2020 - 2021 SLU on the Radio / TV

[cgeldmacher]

1 hour ago, HoosierPal said:

The first two positives came back from tests taken on Dec 28.  With the incubation period being, somewhere between 2 and 5 days, that puts a possible infection window between Dec 26 and Dec 23.  The KC game was on the 23rd.  Did the game, or the admittance of fans, have any impact?

I have thought the same thing.  The research shows that the incubation period can be 2-14 days, but the most like scenario is that you get exposed 4-7 days prior to symptoms showing up or a positive test.  This puts the exposure that started all this smack dab around the KC game where all the families were allowed to attend.  I doubt it was the families being in Chaifetz, but rather the players being exposed to their families before and after the game.  The families may not have been following the strict protocols that the team was adhering to.

This is not a criticism of any decision to allow the players to see their families.  I don't think that anyone thought of that as a bad idea at the time.  However, looking back.....

[Clocktoweraccords2004]

What sucks is after 5 years without being top 25 we may possibly spend 3 weeks ranked and then play unranked when we finally play next week (fingers crossed) 

[Brighton]

Well deserved IMO.

[HoosierPal]

Coach was on the Press Box yesterday.  Just a few new items.  The last practice was Dec 29.  So if next practice is Jan 22, that's a lonnnnnnng time.  Coach described his symptoms, which were fairly severe.

Coach added that a couple of managers also were positive.  So 80% of the players, at least 2 coaches and 2 managers were positive.

Coach talked about the guidelines, which he said are the strictest ones he knows of, which he also said is probably a good thing.  Other programs have allowed negatives to leave quarantine and work out.

Looks like Dayton and then at Richmond.  Tough comeback tour.

https://590thefan.com/radio-shows/press-box/

[billiken_roy]

i'm hoping that the fact the team has had time to heal from bumps, bruises, aches and pains for the nearly one month sit out helps offset some of the rust.   trying to be positive.   

 

[RUBillsFan]

1 hour ago, HoosierPal said:

Looks like Dayton and then at Richmond.  Tough comeback tour.

I'm not sure that Richmond game 1/29 is happening as scheduled.  Spiders are currently on COVID pause themselves.  I'm sure A10 will reschedule SLU will a different opponent if that's the case.  GW is also on pause and they are scheduled to host  Fordham 1/30 so easiest schedule change is SLU hosts Fordham either 1/29 or 1/30 instead of playing at Richmond.  That would be an awful game for SLU's SOS so hopefully A10 does some additional shuffling to get SLU a better opponent if they can't play Richmond.

[HoosierPal]

11 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

I'm not sure that Richmond game 1/29 is happening as scheduled.  Spiders are currently on COVID pause themselves.  I'm sure A10 will reschedule SLU will a different opponent if that's the case.  GW is also on pause and they are scheduled to host  Fordham 1/30 so easiest schedule change is SLU hosts Fordham either 1/29 or 1/30 instead of playing at Richmond.  That would be an awful game for SLU's SOS so hopefully A10 does some additional shuffling to get SLU a better opponent if they can't play Richmond.

Yeah, you could be right.  I'm glad I'm not the A10 scheduler.

[Billiken Rich]

3 hours ago, billiken_roy said:

i'm hoping that the fact the team has had time to heal from bumps, bruises, aches and pains for the nearly one month sit out helps offset some of the rust.   trying to be positive.   

 

Hoping that Jimmy Bell Jr's foot has healed fully and he can come out swinging

[wgstl]

26 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

Hoping that Jimmy Bell Jr's foot has healed fully and he can come out swinging

even if his foot is, hes likely to be very out of shape, and the hardest to get back into shape. 

[DOC]

53 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

Hoping that Jimmy Bell Jr's foot has healed fully and he can come out swinging

Watching his work ethic since arriving at SLU makes you really want Jimmy to succeed. The problem this year and perhaps next year is that there won't be enough playing time for him. Coach likes playing with one big a lot of the time and maybe that changes next year, but Linsen has been very good and French is French and Okafor in waiting makes minutes in the post hard to come by.

[Quality Is Job 1]

23 minutes ago, DOC said:

Watching his work ethic since arriving at SLU makes you really want Jimmy to succeed. The problem this year and perhaps next year is that there won't be enough playing time for him. Coach likes playing with one big a lot of the time and maybe that changes next year, but Linssen has been very good and French is French and Okoro in waiting makes minutes in the post hard to come by.

