rebounds) lead our team to the road win over the Big East, well known, name opponent. Bell played 16 minutes while starting and giving our only interior player (French) a few breaks while shooting 1-3, Hankton was healthy but played only 4 minutes while missing his only shot and getting a rebound and Hargrove was still sitting the bench, working his ass off in practice, being our best cheerleader from the bench and keeping his mouth shut while our Board was speculating about his possible transfer, his being a tweener and maybe just a good high school but not college player and his having been poorly coached before SLU. 

Great season to date - though more is ahead of you!!

[CBFan]

I thought our team would win 25 but I am always overly optimistic and every single recruit will be great.

The reason for my optimism is coach Ford’s body of work completed as the SLU coach.  Coach Ford is a proven recruiter and has his teams playing it’s best down the stretch of the season:  Coach Ford has proven he can get a team to mesh and this season he did it with 7 new players.  His best work was a few weeks ago when our team was 7 and 6 in conference play after a loss to UMass.  Our coaches and players rallied to win the last 5 and played at the highest level of the season.

I think we can be a little more optimistic with future teams.  Next season our team should be favored to win the A10 with returning most of the players but the season after I will feel that coach Ford will reload with good players that will replace Goodwin, French and Perkins.

[Quality Is Job 1]

1 hour ago, Clock_Tower said:

Note:  Jimerson was tied for second leading scorer with 28 minutes, Fred logged 6 minutes and thereafter we were told he had cramping but would return soon, Perkins was just starting to get minutes (yet taking a lot of shots - many not wise) and not very efficient (3 of 12), Yuri started logging more minutes while going 0-5, 0-1 and 0-1 but ran the offense well (got 4 assists while making 4 turnovers)  yet Yurimania had begun.  Yuri's play freed up Goodwin on the wing to be Goodwin - 20 points and 14 rebounds and both he and French both obtained double-doubles (French with 11 points and 11 rebounds) lead our team to the road win over the Big East, well known, name opponent. Bell played 16 minutes while starting and giving our only interior player (French) a few breaks while shooting 1-3, Hankton was healthy but played only 4 minutes while missing his only shot and getting a rebound and Hargrove was still sitting the bench, working his ass off in practice, being our best cheerleader from the bench and keeping his mouth shut while our Board was speculating about his possible transfer, his being a tweener and maybe just a good high school but not college player and his having been poorly coached before SLU.

Good post, but I want to point out that, though Boston College used to be in the Big East, they've been an ACC team for 15 years now.  (That move was part of the falling dominoes of conference realignment that led to SLU's being in the Atlantic 10.)

[slufanskip]

Go back and read the prediction thread again and you'll see how much better this team played than we or even the A10 coaches expected. Many had under 20 wins expected, some as low as 16 and the coaches had us finishing 7th. 

All of us and the A10 media and coaches https://media.giphy.com/media/3o6fJ9pxzQLvEREt56/giphy.gif

[slu72]

Not many of us, myself included, expected this kind of season. I really thought it was a year to rebuild or regroup as a program. 5 FR with so so rankings, a JUCO, one not sought after GT, didn't exactly stir the juices. I think I had us with 17 Ws and felt that overly optimistic. This team would take time to gel, learn, and mature. Hats off to the whole group from the coaches to the managers. We head to Brooklyn knowing we can play/stay or beat any team in the A10. Quite a successful year by anyone's standards. 

[JettFlight5]

I will be honest, I thought this team was DOA when we lost GJ and FT for the year. They took their lumps and lost a couple head-scratchers (Davidson, UMass) but just kept bullying anyone they could. Jordan Goodwin grew up as the leader of #TeamBlue this year.

[Old guy]

I must say I was, as is usually the case, the odd duck in the prediction thread. I predicted 25-6 with Thatch and Jimerson playing. As it is, without Thatch and Jimerson we made 23-8 which still makes me a very happy camper. I am not going to attempt analysis of what happened, just to say I am grateful for the coaches' work and TeamBlue's achievements this season. Whatever it was (coaches, talent, team cohesion, raw improvement, or luck), we had it towards the end of the season.

Take the St. Bona's game, the last Vegas spread was 4.5 pts in our favor. The final scores were expected to be 69.5 for SLU and 65 for St. Bona. We held them to 49 pts!! SLU got a slightly better score than what was expected. The difference in the game was that we stopped their offense way beyond expectations. The refs were refs, nothing more to say there. We won by a big and unexpected spread. 

I do not know a lot about the technical aspects about basketball, but I do know statistics and probability. Our performance in this game went straight to the (+) side tails of the distribution curve, beyond the + 2sd level, because of whatever favorable factors we have currently working inside Team Blue. If we keep this progression going, we are going places.

