Billiken Victory Fund

[BC1764]

22 hours ago, dennis_w said:

having an x an o coach sounds like a great idea and it likely has some merit, but the guys you need the most are basketball players, it is hard to blame the x and o guy when the players miss 10 free throws. i.e. auburn when nobody could make an unguarded 15 footer. if perkins didnt have injuries and returned to POY form, ford would look a whole lot better as a coach

 

I wish ifs and buts were candy.

Mike Schmidt, who coaches in Siberia, brings out the best in each of his kids and competes for the top four every year. Good coaches conquer adversity.

 

[dennis_w]

21 minutes ago, BC1764 said:

I wish ifs and buts were candy.

Mike Schmidt, who coaches in Siberia, brings out the best in each of his kids and competes for the top four every year. Good coaches conquer adversity.

 

schmidt .580 in conference, ford .570 

[Schasz]

35 minutes ago, dennis_w said:

schmidt .580 in conference, ford .570 

Could we also have the ghost of Rick Majerus a HOF HC who knew how to coach up a team???

[BC1764]

22 hours ago, dennis_w said:

i hope he takes the billikens to a perennial tournament team, i think he has laid a foundation for that, but it takes time, gonzaga took years to become gonzaga, i dont think he has hit his ceiling yet, starting over would be a questionable a maybe bad move, 20 plus win seasons have not been common historically

 

There’s nothing in his quarter century history of coaching to suggest he’s going to turn this program into a perennial NCAAT participant.

[wgstl]

2 hours ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

Let me help, the system is severely rigged against the mid majors and will remain so, regardless of who the coach or program is, something Ford haters don’t understand. Their solution is just fire the coach and start over. They are unable to recognize that despite not being a perineal NCAA Tournament team that significant progress has been made towards achieving that goal with coaching stability and a strong recruiting base. Anthony Grant and Dayton are taking that approach as well. You are extremely naïve when you think bringing in a new coach is going to result in immediate success. The best you can do is point to Mizzou which is not remotely comparable to a Mid Major program. They are able to play a crap schedule and be a .500 team in conference play and get a bid, we don’t have that luxury. It’s also highly debatable that a strategy like that is sustainable. 

So losing to SIUe is not SLUs fault, it’s the NCAA and their obsession with P5. Got it. Never finishing higher than 4th in the A10 is just the committee making fun of us. I think I do see the problem now. 

[wgstl]

Nm 

[ACE]

1 hour ago, BC1764 said:

I wish ifs and buts were candy.

Mike Schmidt, who coaches in Siberia, brings out the best in each of his kids and competes for the top four every year. Good coaches conquer adversity.

 

Schmidt entered last year with the preseason pick to win the league - his team never had a sniff of the NCAA Tourney last year. Based on expectations, he had an awful season.

[billiken_roy]

2 hours ago, BC1764 said:

There’s nothing in his quarter century history of coaching to suggest he’s going to turn this program into a perennial NCAAT participant.

but it is also pretty good odds based on the billiken history of hiring coaches in my fandom (i go back to my freshman year at SLU, the fall of 1977) that the billiken replacement coach will likely not be rickma or spoon successful.  at this point unless you are guaranteeing we have the independent funds (not contingent on the BoT releasing the big bucks) to hire the likes of some big time head coach like Beard (just throwing the name of a ultra successful coach that is definitely available), i will ride out the Ford contract because we know his recruiting at least puts us on the cusp of a big season.   

there is no doubt in my mind that if the perkins prior injury comes back and thatch doesnt blow up the knee, we would have won the 3 or 4 games that we should have won and would have kept us in the at large talk.   i am not a ford fan, but i also dont want to start over.   i am tired of the every 5 year start over. 

[NoCoBillsFan]

16 minutes ago, ACE said:

Schmidt entered last year with the preseason pick to win the league - his team never had a sniff of the NCAA Tourney last year. Based on expectations, he had an awful season.

Well that’s happened once with Schmidt. How many times has Ford failed to meet pre-season expectations? It’s every other season. 2018-19, 2020-21, and 2022-23. 

[billiken_roy]

Just now, NoCoBillsFan said:

Well that’s happened once with Schmidt. How many times has Ford failed to meet pre-season expectations? It’s every other season. 2018-19, 2020-21, and 2022-23. 

how many years not coached by rickma or spoon did we not even have pre-season expectations?

[BC1764]

1 hour ago, dennis_w said:

schmidt .580 in conference, ford .570 

Which proves my point. He’s done more with less. 

[Cowboy II]

-I wonder how much, if any, of the $2.4 is going to the BVF?