Well, we'll see about that last part.  I predict Jimmy Bell will be a key part of the team this season.

[cgeldmacher]

21 minutes ago, Quality Is Job 1 said:

Well, we'll see about that last part.  I predict Jimmy Bell will be a key part of the team this season.

Depends on your definition of "key part."  He's not going to be getting as many minutes as French or Linssen.  As DOC pointed out, Ford often likes to play with just one big.  I think Bell will contribute as our third big.  His contribution will be important.  However, I don't know that I believe that what he will give this year will be considered "a key part of the team."

[Billiken Rich]

I have to believe Bell was gimpy to start the season.  I don't think Linssen was far ahead of last season Jimmy Bell.  We're going to need some beef to go far in the tournament. 

[Littlebill]

47 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

I have to believe Bell was gimpy to start the season.  I don't think Linssen was far ahead of last season Jimmy Bell.  We're going to need some beef to go far in the tournament. 

Disagree. No slight on Bell. I just think Linssen is one of the better bigs in the whole league. Who’s better? Osun at Bona, Mitchell at UMass, golden at Rich and Hughes at Duq. Anyone else? Honestly. Bell a great reserve and has potential but not there yet

[HoosierPal]

Chris May was on the Press Box today.  He expects to play Tuesday.  A handful of fans will be in attendance, like the KC game.  He feels that with the COVID numbers decreasing, they will be able to increase the number of fans.  He said he doesn't forsee general public sales, but will go through priority point process with season ticket holders and donors.  They will start at the top and move down the list.

He says expect more adjustments to the schedule.  For example, if Dayton goes positive, the A10 would try to get another team to take that game.  He believes Richmond is very close to returning.

NCAA tourney has put the schedule together with two days off between the two rounds.  Focus of the timing of the games is around testing protocols.  Everyone will have to have 7 days of negative tests before playing.  All teams will have to be in Indy on the Monday after Selection Sunday.

[HoosierPal]

Chris May on KMOX this morning.  I just listened to the podcast.

News:  May believes a home game will be scheduled between the @ Richmond game on the 29th the @ GW game on the 6th.  

"French looks as good as I have ever seen him.  He was on top of his game.  In the 1/2 hour I was there I didn't see Gibson Jimerson miss a shot."

[wgstl]

47 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

 

"French looks as good as I have ever seen him.  He was on top of his game.  In the 1/2 hour I was there I didn't see Gibson Jimerson miss a shot."

Sooooo Bills by 30 Tuesday 

[slu72]

2 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

Chris May on KMOX this morning.  I just listened to the podcast.

News:  May believes a home game will be scheduled between the @ Richmond game on the 29th the @ GW game on the 6th.  

"French looks as good as I have ever seen him.  He was on top of his game.  In the 1/2 hour I was there I didn't see Gibson Jimerson miss a shot."

My heart rate just went up to 126. 

[Cowboy]

2 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

Chris May on KMOX this morning.  I just listened to the podcast.

News:  May believes a home game will be scheduled between the @ Richmond game on the 29th the @ GW game on the 6th.  

"French looks as good as I have ever seen him.  He was on top of his game.  In the 1/2 hour I was there I didn't see Gibson Jimerson miss a shot."

-yeah, I heard this too, interesting for CMay, who holds everything close to the vest, to say this about a couple of players

[HoosierPal]

Coach's Show with Rammer:  It was on Facebook Live.

Apparently Rammer addressed the team at the Saturday practice.  Coach complimented the trainers as they are going through this process for the first time also.  They do hydration tests daily and the players are wearing heart monitors in practice.  Some players have had good days followed by bad days.

After 3 practices, Ford hasn't learned yet how to move forward.  Situations change fast, in each practice.  

Dayton game: big wins against Ole Miss and Miss State. Crutcher is averaging 18 ppg and performing at a high level, shooting at 52%.  Doing a scouting report, but not spending as much time on Dayton yet, as they are on SLU.  

How well will SLU shoot?  Rammer saw one practice and Jimerson and Perkins were shooting fine.  Coach: some days are better than others.  (Only had 3 practices.)  Coach"  "We have shot the ball okay, but there are other things that we need to get back".

