GDT: SLU v. Louisiana Tech

[billikenfan05]

37 minutes ago, majerus mojo said:

Yea fun win but we were two insane shots away from the GDT melting down following another blown lead. We would be on page 14. Anyone getting on others for pointing that out are doing a little too much. Again sweet win but that ending sequence was bananas lol. All credit to TJ was incredible 

If it was back and forth all game and then TJ put the team on his back I think the surly crowd around here would be a bit less vocal than we/they are today. 

[SLU_Nick]

The opposing team committing zero turnovers is being completely overlooked in this thread.  La Tech played a near perfect half in the 2H and I did not see any awful coaching decisions from Ford that led to the meltdown.  La Tech players just played well and we missed some easy shots and the players went cold until TJ went inferno. 
 

this was not like Auburn where yuri held the ball starting at 4 min mark up 10 and then we don’t score again (feeling maybe not technically the case) 

The Fire Fire crowd might just have to take a week off because you really don’t have much evidence to work with after last nights game.  La Tech is gonna win a lot of games this year.  
 

I wish we could start the season over with Eze….

Go Bills!! 

[willie]

TJ is probably our 3rd best scoring option behind Jimmer and Parker. He is now playing the 4. I believe he only took 2 shots while playing the 4. His heroics all came at the 5. Ford needs to figure out how to get him involved at the 4 spot. Seemed to me he basically just stood in the corner. 

[gobillsgo]

14 hours ago, Billfan7 said:

Travis Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is real

Yes it is, and you are rife with it… along with all your other accounts (DOC, billikenbill, assuming I’m forgetting others). Not sure how you keep them straight

[TheA_Bomb]

26 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

The Fire Fire crowd might just have to take a week off because you really don’t have much evidence to work with after last nights game.  La Tech is gonna win a lot of games this year.  

LA Tech is a decent team (53 in the NET, I think) and they played well. Their 0 TOs is a combination of their taking care of the ball and SLU's lack of defensive intensity turning the ball over. As pointed out before if you want steals recruit ball-hawks like Majerus. We don't seem to have ball hawks that get steals and our D isn't forcing turn overs. That's a concern. When you shoot like SLU did and we actually took care of the ball well too you should win at home. It was exciting to see TJ take over the way he did. He's always seemed to be a great team mate and one of the few that's stayed at SLU so we've gotten to see him earn being a starter.

Not you but the general sentiment was back off on the negativity in every thread. I heard it and tried despite believing Ford and May both need to be fired. But the constant chirping after a last second LA Tech win?!!! Come on.  I'm enjoying the win and that ending was fun but it's LA Tech at home, 2nd year for their coach (ever as a HC) vs our 8 year HC. LA Tech is picked to finish 4th in the CUSA maybe they'll be better.  1 game does not a season or career make. The overall body of work is not good. We've seen this before, that's partially why it's very frustrating, you see the team is almost there but never quite all the way there. It's never just one thing because then you could possibly fix it, it's different things. I admire anyone that is optimistic enough to believe that Ezewiro at his 3rd school in 3 years is the key that Ford's been missing all these 27 years. It wasn't Marcus Smart, it wasn't Jordan Goodwin, it wasn't the national leader in assists, Yuri Collins, it's Ezewiro and now Ford will show that he's a cut above as a coach and win a regular season A10 title and his second ever game in the NCAA tournament. We're tied for 1st place in the A10 right now. So I'm saying there's a chance.

[wgstl]

50 minutes ago, SLU_Nick said:

 

The Fire Fire crowd might just have to take a week off because you really don’t have much evidence to work with after last nights game.  La Tech is gonna win a lot of games this year.  
 

I wish we could start the season over with Eze….

Go Bills!! 

Uh what? A home win against a team ranked 90th means we should be totally content?  This proves nothing more than how far this program has fallen. 
 

 

[NYBilliken]

I had to go out so couldn't watch the end of the game last night. People were waiting for me, and I kept saying wait a minute, the Billikens game is almost over. Then finally I turned it off with one minute left in the game, the Billikens were trailing 69-64 and had just turned it over with a terrible possession. The Billikens had scored only 8 points in 10 minutes at that point (and Hargrove only 2 points for the entire game). It looked like a certain loss, despite the strong first half and great debut by Ezewiro. Then this afternoon I checked back with this thread to see the analysis of the second-half disaster ... and we won! It was great to watch the final minute of the ESPN replay, knowing the outcome. That was a career highlight for TJ Hargrove, and hopefully an inspiration for this team to continue to improve.

[thetorch]

9 hours ago, BJK said:

Dalger is absolutely one of our best, if not our best, defenders. That is a fact. Do you not watch the games? Like actually watch what is going on off the ball? He often has the toughest assignment. Gets steals (not last night) and is consistently a physical presence that disrupts the other team’s offense in many ways. I get upset sometimes at his inability and lack of desire to pass outside when he he gets triple teamed in the lane but his defense keeps him in the lineup and any offense that he produces is a bonus. If he could improve his court vision and calm down on offense while looking to pass more we would benefit greatly. 