[VeniceMenace]

3 hours ago, BIG BILL FAN said:

Let me help, the system is severely rigged against the mid majors and will remain so, regardless of who the coach or program is, something Ford haters don’t understand. Their solution is just fire the coach and start over. They are unable to recognize that despite not being a perineal NCAA Tournament team that significant progress has been made towards achieving that goal with coaching stability and a strong recruiting base. Anthony Grant and Dayton are taking that approach as well. You are extremely naïve when you think bringing in a new coach is going to result in immediate success. The best you can do is point to Mizzou which is not remotely comparable to a Mid Major program. They are able to play a crap schedule and be a .500 team in conference play and get a bid, we don’t have that luxury. It’s also highly debatable that a strategy like that is sustainable. 

Charlie Spoonhour coached SLU to an NIT and 3 big dances in 6 years. Back when the fancy arena on campus was the West Pine Gym.

[CenHudDude]

1 hour ago, dennis_w said:

schmidt .580 in conference, ford .570 

To quote you Dennis:  “I hope you are not trying to confuse the issue with facts”.

[TheA_Bomb]

54 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

how many years not coached by rickma or spoon did we not even have pre-season expectations?

The game has changed for coaching at SLU once upon a time the team practiced and trained in West Pine Gym and played off campus. Players were too tall for the workout room.  The coach had a public spat with the president of the university to get chartered flights.  We were in a conference with Louisville, Cincinnati, and Marquette. 

Those factors are not true any more.   SLU has the best facilities in the conference and is building more.  SLU has the highest paid coach in the conference. The biggest powers in the conference are UD, VCU and SBU (lately).

[Box and Won]

59 minutes ago, VeniceMenace said:

Charlie Spoonhour coached SLU to an NIT and 3 big dances in 6 years. Back when the fancy arena on campus was the West Pine Gym.

Even better - it was three NCAAs/one NIT in five seasons.

[brianstl]

1 hour ago, ACE said:

Schmidt entered last year with the preseason pick to win the league - his team never had a sniff of the NCAA Tourney last year. Based on expectations, he had an awful season.

Schmidt took over a program that is in the middle of nowhere, plays in a 60 year old high school gym, went 24-88 in the previous four seasons and was five years removed from having to cancel the season because of a scandal that took down the university president.  In the decade before last season he took the team to the NCAA tournament 3 times, won the conference twice and even in his "awful season" last year made the NIT semifinals.

Mark Schmidt and Travis Ford are not the same.

[billiken_roy]

51 minutes ago, TheA_Bomb said:

The game has changed for coaching at SLU once upon a time the team practiced and trained in West Pine Gym and played off campus. Players were too tall for the workout room.  The coach had a public spat with the president of the university to get chartered flights.  We were in a conference with Louisville, Cincinnati, and Marquette. 

Those factors are not true any more.   SLU has the best facilities in the conference and is building more.  SLU has the highest paid coach in the conference. The biggest powers in the conference are UD, VCU and SBU (lately).

respectively A_Bomb, in my view, all the nice things you mention above will mean very little to the recruits that can make a difference.   we are entering the age of the 17 year old, asking how much we are going to pay him to come to SLU.   

while SLU indeed is paying ford the most money in the conference for a coach, again with programs having to be a little more thoughtful on expenses and salaries, i envision that money that would be paid to coaches, facilities and other nice perks, will now go straight into the NiL account.  

[TheA_Bomb]

51 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

respectively A_Bomb, in my view, all the nice things you mention above will mean very little to the recruits that can make a difference.   we are entering the age of the 17 year old, asking how much we are going to pay him to come to SLU.   

while SLU indeed is paying ford the most money in the conference for a coach, again with programs having to be a little more thoughtful on expenses and salaries, i envision that money that would be paid to coaches, facilities and other nice perks, will now go straight into the NiL account.  

Because you're thinking of it as a zero sum endeavour that there is only a set amount.  That's not necessarily the case current donors could give more,  new donors could step up and or money could be redistributed (as you stated).

We have the facilities now and support of the team.  NIL is another component. If we accept your premise,  there's a set amount,  imagine the coach made less and that difference in donated money went to the NIL fund.  That would still put our coach salary on par with the conference. How valuable is a Tremaine Isabelle transfer? $20k?  $30k? Let's say it's $40k.  5 playersx$40k=$200k.  Maybe we have 7 other $30k players.   7x$30k=$210k.  $210+$200= $410k.  $2.4mil-$410k=$1.99mil. That's still a high salary for an A10 coach. 

Or you keep the coach salary get a coach that wins and can fundraise.  Winning = more money from tournament $ and support. 

[BilliesBy40]

13 hours ago, drkelsey55 said:

Boy what a bunch of MBM. How many of you have ever coached a team to the dance. Dare I say none of you. You just want to come on here and moan and groan.

Let the man do his job and if he needs to go his boss or bosses will make that decision.

 

You all need to quit your crying.

Ps: I don't have a clue either but I am not going to tear the man down because I can't do what he does even if I tried.

 

This is, by far, the worst point someone can make in this type of argument. I've never been President either. Or thrown a pass in the NFL. Or waited tables at Applebee's. I guess 99.9% of the population needs to shut up about basically everything. 

