Welcome Francis Okoro!

[Littlebill]

The same people who still say the NBA is just an iso-fest are the same ones who said that Ford didn't run an offense all season. Lol

[BilliesBy40]

18 minutes ago, davidnark said:

My 14-year old son and his friends certainly favor the NBA over the other sports. They don't really watch baseball. It seems like NBA and Euro Soccer is what the kids follow. The popularity of FIFA Soccer and NBA2K certainly help fuel their interest. 

Yep. The NBA and European soccer leagues are immensely popular among those under 30. There isn’t a better competition right now than the UEFA Champions League.

[Reinert310]

26 minutes ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

The one thing that really bothers me about the NBA, and it shouldn't, is that they play music during live play. Reminds me of Ambush games at Kiel Center.

Speaking of...

[SLU_Nick]

I guess re-watching the Jordan documentary explains why I borderline hate the NBA today.  Can anyone ever imagine a player today demanding to play even though the front office has directed him to sit?  Then just the emphasis on individual over team sours me as well.  

The regular season load management and it being widely-acceptable to openly tank for better draft picks is pretty awful.  

NBA playoffs is fine and I will watch, but not nearly as compelling as NCAA (for me).

 

[davidnark]

2 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

I guess re-watching the Jordan documentary explains why I borderline hate the NBA today.  Can anyone ever imagine a player today demanding to play even though the front office has directed him to sit?  Then just the emphasis on individual over team sours me as well.  

The regular season load management and it being widely-acceptable to openly tank for better draft picks is pretty awful.  

NBA playoffs is fine and I will watch, but not nearly as compelling as NCAA (for me).

 

Nick, do you realize 2 of the biggest stars--Durant and Klay Thompson--were out this entire season by playing through injury risks during last year's playoffs?

[Reinert310]

2 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

I guess re-watching the Jordan documentary explains why I borderline hate the NBA today.  Can anyone ever imagine a player today demanding to play even though the front office has directed him to sit?  Then just the emphasis on individual over team sours me as well.  

The regular season load management and it being widely-acceptable to openly tank for better draft picks is pretty awful.  

NBA playoffs is fine and I will watch, but not nearly as compelling as NCAA (for me).

 

Agreed. The playoffs are fantastic to watch, when everyone puts effort in on both ends of the floor. I’m actually cool with players getting rest here and there. But building in rest days in early November, for nationally televised games? Give me a break. The season just started! 

[Reinert310]

2 minutes ago, davidnark said:

Nick, do you realize 2 of the biggest stars--Durant and Klay Thompson--were out this entire season by playing through injury risks during last year's playoffs?

I think he was referring to “rest days”. And I think we can all agree the NBA regular season and NBA playoffs are 2 completely different things.

[SLU_Nick]

2 minutes ago, davidnark said:

Nick, do you realize 2 of the biggest stars--Durant and Klay Thompson--were out this entire season by playing through injury risks during last year's playoffs?

Totally got that and I remember I was impressed with Durant making a go of it.  

I still maintain there is no excuse for a healthy player to sit in street clothes under any circumstances. 

The regular season is just not compelling because the games just really do not mean anything.  Baseball pennant races are compelling, Football obviously regular season means a lot, but I think NBA needs to do something semi drastic if they want people to tune in at all from Nov-May.  TV ratings seem to back up that assertion.

[757billiken]

I thought this was the welcome thread...not NBA thread.

I watched the Beagles play when they had Okoro, Yuri, Hargrove, and the buckeye. 

Okoro was the most impressive guy on the court except for Isaiah Stewart in the game I watched.

He'll be a good Billiken.

[Reinert310]

21 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

Totally got that and I remember I was impressed with Durant making a go of it.  

I still maintain there is no excuse for a healthy player to sit in street clothes under any circumstances. 

The regular season is just not compelling because the games just really do not mean anything.  Baseball pennant races are compelling, Football obviously regular season means a lot, but I think NBA needs to do something semi drastic if they want people to tune in at all from Nov-May.  TV ratings seem to back up that assertion.

I’ve never been a fan of playoff formats where half the league gets a postseason berth. I think NHL hockey is my favorite postseason, just the intensity of it, but having 16 teams get in devalues the regular season for me.

[Coach314]

20 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

Totally got that and I remember I was impressed with Durant making a go of it.  

I still maintain there is no excuse for a healthy player to sit in street clothes under any circumstances. 

The regular season is just not compelling because the games just really do not mean anything.  Baseball pennant races are compelling, Football obviously regular season means a lot, but I think NBA needs to do something semi drastic if they want people to tune in at all from Nov-May.  TV ratings seem to back up that assertion.

When was the last time regular season games in the NBA mattered tho?  In the 80s you knew it would be either Lakers or Celtics for the most part...90s Bulls....2000s Lakers or Spurs....Golden State and Cleveland had their runs most recently.  There was no dominant team this year.  Golden State,  Brooklyn and Clippers were all affected by injuries.  Most of the tv games became blowout games because of injuries.  Casual fans aren't tuning in to watch the Pelicans without Zion,  Clippers without PG and Kawhi,  Warriors without Steph and Klay...even Atlanta without Trae Young lol

[billikenfan05]

43 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

Speaking of...

Comes with the perks of the use of his Gym in O'Fallon lol

 

[dlarry]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

if i was cleveland i would declare my forever hatred for him.   and ticket and concession prices are beyond sickening, unless you restrict your viewing to your living room which i pretty much do.  

