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We Were Gonna Be Gonzaga..It Sucks Being A Bills Fan


mrjoelabs

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I remember when the on campus arena was built.  The donors lined.  The hall of fame coach was hired.  Finally, SLU was taking basketball seriously.   And like my Dad said back then, we are going to be the Gonzaga of the midwest.  At that time Gonzaga wasn't quite as insane as they are now. But they danced yearly and won games.  And they were an urban Jesuit non D1 Football school.  The idea wasn't that far fetched.

Then 3 things destroyed that dream.

1. Situation One

2. Porter Moser Leaving One Year Too Early

3. Rick Dying The Next Year.

I firmly believe that if all 3 of these things didn't occur, we would have a perennial march madness program right now.  Probably even with situation 1, if Moser stays and takes over for Rick we become what Loyola did, but much faster.

But in reality all 3 things happened.  Then we go on "Crews  Control" for 2 years, with great regular seasons but can't get over the hump in March because no actual coaching was occurring.  After that disaster Ford comes in as a savior. We see better recruits than the Bills have ever seen, but they can't play together or ever win the big one outside of a miracle run in 2019 that was primarily about Trumaine Isabell going nuts. 

So here we are in 2022-2023.  Preseason Top 25 talk....and...yea.  Again, I KNOW PERKINS is hurt. We all anticipated he was going to be back. He's not.  But even without him this team should be miles better. Majerus would have this team either undefeated right now or maybe only carrying the Maryland loss.   Ford...has no clue.

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Random thoughts:

1. This team appears to be a basket case (no pun intended.) Ford is overanalyzing everything and the players appear to be suffering from “paralysis by analysis.”

2. I’ve never been as high on Jimerson as everyone else because his shot is a little awkward and he has that gimmicky quick release. He might be a streak shooter but he is not a pure shooter, witness how many of his misses are absolute bricks. Pure shooters don’t barely draw iron or fire it off the backboard as often as Jimerson does.

3. Perkins is a mystery at this point. Sure he’s had injuries but what’s happening looks like it’s more than physical. He’s got to find his game over the semester break or it’s doubtful that he’ll get it back by the end of the year.

4. Okoro’s decline in production is shocking. He looked like he was developing into a solid post player during conference play last year and now can’t catch it, can’t shoot it, and can’t stop turning it over. Where did ‘21-22 Okoro go?

5. Yuri continues to turn the ball over way too much. Make the smart play instead of the flashy one. The flashy ones make great highlights but they bring a certain amount of risk that’s unnecessary.

6. In summary, this is a team that looks like it’s going nowhere fast. No one is any better than last year and some are worse. Couldn’t be more disappointed in what I’ve seen so far.

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No doubt we fans have reason to be concerned after these 2 losses. Ford’s responses are not reassuring either. My big fear is this season could slide into a disaster rather quickly. Anyone still think we can go 13-3 in the A10? Not likely. In fact we could well lose to just about any A10 team the way we’re currently playing. 
Perkins situation is somewhat understandable, as none of us know just how serious his injury was. Clearly he’s not physically or mentally the same player he was pre injury. Pickett has picked up some of Perkins slack, but Parker has not picked up the remainder. 
Pitino knew the way to beat us was to take Yurimania out of his game and Boise followed suit. Suddenly Yurimania’s become our go to scorer but that’s not a good formula for success. This is scary because if he’s not playing the table  setter then we’re eating off the floor. 
I agree with Billikenbill about Okoro’s game. Where oh where has his game gone? He was a force toward the end of last season. Now, he’s more a liability on offense. We need his 12 points on the inside in order to loosen up the defenses we’re seeing. 
Given all of the above, I’m still mystified as to what are our offensive schemes once our fast breaks are stopped. No one seems to be getting open looks and every shot is heavily contested. Ford better pull something from his bag of tricks to get guys open looks or this season is going down the toilet. That’s assuming he has a bag of tricks. 
it’s not jumping from the bridge time, but it definitely is it’s hard to be a Billiken fan time. We should be used to it by now. 

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17 minutes ago, slu72 said:

No doubt we fans have reason to be concerned after these 2 losses. Ford’s responses are not reassuring either. My big fear is this season could slide into a disaster rather quickly. Anyone still think we can go 13-3 in the A10? Not likely. In fact we could well lose to just about any A10 team the way we’re currently playing. 
Perkins situation is somewhat understandable, as none of us know just how serious his injury was. Clearly he’s not physically or mentally the same player he was pre injury. Pickett has picked up some of Perkins slack, but Parker has not picked up the remainder. 
Pitino knew the way to beat us was to take Yurimania out of his game and Boise followed suit. Suddenly Yurimania’s become our go to scorer but that’s not a good formula for success. This is scary because if he’s not playing the table  setter then we’re eating off the floor. 
I agree with Billikenbill about Okoro’s game. Where oh where has his game gone? He was a force toward the end of last season. Now, he’s more a liability on offense. We need his 12 points on the inside in order to loosen up the defenses we’re seeing. 
Given all of the above, I’m still mystified as to what are our offensive schemes once our fast breaks are stopped. No one seems to be getting open looks and every shot is heavily contested. Ford better pull something from his bag of tricks to get guys open looks or this season is going down the toilet. That’s assuming he has a bag of tricks. 
it’s not jumping from the bridge time, but it definitely is it’s hard to be a Billiken fan time. We should be used to it by now. 

Ford had zero offensive responses last night.  I saw a bunch of 1:1 basketball with zero strategy or game plan.  I’m tired of watching this mess.

On top of that, Ford spends more time drilling the ref during a timeout about fouls he think should be called.  Grow up and coach the damn team during a TO.  We would probably brick the free throws anyway.

Also, please find a sweatsuit that fits and doesn’t look like you stole it from your dad’s closet.

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11 hours ago, mrjoelabs said:

I remember when the on campus arena was built.  The donors lined.  The hall of fame coach was hired.  Finally, SLU was taking basketball seriously.   And like my Dad said back then, we are going to be the Gonzaga of the midwest.  At that time Gonzaga wasn't quite as insane as they are now. But they danced yearly and won games.  And they were an urban Jesuit non D1 Football school.  The idea wasn't that far fetched.

Then 3 things destroyed that dream.

1. Situation One

2. Porter Moser Leaving One Year Too Early

3. Rick Dying The Next Year.

I firmly believe that if all 3 of these things didn't occur, we would have a perennial march madness program right now.  Probably even with situation 1, if Moser stays and takes over for Rick we become what Loyola did, but much faster.

But in reality all 3 things happened.  Then we go on "Crews  Control" for 2 years, with great regular seasons but can't get over the hump in March because no actual coaching was occurring.  After that disaster Ford comes in as a savior. We see better recruits than the Bills have ever seen, but they can't play together or ever win the big one outside of a miracle run in 2019 that was primarily about Trumaine Isabell going nuts. 

So here we are in 2022-2023.  Preseason Top 25 talk....and...yea.  Again, I KNOW PERKINS is hurt. We all anticipated he was going to be back. He's not.  But even without him this team should be miles better. Majerus would have this team either undefeated right now or maybe only carrying the Maryland loss.   Ford...has no clue.

Can't disagree with anything here.  Despite being such a highly-thought of and clearly effective recruiter, Ford still hasn't put a team on the court that would have bested the sons of Majerus. Even though Rick may not have had above a 2* recruit once his entire tenure.

Just like the calculus with Lisa Stone, Ford may have raised our floor, but the ceiling under him is still fairly low.

If this ends up another year of "Fourth-place Ford", it needs to be the last one.

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