[ACE]

1 hour ago, brianstl said:

Schmidt took over a program that is in the middle of nowhere, plays in a 60 year old high school gym, went 24-88 in the previous four seasons and was five years removed from having to cancel the season because of a scandal that took down the university president.  In the decade before last season he took the team to the NCAA tournament 3 times, won the conference twice and even in his "awful season" last year made the NIT semifinals.

Mark Schmidt and Travis Ford are not the same.

My simple statement about Schmidt last year was truthful and you can't refute it. You're taking it as a defense of Ford. Take the emotion out and look at what I wrote. 

 

 

[BIG BILL FAN]

3 hours ago, brianstl said:

Schmidt took over a program that is in the middle of nowhere, plays in a 60 year old high school gym, went 24-88 in the previous four seasons and was five years removed from having to cancel the season because of a scandal that took down the university president.  In the decade before last season he took the team to the NCAA tournament 3 times, won the conference twice and even in his "awful season" last year made the NIT semifinals.

Mark Schmidt and Travis Ford are not the same.

Schmidt has a mediocre record in his total years at st bonaventure. He had several horrendous years. If fans like you had been in control he would have been long gone before he had success. Look it up, would you have tolerated his first 7 years??? Thanks for proving my point.

[slufan13]

SLU can do better than Ford or Schmidt. I never understand the Schmidt fascination. He's definitely a good coach. He's a high floor type coach to me though. I think Ford is a good coach too. But if SLU is willing to pay their men's basketball coach $2.4M/year, they can do a lot better than the results Ford has produced. 

A lot of Ford's teams have played their best basketball late in the season. This year is hopefully trending that way too. The defense is still really not good and that's disappointing given all the experience on the roster but the offense has flowed a lot better lately. Guys like Jimerson, Pickett, etc have stepped up lately too.

I personally think Davidson is done being a factor now that big McKillop has retired. I think the transfer portal will hurt a team like that too. But it was still nice to get another win over them.

SLU really played well against Duquesne. A lot of Travis Ford teams have completely folded in a game like that but the team and coaching staff showed toughness and resiliency. To me, that was one of the most impressive games of the season.

Tonight is a big boy game. You're playing a team in the bottom half of the league without their head coach. If SLU wins this game, I think you really have to start buying into a late season surge. If they lose, more of the same that we've seen all season. 

The A10 is just atrocious this year. So while it's very disappointing to see that we aren't even likely to win the regular season crown, it also means that the auto-bid is easily there for the taking. 

[cgeldmacher]

On 2/18/2023 at 6:50 PM, dlarry said:

This.

I get why some people want to keep Ford around.

He’s going to win 20 games.

He will have them in contention for the the NIT most years.

He will finish top half of the A10 most years 

He is great with the fans and media 

He’s seems like a good guy.

What I don’t get is how most of the people who want to keep him don’t understand how anybody would want him gone. They are completely blind to all of his faults.

It really amazing to see. 

 

DLarry, I agree with you most of the time and disagree with you rarely.  So, I picked your post to respond to this.

I understand why fans are upset about this season, but don't think we should fire Ford.  I say this, because I think he can get us to a higher place, even though I totally agree that he hasn't done so yet at SLU.  Saying I want to keep him is not saying that I am okay with mediocrity or that I am blind to Ford's faults.  What it is saying is that I think that we have a better chance at getting the program where we want it to be with Ford staying on as coach than with whomever we could get to come in as a new coach next season.

What happened this season?  We thought we were getting Perkins from 2 years ago, and he has been nothing close to that.  We all over valued Okoro, didn't realize how much we'd miss Linssen, and had too much faith in Forrester.  Our bigs have been, in general, a downfall.  The team just didn't gel, and we lost of few crucial games due to unfortunate lapses like suddenly forgetting how to make a free throw.

That being said, I can see next year's team, even with graduation and defections, being better than the team this season.  Sometimes, different combinations of guys just gel together better.   Ask Calipari how that works?  If he's honest, he'll say he has no clue why one group of his blue chip recruits win a championship and another sucks.  It just happens.

I agree that Ford has not provided us with evidence that he can win at the level we want, at least not yet.  I just like how he can recruit and how he promotes the team. For those reasons, I think he can.  The folks that want him gone also don't have any evidence of what a new coach will do.  So, for me, I just want to stay to course for now and see what happens.  If we really fall off next year and are not showing any signs that we could be heading towards our ultimate goals, then I may be right there with you after next season.

[wgstl]

4 minutes ago, slufan13 said:

 

A lot of Ford's teams have played their best basketball late in the season. This year is hopefully trending that way too. The defense is still really not good and that's disappointing given all the experience on the roster but the offense has flowed a lot better lately. Guys like Jimerson, Pickett, etc have stepped up lately too.

 

I hope. Tovorik isn't buying that we're improving late.