And now, to all the negative posters who just a few weeks ago were wailing thinking we just could not make the Dance this year, keep your eyes and ears open during the A10 tournament. We still have a chance to make the Dance, a chance that has improved steadily over the last few games. We may not be lean but we are a "Strong, mean fighting machine." We are moving forward with the momentum of a loaded 16 wheeler. Let's go Bills, show them!

[bauman]

Old Guy, I'm with you on having blue sun glasses on in the pre-season-I predicted 22-9- but like you I was expecting significant contributions from FT Jr and GJ.  I find myself wondering how we would have done this year without those 2 losses.Certainly we have a solid 7 coming back (hopefully) next year and then adding back Fred and Gibson makes for a pretty exciting 9, plus any new additions-(MS and AL) and possibly another one or two.

However, I also wonder what impact having FT and GJ all year would have had on YC, JP and TJH.  Given that there are only 200 minutes available in any regulation game and assuming that FT and GJ would have taken up 35-40 minutes total per game then someone(s) would have been playing a lot less.  Those minutes would not have come from Jordan or Hasahn or JB Jr so that means less time for JP and TH Jr primarily and to a lesser extent TW, D Jacobs and maybe even Yuri.  What I'm saying is that sometimes out of bad can come good.  I can't imagine this team w/o the contribution of Perkins.  I also would have hated to see less time on the floor for Hargrove, who needed the minutes to develop.

[Old guy]

18 minutes ago, bauman said:

Old Guy, I'm with you on having blue sun glasses on in the pre-season-I predicted 22-9- but like you I was expecting significant contributions from FT Jr and GJ.  I find myself wondering how we would have done this year without those 2 losses.Certainly we have a solid 7 coming back (hopefully) next year and then adding back Fred and Gibson makes for a pretty exciting 9, plus any new additions-(MS and AL) and possibly another one or two.

However, I also wonder what impact having FT and GJ all year would have had on YC, JP and TJH.  Given that there are only 200 minutes available in any regulation game and assuming that FT and GJ would have taken up 35-40 minutes total per game then someone(s) would have been playing a lot less.  Those minutes would not have come from Jordan or Hasahn or JB Jr so that means less time for JP and TH Jr primarily and to a lesser extent TW, D Jacobs and maybe even Yuri.  What I'm saying is that sometimes out of bad can come good.  I can't imagine this team w/o the contribution of Perkins.  I also would have hated to see less time on the floor for Hargrove, who needed the minutes to develop.

Bauman what you are saying is absolutely correct. Every cloud has a silver lining. Losing Jimerson and Thatch allowed the rapid development of Bell, Perkins, Hargrove, and Collins to where we are now. I believe Jimerson will be back in action full time next year, but I do not think this will cut time for Bell, Perkins, Hargrove and Yuri. As far as Thatch is concerned, the jury is still out. We will see for sure.

[Aquinas]

I think one of the amazing things about this season, even after losing 2 good players, we still have 8 guys making significant contributions. It feels like we currently have greater depth and more flexibility going into the A10 T this year, than last year. It's a credit to coach Fords recruiting and his player development. He caught a lot of grief on this board for starting and playing Bell and Jacob's.  His long view is paying big dividends.

[Billikenbooster]

This+
mhg

[JettFlight5]

All I know now is there are a lot of A-10 fans who don’t want to see Team Blue on their side of the bracket.

[Fraz42]

3 hours ago, bauman said:

Old Guy, I'm with you on having blue sun glasses on in the pre-season-I predicted 22-9- but like you I was expecting significant contributions from FT Jr and GJ.  I find myself wondering how we would have done this year without those 2 losses.Certainly we have a solid 7 coming back (hopefully) next year and then adding back Fred and Gibson makes for a pretty exciting 9, plus any new additions-(MS and AL) and possibly another one or two.

However, I also wonder what impact having FT and GJ all year would have had on YC, JP and TJH.  Given that there are only 200 minutes available in any regulation game and assuming that FT and GJ would have taken up 35-40 minutes total per game then someone(s) would have been playing a lot less.  Those minutes would not have come from Jordan or Hasahn or JB Jr so that means less time for JP and TH Jr primarily and to a lesser extent TW, D Jacobs and maybe even Yuri.  What I'm saying is that sometimes out of bad can come good.  I can't imagine this team w/o the contribution of Perkins.  I also would have hated to see less time on the floor for Hargrove, who needed the minutes to develop.

As some have pointed out on this board, the losses of FT and GJ actually could’ve ended up being a positive.  We may not see the incredible developments of Perkins, Yuri, and Hargrove if the minutes aren’t available.  I believe Ford will have these guys all playing together next year (we will be loaded), but who knows if our record is better with/without those two.

[dennis_w]

What a season and it is not over yet. Coach Ford had a plan all along and in comes together in feb. and march. playing jbj those 5 minutes a game early paid off in conference play when some big help was needed, brought tj along slow and is paying off come tournament time. I think he knew what he was doing while us mbms scratched our heads.the best is yet to come