Scheduling:  There are 10 games left on the schedule plus the St B floater.  Ford hasn't heard from the league on how many games will be made up.  He mentions the buy weeks coming up but said both teams (that we missed) need to have the same open dates.  Rammer: can the conference reschedule with the overall strength of the league in mind? Coach "All that plays a roll in it.  I assume they will take that into consideration."  Coach:  Many conversations on league tourney's...if you are a team that pretty much will make the NCAA, do you want to go to a league tourney with it's risk?  No decision from the A10 yet as to where the tourney will be.  Decisions probably wont' be made until February (next week?)

Coach has networked other coaches who have been paused.  Protocols and guidelines differ around the country.  Some teams have been allowed to do more than others.  Talked to Jay Wright at Villanova this week.  

Rammer:  Expectations for Dayton game, how have you dealt with this with the team:  Coach "I don't have expectations now.  We just want to be the best we can tomorrow.  I don't know what to expect.  I hope we are good enough to win.  We need to play hard and play together."

Rammer:  how will you deal with stamina.  Coach:  "I won't know until we start the game.  We are going to have to rely on our depth.  Certain coaches will be monitoring certain players on the floor.  We will have to use everybody, and use everybody early."

Pre-COVID we were ranked Top 10 in Offensive Efficiency.  Coach:  There are a lot of things in Offensive Efficiency.  You get a good number by a lot of ways.  One thing Coach wasn't happy with last few games before pause was passing the ball. 'We weren't passing the ball as well as we wanted to.  We were spending a lot of time prior to the Duquesne game, on target-on time passes. We thought we had gotten away from it a little bit."  You need ball movement and player movement.  Ball movement is different that being a good passing team.  Player movement needs to be connected to everyone else to be efficient.  Passes need to hit the shooter 'right in the pocket', gives the shooter confidence that they can score.  Don't throw the ball at the big guy's knees.  Coach: we want to be patient in decision making, but you have to be aggressive when making a move.  

Guys realize that when you are on the floor with Collins, you better not turn your head.  Team has an extreme amount of confidence in Yuri.

Coach has no problem with French handling the ball, bringing it up court.  Wants guys to get up court as aggressive as possible. (Likes the word play aggressive rather than play fast.)

Watching a lot of games while on quarantine, coach noted a significant number of games with large margin of victory on games he thought would be much closer.  He thinks this is all due to the virus situation.  Back to back games, 'that's weird'.  Seeing first game 'I win by 10, second game you win by 30.'  Boise State won game one by 52 points, and won the turn around second game 2 days later on a last second shot.  

Finished up talking about TeamBlue.  It gives the team, the basketball family, a culture the team has adopted.  They talk about it a lot internally, and they see it in action each day.  We try to live it rather than talk about it.

Attendance: with the Blues starting at 300, the Bills will be allowed to have 300 inhouse tomorrow.  Chris May is handling the attendance issues.  Rammer hopes to see students and the band back into Chaifetz.  Coach, yeah, with more fans that means things are getting better around the city.  Will have cheerleaders tomorrow.  They are going to have a few students also.

Keys to Dayton game:  First key "I hope we can get through the game.  No excuses.  Have to stop Crutcher. They run really good offense, they haven't changed it a lot but have added a few items."    

https://twitter.com/KMOXSports/status/1353737105051062285

added these tweets, expanding on Coach's statement on league tourney's.

[HoosierPal]

Coach on KMOX Sports on a Sunday Morning:

Said it was unfortunate they didn't play Richmond.  That was all he talked about the situation.  On the newly scheduled games, pretty much skipped LaSalle and went straight to St. Bonaventure, complimenting them.

On the Dayton game, mentioned giving up too many 3's.  We had winning numbers in many stat categories, except offense and defensive threes.  Thought we had good D on 6 of their 12 3's.

With the disappointment of the canceled game, it is tough to keep focus, it is extremely frustrating. Talked to the team about feeling sorry for something they can't control.  Who knows what is going to happen next.

Did not practice on Friday, even though they got home at 6 pm. Went really hard yesterday.  Have to take off today, per NCAA rules - have to take one day off each week, with the week starting each Sunday - (crazy that still adheres with all this scheduling mess).

That was it. 

 

[slu72]

He sounds a little frustrated. Gonna take every tool in his motivational tool box to keep Team Blue focused going forward. Let's hope, probably unrealistic, we can avoid anymore Richmond deals. 

[HoosierPal]

Coach's Show with Rammer:  You can find it on KMOX Sports Facebook.