I don't like dogging on players.  I typically don't.  I won't let other posters make players into something they aren't.  

Many posters have said Dalger is TO prone, loose with the ball, sloppy.  His TO rate is one of the best in the NATION.  He may take ill advised shots but he's not sloppy and he doesn't turn the ball over.  He could stand to have some better shot discipline but he gets to the line and converts on offense.  As a 3rd option on the court he's not bad.

Meanwhile his defensive clout has been extremely exaggerated.  There is no defensive metric that Dalger stands out at on the team.  He's at best behind 2 or 3 other rotation players and at worse at the bottom of the rotation.  SLU is a very bad defensive team, we are not in the top 300 teams in the country.  Historically bad.  With Dalger on the floor vs off, we are 0.001 better defensively.  He is not a difference maker on defense no matter how many times you say it.  Still this season we have a limited amount of games, and he's been playing out of position.  Last season at Tulsa Dalger was one of the worst defensive players in the NATION.  You don't go from that to a good defensive player in one season, despite Highmark calling him an All A10 performer on defense on the call (BTW according to the metrics Dalger is not a top 50 defensive player in the conference much less top 5).  Again I welcome if anybody has a metric where Dalger is excelling at or a stats website that shows different numbers than what I'm seeing from Kenpom, synergy, and sbunfurled I'd love to see it.

[cheeseman]

1 hour ago, SLU_Nick said:

The opposing team committing zero turnovers is being completely overlooked in this thread.  La Tech played a near perfect half in the 2H and I did not see any awful coaching decisions from Ford that led to the meltdown.  La Tech players just played well and we missed some easy shots and the players went cold until TJ went inferno. 
 

this was not like Auburn where yuri held the ball starting at 4 min mark up 10 and then we don’t score again (feeling maybe not technically the case) 

The Fire Fire crowd might just have to take a week off because you really don’t have much evidence to work with after last nights game.  La Tech is gonna win a lot of games this year.  
 

I wish we could start the season over with Eze….

Go Bills!! 

Well if you listened to the post game show you would have heard Ford say our defense was terrible in the second half so to say no coaching decision caused the 11 -12 point lead to evaporate to a 6 point deficit is not exactly correct.  That is a 17-18 point swing in one half.  The coach's job is to make sure that doesn't happen and if he can't figure a way to prevent it then what are we paying him for.  Someone posted that we scored 8 points over a 10 minute period - once again who is responsible for getting the players refocused - the coach.  Ford also said tonight that we typically get TOs from our swiping at the ball.  The La Tech coach according to Ford had his players causing us to switch a lot so we didn't get a chance for many TOs - so one coach devised a plan that hampered our defense and the other coach didn't come up with an answer.  If TJ hadn't had a fantastic 38 seconds at the end Ford would have been telling us a bunch of excuses.  I think it is possible for two things to be true at once - we can win a game in a somewhat miraculous way and still have questions about the coaching.

[Lord Elrond]

1 hour ago, SLU_Nick said:

The opposing team committing zero turnovers is being completely overlooked in this thread.  La Tech played a near perfect half in the 2H and I did not see any awful coaching decisions from Ford that led to the meltdown.  La Tech players just played well and we missed some easy shots and the players went cold until TJ went inferno. 
 

this was not like Auburn where yuri held the ball starting at 4 min mark up 10 and then we don’t score again (feeling maybe not technically the case) 

The Fire Fire crowd might just have to take a week off because you really don’t have much evidence to work with after last nights game.  La Tech is gonna win a lot of games this year.  
 

I wish we could start the season over with Eze….

Go Bills!! 

Louisiana Tech also missed 3 free throws in the final 36 seconds, one with 36 seconds left, one with 27 seconds left, one with 15 seconds left. If they made those….

[3star_recruit]

1 hour ago, willie said:

TJ is probably our 3rd best scoring option behind Jimmer and Parker. He is now playing the 4. I believe he only took 2 shots while playing the 4. His heroics all came at the 5. Ford needs to figure out how to get him involved at the 4 spot. Seemed to me he basically just stood in the corner. 

It's possible that TJ doesn't have a problem scoring at the 4.  It's possible he had a problem scoring against a player with similar quickness and a seven foot wingspan at the 4.  If TJ suddenly goes back to his normal output against players where he has a quickness advantage at the 4, we'll have our answer.

[SLU_Nick]

1 hour ago, TheA_Bomb said:

LA Tech is a decent team (53 in the NET, I think) and they played well. Their 0 TOs is a combination of their taking care of the ball and SLU's lack of defensive intensity turning the ball over. As pointed out before if you want steals recruit ball-hawks like Majerus. We don't seem to have ball hawks that get steals and our D isn't forcing turn overs. That's a concern. When you shoot like SLU did and we actually took care of the ball well too you should win at home. It was exciting to see TJ take over the way he did. He's always seemed to be a great team mate and one of the few that's stayed at SLU so we've gotten to see him earn being a starter.

Not you but the general sentiment was back off on the negativity in every thread. I heard it and tried despite believing Ford and May both need to be fired. But the constant chirping after a last second LA Tech win?!!! