Jordan Nesbitt enters the NBA draft

[TheChosenOne]

10 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

That is not a picture of Javon Bess on that chart lol, pretty disrespectful for the team's leading scorer.  

Haha. I saw that picture and immediately looked up Bess SLU basketball to ensure I wasn't completely forgetting what Bess looked like.

[RUBillsFan]

10 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Jordan Nesbitt joins Carte’Are Gordon as the 2nd 4 Star recruit, whose term at SLU was too short lived. This needs to change.

IMO totally unfair to put Nesbitt in the same sentence as Gordon.  #1 - while you can read into his message that he probably isn't coming back, we don't know that for sure.  #2 - Gordon quit on the team mid-year & floated around various other schools for a while while Nesbitt put in his 1 year and has seemingly decided to go pro.  School isn't for everyone & that's fine.  It remains to be seen what happens with Nesbitt, but as far as his SLU career goes the Gordon comparison isn't fair. 

[Slu let the dogs out?]

8 minutes ago, rgbilliken said:

LOL I was thinking he looked pretty different from what I remembered... 

I just had to google Javon Bess to confirm I wasn't suffering from Prosopagnosia

[3star_recruit]

People have dropped out of college to start making money for as long as there have been colleges.  At least Nesbitt would have some way to support himself, unlike the thousands of students who drop out each year to go sit on the couch.

 

[Neighbor Dave]

11 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

https://youtu.be/_s9yZhBTiFI

 

That was, umm...   wow.

[ARon]

11 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Jordan Nesbitt joins Carte’Are Gordon as the 2nd 4 Star recruit, whose term at SLU was too short lived. This needs to change.

It would be interesting to see some data on how many 4-stars 1) play 4 years of college ball period 2) play all 4 at the same institution.

I'm guessing it is a fairly low % in both cases.

[Bay Area Billiken]

51 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

IMO totally unfair to put Nesbitt in the same sentence as Gordon.  #1 - while you can read into his message that he probably isn't coming back, we don't know that for sure.  #2 - Gordon quit on the team mid-year & floated around various other schools for a while while Nesbitt put in his 1 year and has seemingly decided to go pro.  School isn't for everyone & that's fine.  It remains to be seen what happens with Nesbitt, but as far as his SLU career goes the Gordon comparison isn't fair. 

It was not a comparison.  
It was a short factual statement re the last 2 SLU 4 star recruits, both of whose times at SLU were short lived. 
The opinion in the last sentence of the post stands.
Don’t make assumptions that aren’t there.

[ACE]

14 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

It was not a comparison.  
It was a short factual statement re the last 2 SLU 4 star recruits, both of whose times at SLU were short lived. 
The opinion in the last sentence of the post stands.
Don’t make assumptions that aren’t there.

Okoro was  a 4-star recruit out of high school and ranked #42 by Rivals.

[wgstl]

16 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

It was not a comparison.  
It was a short factual statement re the last 2 SLU 4 star recruits, both of whose times at SLU were short lived. 
The opinion in the last sentence of the post stands.
Don’t make assumptions that aren’t there.

Gordon wasn't one of the last two 4 stars, Okoro and Nesbitt were, and they were both Transfers, so not in the category as a Gordon who was straight from HS. 

[Bay Area Billiken]

2 hours ago, Slowry said:

Sure it needs to change.  But how has Gordan panned out other places?  Don’t think you can blame him on Ford.  I wish Nesbitt well.  But you can tell he didn’t buy in and wanted to play his own way.  You can’t do that.  Also his second school in little over a year.  We’ll see how this pans out for Jordan.  Hopefully well but I don’t see that happening.

Bob Ramsey said in the Two Man Game podcast that Jordan Nesbitt was the most talented Billiken since Larry Hughes. 

Larry Hughes’ Coach at SLU, Charlie Spoonhour, said he was smart enough to get out of Larry Hughes’ way. 
 

These are statements. Everyone can draw their own conclusions. 

[Bay Area Billiken]

6 minutes ago, wgstl said:

Gordon wasn't one of the last two 4 stars, Okoro and Nesbitt were, and they were both Transfers, so not in the category as a Gordon who was straight from HS. 

Nesbitt was recruited by SLU. He was only at Memphis one semester. I would term him at least a hybrid type case.

