Two Man Game, Earl and Rocc.

[Billiken Rich]

2 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

West Pine was a dump, but Soderberg isn't a head coach. Soderberg in Chaifetz would be no different than the results he got at Savvis. Great dude, but there is a reason he wasn't retained at Wisconsin, then dumped by SLU, then moved to a non coaching role at UVA. 

I'd hire him as a defensive coordinator.....

 

[3star_recruit]

21 minutes ago, Billiken Rich said:

I'd hire him as a defensive coordinator.....

 

That's essentially what Schmidt is at St. Bonaventure.  It took him about 10 seasons to build the Bonnies into a contender, but up until last year they've been winning with defense.

[HoosierPal]

Rick Majerus NCAA coaching record 517-215, NCAA Tourney Record 19-12

Travis Ford NCAA coaching record 390-303, NCAA Tourney Record 1-7

[BIG BILL FAN]

24 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Rick Majerus NCAA coaching record 517-215, NCAA Tourney Record 19-12

Travis Ford NCAA coaching record 390-303, NCAA Tourney Record 1-7

We keep losing focus here. It’s not about who is the better lifetime  coach...obvious it’s Majerus. That said, I would take a Travis Ford in the prime of his coaching career for a 10-15 year run than a 60 year old Majerus, with health problems. 

[slu72]

1 hour ago, 3star_recruit said:

Because he was recruiting to freaking West Pine in an era where the only good local players were Lisch, Liddell and the kids Weber took at SIU.  If you didn't have the name recognition to bring in talent from outside of the area, it wasn't going to happen.  Put a Soderberg-level coach in Chaifetz and we would have been competing for conference titles in most years.

I meant Majerus. They were good players that just never seemed to get what Rick was selling/teaching. 

[RUBillsFan]

6 minutes ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

We keep losing focus here. It’s not about who is the better lifetime  coach...obvious it’s Majerus. That said, I would take a Travis Ford in the prime of his coaching career for a 10-15 year run than a 60 year old Majerus, with health problems. 

Of course this is a totally silly argument because Majerus has passed away and Ford is our coach.  That being said, if SLU had a coaching opening right now & my options were Majerus or Ford, I'd probably take Majerus*.  IMO you have a higher ceiling even if that success is likely to be short lived due to the health problems.  Part of my argument would be that you should be able to hire a Ford-quality coach after Majerus (even understanding that SLU did screw this up before).

I think that is why Ford is kind of polarizing.  He's basically performing to expectations, but IMO he's not irreplaceable.  He's not like McKillop at Davidson or Schmidt at St Bonaventure where if they left, you may have a hard time getting a similar quality coach.  I don't think Ford should be on the hot seat at all right now.  He's been very good & I think there is value in continuity for the program.  I think / hope he is here a long time & can boost the success that extra 5% or so to get us into the NCAAs more often than not.  However, Ford is the highest paid coach in the A10 & SLU has great facilities.  IMO, there would be significant interest if the job where to open up & it wouldn't be like "oh no, what are we going to do without Ford".

* - I do think you can make an argument that with the transfer portal, NIL, etc. the game has changed so much that a coach like Majerus may not be successful or as successful in today's game.  That's probably the argument against him if you were making the hire today.  I'm not really factoring that in.

[brianstl]

3 hours ago, Taj79 said:

Yeah let's remember Majerus replaced a stunned Brad Soderberg after Brad posted a 20 win season.  His roster included:  Lisch, Liddell, Meyer, Brown, Eberhardt, Husak, Polk, Eckerle (walk on) and Soderberg recruits Knollmeyer, Relaphorde and Mitchell.  I think the highest (/) rated recruit, Dustin Maguire redshirted that year.  

Ford's first year, he inherited Roby, Crawford, Agbeko, injured player Welmer, injured player Bishop, Hines (walk on), and [dead] recruits Moore, Gillman, and Neufeld.  Plus Ford recuit Jalen Johnson.  

Majerus inherited two of the best all-time players in Billiken history.  Ford inherited none.  There is no way in hell Ford's inheritance was "better top to bottom" than what Majerus came into.  Ford started at rock bottom IMHO.  Leaving at the time were Reynolds, Jolley, Yarbrough and Bartley.  I believe all but Bartley left right after [dead] was fired and before Ford came on.

Ford inherited a better overall roster.  When Ford took the job their were 9 guys that would later be D1 starters either with the Billikens or another team.  Those were Crawford, Roby, Bartley, Bishop, Reynolds, Neufeld, Agbeko, Welmer and Yarbrough.  When Majerus was hired their were four such players on the roster in Lisch, Liddell, Meyer and Polk.

[RUBillsFan]

1 hour ago, brianstl said:

Ford inherited a better overall roster.  When Ford took the job their were 9 guys that would later be D1 starters either with the Billikens or another team.  Those were Crawford, Roby, Bartley, Bishop, Reynolds, Neufeld, Agbeko, Welmer and Yarbrough.  When Majerus was hired their were four such players on the roster in Lisch, Liddell, Meyer and Polk.

I'll agree which coach stepped into a more difficult situation is murky and the roster is closer than you might initially think given the presence of Lisch & Liddell.  However, I think your count is either off or horribly misleading.  You skip over the importance to parse the level of play because of the disparity between low majors and high majors in D1.  You also skip over the quality of the players overall & their quality at the time each coach took over.

I think you are missing Marcus Relphorde from the Majerus list.  He signed with Sodie & was a Fr on Majerus's first team before transferring to Colorado & starting there.  I'm not sure when Barry Eberhardt signed, but you may be excluding him as well.  We were certainly recruiting him before Majerus was hired (I can find evidence on the board of his recruitment going back to February 2007.  He started 15 games at SLU.  You are probably missing Danny Brown who started 16 games during his SLU career.  Heck, I'd even argue that you should include Bryce Husak given your inclusion of Neufeld as they are similar quality players and Husak started 19 games during his SLU career.  That would make the tally 9 guys for Ford and 8 guys for Majerus.