I think I agree with you but if I lived in Cleveland it would be hard to hate the guy who brought my city it’s first championship since the 1960’s.

Its easy for me to hate him from St.Louis but my feelings might be different if I was a Clevelander. That city has been through a lot when it comes to sports and he finally got them a trophy.

I don’t know.

[SLURadioBoy]

On 4/24/2020 at 9:32 PM, bauman said:

In the 2020 Recruiting thread Frank said something like good things are brewing not only for this recruiting class (step one) but also for the following year (step two).

Frank was just talking about this on his show again. He said Okoro was the good news he was talking about for 2020. He said he can't go into details yet for 2021, but he will talk about it as soon as he can.

[Clocktoweraccords2004]

So did Okoro not come here freshmen year because of Gordon? 

[Cowboy]

4 minutes ago, SLURadioBoy said:

Frank was just talking about this on his show again. He said Okoro was the good news he was talking about for 2020. He said he can't go into details yet for 2021, but he will talk about it as soon as he can.

-let's hope Frank is 2 for 2 on his latest speculation

[kshoe]

17 minutes ago, Clocktoweraccords2004 said:

So did Okoro not come here freshmen year because of Gordon? 

I highly doubt that. If you want to be at a local school like SLU and SLU has a guy at your position or a guy you don't get along with, do you decide the next best choice is Oregon? No, you go a different local school.

This sounds like a kid that went away but had a desire to get back to the Midwest. SLU is the best option at this time, especially when former AAU teammates are already here and an obvious need for a PF after French graduates.

[HoosierPal]

42 minutes ago, Clocktoweraccords2004 said:

So did Okoro not come here freshmen year because of Gordon? 

Yeah, they wanted the same jersey number.  Gordon won out in the rock-paper-scissors challenge for the number 0, Okoro went west.

[Clocktoweraccords2004]

5 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Yeah, they wanted the same jersey number.  Gordon won out in the rock-paper-scissors challenge for the number 0, Okoro went west.

You keep beating a dead horse. 
still applies, if Okoro takes Mandi or French’s number I think we have an answer... 

[billiken_roy]

49 minutes ago, SLURadioBoy said:

Frank was just talking about this on his show again. He said Okoro was the good news he was talking about for 2020. He said he can't go into details yet for 2021, but he will talk about it as soon as he can.

i hope it is nesbit and or kern.   i suspect (considering frank is an old desmet guy) that it might be one or both of the desmet bigs.   not that that would be bad.   but nesbit and or kern are going to just be major difference makers.   not sure about the desmet kids.   

[almaman]

3 hours ago, kshoe said:

This is the biggest part of it. St. Louis largely ignores the NBA because it doesn't have a team and doesn't have a nearby team to call for. If either of those things weren't true people would love it and you wouldn't hear comments about how it's boring, they don't play defense, etc. It's all about having a team to call for.

also we got burned by NBA when Hawks left and a bit with the ABA merger.

[cgeldmacher]

We've been talking for years that we wanted to get to the Xavier level of success.  I'm calling it now.  Starting with next season, Coach Ford has us there.  Now, sustaining it is the issue, but so far it's looking good.

[Cowboy]

1 minute ago, cgeldmacher said:

We've been talking for years that we wanted to get to the Xavier level of success.  I'm calling it now.  Starting with next season, Coach Ford has us there.  Now, sustaining it is the issue, but so far it's looking good.

-imo we've got a little bit of a start, but it's sustaining the success like X that is the key , like 8 Tourneys, 3 sweet 16's and an elite 8 in the last 10 tournies, need to actually achieve, not just have the parts that might make it possible

[TheChosenOne]

Sustaining a high level of success would certainly be the point if we are using Xavier as the target. Majerus had built us to that level, but then we couldn't sustain it when the players he recruited and molded were no longer in the program. But that was three straight years of Xavier level success with 25+ win seasons (2012-2014), conference regular season championships (2013 and 2014), a conference tournament championship (2013), NCAA tournament appearances (2012-2014), tournament wins (2012-2014), and ranked teams (2013 and 2014 finished in the top 25 and we were also ranked during the previous season). The impressive thing with Xavier has been their ability to sustain that level of success throughout the years and throughout core groups of players and coaching changes. The interesting thing to me is that maybe we can get Ford to be our Mark Few in maybe he will decide to ride out the next 15 years winning at a high level here in St. Louis. Why not become a legend here in St. Louis, Coach Ford?!?!

I cannot praise Ford and the coaching staff enough, but praise should also be given to those supporting the program financially (obviously Chaifetz, but many others as well) to where the facilities and support around the program sets us up to win. I know some of those folks post or read this board, so kudos to you all as well.

And while we are giving praise, I think we (as in billikens.com) deserve a lot of praise as well. Someone will have to fill in why, but I think we certainly deserve it.

[Major Majerus]

44 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

We've been talking for years that we wanted to get to the Xavier level of success.  I'm calling it now.  Starting with next season, Coach Ford has us there.  Now, sustaining it is the issue, but so far it's looking good.

Xavier was one guy; now we’re loaded.  He would’ve blossomed here but he didn’t come.  After last season he’s probably ruing what could’ve been; hopefully he’s at peace with his career.  I was a fan of him.