[White Pelican]

18 hours ago, rgbilliken said:

I WISH I was a hockey fan for this reason. Didn't grow up watching it. Grew up a die hard fan the tigers because Charlie Gehringer was my great uncle if anyone on here is old enough to know who that is lol and rooting for the Lions by proximity. Though I care about the NFL a lot less. 

I'm another old guy who knows about your Uncle Charlie. As a kid, I got a Cadaco All-Star Baseball game as a gift, probably one Xmas. It had player discs that fit on a spinner for the player's at bats. My game came with a mix of (then) current and also old-time players, including your uncle. I always had him playing second for me because his disc had enormous spots for hitting singles.

I just looked him up, he had a .321 lifetime average on 2800 hits but also drove in more than 100 runs seven times while hitting very few home runs. I know, batting average and RBI's aren't much valued anymore. Also was considered a very good fielder. Very cool that you have a Hall of Fame relative!

 

[NoCoBillsFan]

2 hours ago, Young Charles said:

Gordon was no one elses fault but himself, he's just not all there between the ears. I went to school with him for a year, long story short I was packing up my books and he walked in because coach wanted to talk with him. The coach asked him, What happen on this chemistry test? You got a D! He responded " a D... Coach I thought a D was good"

Any way, the stories of what happen in practice when he was on the team at SLU werent the most flattering, which eventually led to him getting voted off. Such a waste of talent but he was a toxic head case unfortunately. 

I'm just curious who's in these kids ear telling them this is the right move. Not saying declaring is a bad move, but in my eyes it's not the smartest decission for Nessbit in the long run. 

The numerous stories I’ve heard about Gordon are crazy

[dlarry]

4 minutes ago, White Pelican said:

I'm another old guy who knows about your Uncle Charlie. As a kid, I got a Cadaco All-Star Baseball game as a gift, probably one Xmas. It had player discs that fit on a spinner for the player's at bats. My game came with a mix of (then) current and also old-time players, including your uncle. I always had him playing second for me because his disc had enormous spots for hitting singles.

I just looked him up, he had a .321 lifetime average on 2800 hits but also drove in more than 100 runs seven times while hitting very few home runs. I know, batting average and RBI's aren't much valued anymore. Also was considered a very good fielder. Very cool that you have a Hall of Fame relative!

 

That game was awesome! 
We would play it for hours on rainy days. 
 

[HoosierPal]

42 minutes ago, ACE said:

Okoro was  a 4-star recruit out of high school and ranked #42 by Rivals.

TJ Hargrove is/was a 4-Star according to ESPN Ranking.

[Slowry]

2 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Bob Ramsey said in the Two Man Game podcast that Jordan Nesbitt was the most talented Billiken since Larry Hughes. 

Larry Hughes’ Coach at SLU, Charlie Spoonhour, said he was smart enough to get out of Larry Hughes’ way. 
 

These are statements. Everyone can draw their own conclusions. 

I think you forgot the blue font in this statement.  No one is saying Jordan isn’t a great talent.  But he’s nowhere near Larry’s talent.  Even if he is the most talented since Larry.  
 

 

[wgstl]

1 minute ago, HoosierPal said:

TJ Hargrove is/was a 4-Star according to ESPN Ranking.

true but ESPN rankings are so bad

[HoosierPal]

32 minutes ago, wgstl said:

true but ESPN rankings are so bad

Doesn't matter,  he was/is a 4 star.  [To me all these rankings aren't worth the ink to print them.]  Obi Toppin was a 2 star.  I'll take four of those type of 2 stars over our four recent 4 stars.

Our 'I'm not a 4 star' bunch of Conklin, Evans, McCall, Jett and Mitchell was pretty darn good. 

[Compton]

Okoro was also recruited by SLU.

12 hours ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Jordan Nesbitt joins Carte’Are Gordon as the 2nd 4 Star recruit, whose term at SLU was too short lived. This needs to change.

I'm not so sure Gordon's tenure at SLU was too short lived. It didn't seem to be working out for anyone.

