I hate Phil Forte

[slufan13]

2 minutes ago, wgstl said:

He gets no blame for Forte departing, correct.  But Ford does get blame for not building a relationship with Vice.  We had him committed for a decent period of time and there was no connection between Ford and Vice. Once a player is even decently interested in a program its time for the HC to step in to avoid these types of problems.  He did not do that.  Noland was too short of a time frame to blame Ford for much there. 

Yeah I mean I'm in the boat where there's no excuse for a player to leave just because an assistant left barring a situation where the player/assistant had a personal relationship prior to the player becoming a basketball recruit. Plus Vice didn't even follow Forte to NT. Ford f.uc.ked up the Vice situation badly.

[wgstl]

Just now, slufan13 said:

Yeah I mean I'm in the boat where there's no excuse for a player to leave just because an assistant left barring a situation where the player/assistant had a personal relationship prior to the player becoming a basketball recruit. Plus Vice didn't even follow Forte to NT. Ford f.uc.ked up the Vice situation badly.

Ya, Vice only knew Forte, so sticking with a coach who he barely even knew was pointless for him. And rightfully so. 

[TheChosenOne]

Our recruiting needs to pick up in general. I completely agree that Forte's recruiting ties to Texas and Oklahoma were a bad fit at SLU and unlikely to be overly productive, but why did it seem like so many of our prospects were guys he was tied to? What were the other coaches doing? Who are we even after in the 2024 class?

I really like the addition of Harriman with his International ties since I think that is a market not pursued by all programs. But, I would also like to see an assistant tied in on the east coast in the league's footprint where the pitch to play in the Atlantic 10 is actually a positive (different discussion, but we see why Majerus did not care for SLU being a member of the conference as a geographical outlier). I don't think Ford has those roots, Tate is regional, Harriman International, so that would be a nice piece to add to the staff.

[Franchise_08]

Where’s our local recruiting guru, Corey Tate. I haven’t heard any interest in local talent for awhile and that is his job. Is he now utterly useless with transfers and NIL now? It looks like our advantage having Tate on the staff has diminished.

[wgstl]

5 minutes ago, Franchise_08 said:

Where’s our local recruiting guru, Corey Tate. I haven’t heard any interest in local talent for awhile and that is his job. Is he now utterly useless with transfers and NIL now? It looks like our advantage having Tate on the staff has diminished.

I was actually a little surprised the shake up didn't involve him. 

[billiken_roy]

5 minutes ago, Franchise_08 said:

Where’s our local recruiting guru, Corey Tate. I haven’t heard any interest in local talent for awhile and that is his job. Is he now utterly useless with transfers and NIL now? It looks like our advantage having Tate on the staff has diminished.

not just Tate.  this is the case with all coaches imo.   $$$$ is pretty much all that matters imo.   coaches and facilities are at best tie breakers now.

[JMM28]

1 minute ago, billiken_roy said:

not just Tate.  this is the case with all coaches imo.   $$$$ is pretty much all that matters imo.   coaches and facilities are at best tie breakers now.

This is hyperbolic. 

I think the coaches who are less useful are the ones who made their recruiting chops by paying players under the table under the old system. Now that everything is above board, those guys have lost the only advantage they had. 

[TheChosenOne]

1 hour ago, Franchise_08 said:

Where’s our local recruiting guru, Corey Tate. I haven’t heard any interest in local talent for awhile and that is his job. Is he now utterly useless with transfers and NIL now? It looks like our advantage having Tate on the staff has diminished.

I think some kind of saw this coming a couple of years back as the pipeline of local prospects looked a bit down especially with a kid like John Bol leaving the area. The past few local recruiting classes have largely been mid major plus type guys (Tarris Reed being the only recent 4 star I am aware of in the past three local classes and he did not seem to have much interest in SLU). Someone closer to it than me would have to let us know how the next few classes are looking, I know Vashon has some young studs and I know Chaminade had a strong freshmen class this past winter (unfortunately some are coming off of injuries). Anyways, not so much taking a shot at Tate or questioning his value, but more reason for needing to recruit outside of St. Louis the past few years and this coming year.

[JMM28]

“Forte recruiting zone never made sense.”
 

“I can’t believe Forte leaving cost us our best recruits.”
 

It can’t be both. 

[TheA_Bomb]

3 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

“Forte recruiting zone never made sense.”
 

“I can’t believe Forte leaving cost us our best recruits.”
 