Reviewed Dayton Game:  Game showed why it takes 8 weeks to get ready to play rather than 3 days. But once ball is thrown up, you have to play.  Dayton was coming off a tough loss and they were locked in.  We shot 52%, 20 A, 10 TO, but we were trading 3's for 2's.  When we tied the game, Crutcher said "No".  We didn't have the fight to finish the game.  We didn't have that next gear.  We played hard, but we didn't play hard with a purpose.  Rammer:  why only two O Reb?  Ford:  We didn't go.  If you don't go, you aren't going to get the ball.  If you don't go, you are easy to box out.  Yes this has been addressed.

Richmond:  Ford, "I'm not allowed to get into a lot of this.  I don't understand why we can't talk about it, but I can't.  There was not enough factual information put out there where people could take out of it what they want.  We were there ready to play.  Our doctors (plural) made the decision that it was best to not play.  I don't want to throw anyone under the bus.  Our doctors thought it was cut and dry what we needed to do.  They were steadfast, as they continued gained more information.  Sure we were disappointed but we didn't want to do anything that would cost us later.  Our doctors explained it to me, and I totally understood and was in agreement.  We know how quick this can spread through Tier 1 personnel."  

Rammer:  with Richmond now on quarantine, SLU Medicine got it right.  Ford: "I can't get into that.  I hate that for Chris Mooney.  You don't want that for anybody.  Our doctors must have magical powers.  Our doctors told me what was going to happen."  

Ford:  Chris May stood up for our program.  He made the decision he had to make for the best interest of our program.  I saw a lot of shots on social media that threw us under the bus.  I don't know what people thought was going on.  He showed incredible leadership when there were a lot of different things coming his way.  It wasn't easy, 24-48 hours later.  We knew why we made our decision.  We couldn't tell social media why we made the decision.  

LaSalle Game.  LaSalle is up and down. Deciding which LaSalle team shows up makes this difficult.  They won at Dayton and at Richmond.  They play zone and some man and go 9 deep.  I wish I had played more people in the Dayton game, but we were in a hole.  We need to use our bench more.  LaSalle has depth.  

St. Bonnie on Saturday.  Ford: I have heard we will add more fans into Chaifetz.  But this changes day to day. Everyone's hope is to continue to add fans. St. Bonnie is like us in that they had their top players returning this season. 

 Talked a little about how the NCAA Selection Committee will put together the tourney.  It will be tough to judge a team that has more games in than another team with fewer games.  [Not much else new here.]  

Coach Chaney:  Ford, we played Temple twice when I was at UMass.  I was always impressed with his 1-3-1 zone, and his 5 am practices every single morning.  No one was doing that back then.  I went 1 and 1 against him.  We played him at home, and won pretty big.  Went down to Philly and we had 9 points at half time.  Chaney wasn't going to let that happen to him again.  

Today is the anniversary of Spoon's death:  Ford didn't know Coach Spoon but since he has been here, he has heard a lot of good stories.  He does know Jay Spoon.  He has gotten to know Coach Grawer.

Coaches that have influenced Coach Ford:  Mentioned his dad first, says he still knows more about basketball than he does.  Don Parson, his HS school, has won over 800 games.  Played V as an 8th grader, so spent 5 years under him.  One year with Norm, three years with Pitino.  He has taken a lot of his coaching from these two.  A lot of how we prepare is from Coach Pitino.  X's and O's are important, but the challenge is getting the team to do what you want them to do, on the court.  Communication and relationships are the key.

Key against LaSalle; take care of the ball.  Be prepared for them to change defense.  [We have to test daily in Philly.]

[Pistol]

Good summary, thanks.

I have tons of respect for this program, the team doctors, May, and Ford right now. It's pretty satisfying to see them vindicated within 48 hours instead of us just having to hope and trust they made the right call while people complain and point fingers. That's what it looks like when expertise and leadership work together, and now we get to keep playing.

Did he say anything about travel this week, with Philly experiencing a blizzard?

[HoosierPal]

21 minutes ago, Pistol said:

Good summary, thanks.

I have tons of respect for this program, the team doctors, May, and Ford right now. It's pretty satisfying to see them vindicated within 48 hours instead of us just having to hope and trust they made the right call while people complain and point fingers. That's what it looks like when expertise and leadership work together, and now we get to keep playing.

Did he say anything about travel this week, with Philly experiencing a blizzard?

No mention of the weather.