If there's a local 4+* recruit, in most instances we want them. If it's a terrible fit after one semester (Gordon), if the player only wants/plans to be at SLU for one year (Hughes, potentially Nesbitt), or if the player is a 4-year Billiken HOFer (Goodwin), we want them coming here in the first place. So, as long as local 4*s are coming through SLU, I don't have a problem with things working out differently and them having different tenures.

Also, a player wanting to move on to the professional level is much different than just wanting to transfer schools. NIL issues aside, the professional game is just a completely different beast that has implications and opportunities that Coach Ford can't offer. If Nesbitt left for an Ole Miss, Kansas State or Marquette (as random examples), that'd be more of an indication of "this needs to change."

Maybe, in this day and age of increasing professional basketball opportunities (start-up leagues, G-League, growing international leagues, etc...), SLU showing that it can accommodate the one-and-done path for the right kind of talent is a good thing.

 

[willie]

43 minutes ago, Bay Area Billiken said:

Bob Ramsey said in the Two Man Game podcast that Jordan Nesbitt was the most talented Billiken since Larry Hughes. 

Larry Hughes’ Coach at SLU, Charlie Spoonhour, said he was smart enough to get out of Larry Hughes’ way. 
 

These are statements. Everyone can draw their own conclusions. 

I am not sure I buy this most talented since Hughes story. He had a lot of holes in his game. Being able to run and jump is not necessarily a definition of a great player. See Strickland. Did he have a few spectacular plays? Sure ,but they were few and far between. In my opinion Evans gets that title . 

[billiken_roy]

10 minutes ago, Slowry said:

I think you forgot the blue font in this statement.  No one is saying Jordan isn’t a great talent.  But he’s nowhere near Larry’s talent.  Even if he is the most talented since Larry.  
 

 

imo hard to compare.   different coaching philosophies make a huge difference.   while i dont want to replace ford, imo the only aspect of running a team he exceeds spoon on is recruiting.   spoon beats him at every other aspect and thus hughes would have undoubtedly been used better, assisted better and developed better by having spoon as his coach over nesbitt having ford.   

dont get me wrong, larry ended up with a fantastic nba career so he was indeed a likely better player but i would not try to say "he's nowhere near the talent".  nesbitt had some instances of passes, dunks and big moments that we havent seen since hughes.   consistentcy?   not close.  but who's fault is that?

[billiken_roy]

5 minutes ago, willie said:

I am not sure I buy this most talented since Hughes story. He had a lot of holes in his game. Being able to run and jump is not necessarily a definition of a great player. See Strickland. Did he have a few spectacular plays? Sure ,but they were few and far between. In my opinion Evans gets that title . 

evans?   now that is a "not even close" example.   very very good basketball player, but i think that speaks to evans soundness and fundamentals than all the little things that separate good from great imo.   i guess i am saying great equals all the above,   and evans wasnt the athlete either hughes or nesbitt were/are imo.   he was a good athlete, but i dont remember individual plays like i do hughes and nesbitt for having.  

[Bay Area Billiken]

1 hour ago, ACE said:

Okoro was  a 4-star recruit out of high school and ranked #42 by Rivals.

Francis Okoro played 2 years at Oregon.  In fact I saw him in person play for Oregon at Cal.  

He is a transfer after 2 years.  Thus, I put him in a different category than the other two, including Nesbitt, who was a 1 semester freshman transfer.

[Bay Area Billiken]

25 minutes ago, Slowry said:

I think you forgot the blue font in this statement.  No one is saying Jordan isn’t a great talent.  But he’s nowhere near Larry’s talent.  Even if he is the most talented since Larry.  
 

 

Blue font was not needed.

[Bay Area Billiken]

23 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Doesn't matter,  he was/is a 4 star.  [To me all these rankings aren't worth the ink to print them.]  Obi Toppin was a 2 star.  I'll take four of those type of 2 stars over our four recent 4 stars.

Our 'I'm not a 4 star' bunch of Conklin, Evans, McCall, Jett and Mitchell were pretty darn good. 

247sports.com listed TJ as a 3 Star.  However, I will be more than happy to consider him a 4 Star.  That would further buttress my one sentence opinion stated above.

I am also intrigued re how TJ went from being 6'6" or 6'7" at East St. Louis Senior High to being listed at 6'4" at SLU. 

I love watching him play ball, and definitely want him to stay at SLU.