It can’t be both. 

Agree kinda. He finally delivered then took away almost immediately. 

All in all just another negative data point.

[wgstl]

10 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

“Forte recruiting zone never made sense.”
 

“I can’t believe Forte leaving cost us our best recruits.”
 

It can’t be both. 

I see both sides.  

[billikenfan05]

13 minutes ago, wgstl said:

I see both sides.  

FWIW, really appreciated your posts in this thread. Good stuff.

[Soderball]

2 hours ago, billiken_roy said:

not just Tate.  this is the case with all coaches imo.   $$$$ is pretty much all that matters imo.   coaches and facilities are at best tie breakers now.

Billiken_roy is right about this. Ability to salesman and sell the program is a skill of diminished importance. We need coaches that can put together a team, identify talent, game plan, and execute. Spending a lot of money on a sales pitch is weak now. Money talks and bull walks.

[cheeseman]

19 minutes ago, Soderball said:

Billiken_roy is right about this. Ability to salesman and sell the program is a skill of diminished importance. We need coaches that can put together a team, identify talent, game plan, and execute. Spending a lot of money on a sales pitch is weak now. Money talks and bull walks.

All the more reason we need a coach who can coach!

[ACE]

15 hours ago, majerus mojo said:

The best part of that tweet are all of the replies ripping on it. Between this thread and the Yuri to Kansas State thread, you are really grinding that axe 

He's kind of turned into the QAnon Shaman of the board.

[Cowboy II]

3 hours ago, Franchise_08 said:

Where’s our local recruiting guru, Corey Tate. I haven’t heard any interest in local talent for awhile and that is his job. Is he now utterly useless with transfers and NIL now? It looks like our advantage having Tate on the staff has diminished.

-fwiw, Frank said recently the local talent pool is down last season and for the upcoming season

-who did we miss?

[wgstl]

8 minutes ago, Cowboy II said:

-fwiw, Frank said recently the local talent pool is down last season and for the upcoming season

-who did we miss?

Its been light recently. Davis was really the only name and I don't even know if we offered. Talent pool improves a bit over the next 2 years.

 

The misses are more from last years than this years classes.  Turnbull and Reed.

[Pistol]

I was fine with Forte on the staff and him recruiting his home state. Sometimes it takes a few years before those pipelines start paying off. We were in the top 5 for multiple 4-star players out of Texas, we had a transfer from the Dallas area coming in, and we were looking to be in strong shape with some 2024 players from down there.

Oddly enough, George Mason recently hired an assistant with deep TX ties and he's offering/recruiting all the guys Forte had been recruiting for us. That's an even bigger stretch geographically, and I have to imagine the GMU brand means even less to TX recruits than SLU does. We'll see if it pays off for them.

Losing Forte clearly hurt SLU in the short term. I love the Harriman hire, too. Wish we could've had both of them on staff.

If Ford is not going to hire someone he previously coached or worked with, we probably do need to be looking at someone with East Coast ties, though.

[HoosierPal]

19 minutes ago, wgstl said:

Its been light recently. Davis was really the only name and I don't even know if we offered. Talent pool improves a bit over the next 2 years.

 

The misses are more from last years than this years classes.  Turnbull and Reed.

I watched several of the Butler games that Turnbull played in this past season.  Most of his time (117 minutes) was initially garbage time, but he eventually got meaningful minutes due to injuries or suspensions of Butler's top bigs starting in mid January.  He did show a nice offensive game in the limited time he played,  (15 of 34 FG and 8 of 17 from deep), but he was a disaster on defense.  Of course, the guys he tried to defend in the Big East were brutes.  His rebounding was all but absent.

Frankly I was surprised that he was one of two scholarship players from last season that are returning this upcoming season.  But yeah, he would fit better in the A10 then in the Big East.  He would have been an improvement over Cisse, in my opinion.  So a slight miss.  I certainly hope he makes a significant jump in production this upcoming season.  An interesting question is, would we (collectively) be comfortable with Turnbull as our starting Big this upcoming season.  No others need apply, we got our guy.

[Billiken Rich]

52 minutes ago, ACE said:

He's kind of turned into the QAnon Shaman of the board.

Who does that make you???  Al Sharpton???

[TheChosenOne]

19 minutes ago, wgstl said:

Its been light recently. Davis was really the only name and I don't even know if we offered. Talent pool improves a bit over the next 2 years.