[slufanskip]

2 hours ago, brianstl said:

Ford inherited a better overall roster.  When Ford took the job their were 9 guys that would later be D1 starters either with the Billikens or another team.  Those were Crawford, Roby, Bartley, Bishop, Reynolds, Neufeld, Agbeko, Welmer and Yarbrough.  When Majerus was hired their were four such players on the roster in Lisch, Liddell, Meyer and Polk.

So would you trade a 2 for 1. I get Trout you get 2 league average players. Heck 2 is always better than 1

[billiken_roy]

29 minutes ago, RUBillsFan said:

I'll agree which coach stepped into a more difficult situation is murky and the roster is closer than you might initially think given the presence of Lisch & Liddell.  However, I think your count is either off or horribly misleading.  You skip over the importance to parse the level of play because of the disparity between low majors and high majors in D1.  You also skip over the quality of the players overall & their quality at the time each coach took over.

I think you are missing Marcus Relphorde from the Majerus list.  He signed with Sodie & was a Fr on Majerus's first team before transferring to Colorado & starting there.  I'm not sure when Barry Eberhardt signed, but you may be excluding him as well.  We were certainly recruiting him before Majerus was hired (I can find evidence on the board of his recruitment going back to February 2007.  He started 15 games at SLU.  You are probably missing Danny Brown who started 16 games during his SLU career.  Heck, I'd even argue that you should include Bryce Husak given your inclusion of Neufeld as they are similar quality players and Husak started 19 games during his SLU career.  That would make the tally 9 guys for Ford and 8 guys for Majerus.

eberhardt was a rickma signee.   first one i believe.  

 

there is no question rickma is a superior game coach and player development coach than ford.  

rickma was nothing special as a recruiter imo.  a lot of the rickma roster development came from creaming the roster.   he was close to putting slu on probation for the turnover and the departing players being behind academically at the time of their departure.   so he would bring in say 5 players, keep 2 and graduate a couple then bring in 4 new, keep one or two and do it again.  

ford is arguably the best recruiter ever to come to slu.   i just wish he would be more focused on what he needs to win big.   for example we have a boat load of wings right now.   we have one point guard and 3 bigs.   seems a little unbalanced.

second it seems he is addicted to athletes.   rickma on the other hand was all about who he could get to do what he saw as the path to win.   rickma wins this as well as how many strong athletes never really reached their potential with ford?   

but as i have said a million times now, give me the strong roster.   we always have a chance with talent.   and just maybe in the future ford figures it out and coaches what he has instead of trying to change everyone.  i think ford's potential for saint louis university is huge and as frustrated as i get with his handful of under achieved losses each year which collectively is just enough to keep us out of the tourney, i know the next year he will get the talent to give us a chance again.  under previous coaches we always had a "rebuilding year" we had to be patient with.  seems like those days are over we are that close.  

but there is no denying by the time he left imo rickma had a dam good roster.    

i could go on about other deficiencies of both, but the debate here seems centered on players when the rickma left and when soderberg left.   i.e. who was handed the best scenario.   not worth talking about both had rosters handed to them with glaring flaws.  

[JMM28]

3 hours ago, RUBillsFan said:

* - I do think you can make an argument that with the transfer portal, NIL, etc. the game has changed so much that a coach like Majerus may not be successful or as successful in today's game.  That's probably the argument against him if you were making the hire today.  I'm not really factoring that in.

Not that he'd want to participate in it, but I feel like Rick would have been strong in the portal. Give him the opportunity to grind tape on dudes from D2 champions, Sun Belt all conference teams, etc and he would have been bringing in pieces that could have fit like a glove. Add to that a track record of getting guys to the professional level....whooo boy. 

[VeniceMenace]

4 hours ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

We keep losing focus here. It’s not about who is the better lifetime  coach...obvious it’s Majerus. That said, I would take a Travis Ford in the prime of his coaching career for a 10-15 year run than a 60 year old Majerus, with health problems. 

The X factor now is the high roster churn and escalating rate of transfers in today's game. Theoretically that provides even more of an advantage for fantastic recruiters.

[Bills By 40]

9 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

Not that he'd want to participate in it, but I feel like Rick would have been strong in the portal. Give him the opportunity to grind tape on dudes from D2 champions, Sun Belt all conference teams, etc and he would have been bringing in pieces that could have fit like a glove. Add to that a track record of getting guys to the professional level....whooo boy. 

Agreed...I think he would've been the perfect man to snag the guys that weren't in the spotlight and work them perfectly into his system, and with his reputation of success he could've also contended for the big names. 

[slu72]

Rick didn’t work the transfer or JUCO market here. He went after under valued HS kids. If he was here, I think he might have enjoyed getting HS kids that were recruited over by players from the portal. 

[almaman]

22 hours ago, Billiken Rich said:

Majerus was a genius.  A complicated, my way or the highway, kind of genius.  Part of me will never forgive him for squandering Lisch and Liddell......squander them he did........ 

feel the same way. that squandering grows in my rearview

[almaman]

10 hours ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

We keep losing focus here. It’s not about who is the better lifetime  coach...obvious it’s Majerus. That said, I would take a Travis Ford in the prime of his coaching career for a 10-15 year run than a 60 year old Majerus, with health problems. 

& recruits seem to have reacted that way.TF has been able to attract higher ranked guys than any of our coaches in the modern era. the stern old overweight bald white guy in boxer briefs must of been un appealing to a portion of recruits. RM during NIL era would of been fun. He'd be getting some good restaurant endorsements for his players.