The misses are more from last years than this years classes.  Turnbull and Reed.

Right, it seems like Tarris Reed and John Bol (2024 who is obviously no longer at CBC and is not considering SLU) are the only recent local guys who fit as more elite 4-star top 50 type prospects. Macaleab Rich or Turnbull mentioned above would presumably be the next in line, but otherwise you are seeing a lot of mid-major plus type prospects. We landed a couple of those kids in 2022, but the other guys at that level have gone elsewhere with few producing a whole lot. I think of guys like Nicholas Kern, Yaya Keita, and Sekou Gassama in 2021, Connor Turnbull, Christian Jones, Braxton Stacker, Jalen Hampton, Damien Mayo, and Brian Taylor in 2022 (plus the 3 we signed), and Kennard Davis in 2023. I am not seeing much in 2024 (Bol being the guy originally), but I am not close enough to it to speak with any sort of knowledge on it. All of this to say, the recent talent locally has not been great.

[wgstl]

Just now, TheChosenOne said:

Right, it seems like Tarris Reed and John Bol (2024 who is obviously no longer at CBC and is not considering SLU) are the only recent local guys who fit as more elite 4-star top 50 type prospects. Macaleab Rich or Turnbull mentioned above would presumably be the next in line, but otherwise you are seeing a lot of mid-major plus type prospects. We landed a couple of those kids in 2022, but the other guys at that level have gone elsewhere with few producing a whole lot. I think of guys like Nicholas Kern, Yaya Keita, and Sekou Gassama in 2021, Connor Turnbull, Christian Jones, Braxton Stacker, Jalen Hampton, Damien Mayo, and Brian Taylor in 2022 (plus the 3 we signed), and Kennard Davis in 2023. I am not seeing much in 2024 (Bol being the guy originally), but I am not close enough to it to speak with any sort of knowledge on it. All of this to say, the recent talent locally has not been great.

randall is a big recruit for us.  Also the kid out of Charleston MO

[TheChosenOne]

44 minutes ago, wgstl said:

randall is a big recruit for us.  Also the kid out of Charleston MO

For sure, I avoided 2025 kids, but Nicholas Randall and PJ Farmer are certain to be above the level I referenced. I also did not even attempt to think through in state kids west of St. Louis as my knowledge is limited beyond kids like Jevon Porter and Kayden Fish and I don't get the sense we overly recruit much outside of St. Louis. Aaron Rowe would be another 2025 MO kid, but outside of St. Louis, who will be a highly sought after recruit.

One other name I thought of is Darrion Sutton who is a class of 2024 kid who left the area and is now in Denver, but began his career in O'Fallon (Gateway City Elite which appears to be for kids who are home schooled). Might be worth checking in on, kid looks legit.

[wgstl]

1 minute ago, TheChosenOne said:

For sure, I avoided 2025 kids, but Nicholas Randall and PJ Farmer are certain to be above the level I referenced. I also did not even attempt to think through in state kids west of St. Louis as my knowledge is limited beyond kids like Jevon Porter and Kayden Fish and I don't get the sense we overly recruit much outside of St. Louis. Aaron Rowe would be another 2025 MO kid, but  outside of St. Louis, who will be a highly sought after recruit.

One other name I thought of is Darrion Sutton who is a class of 2024 kid who left the area and is now in Denver, but began his career in O'Fallon (Gateway City Elite which appears to be for kids who are home schooled). Might be worth checking in on, kid looks legit.

Shoot *insert what year is it meme* .  I was thinking Randall and Farmer(thank you) were a year older. 

 

Im holding out hope we get porter for one year after romar gets fired this year before he goes to the league. 

[TheChosenOne]

1 minute ago, wgstl said:

Shoot *insert what year is it meme* .  I was thinking Randall and Farmer(thank you) were a year older.

Im holding out hope we get porter for one year after romar gets fired this year before he goes to the league. 

If anyone wants to catch Vashon this coming season and wants company, let me know. I watched them in the playoffs at Lindenwood and they were so much fun to watch. It was obvious who Randall was (he looks the part of high-major forward at a young age), but I did not have a roster to identify the other kids who were impressing the hell out of me too and I know a group of them are also 2025 kids including Dierre Hill who is also an elite football recruit. They are awesome to watch, incredible watching them hawk the ball. And they just went at their opponent in waves, would have been interested in knowing how many kids played.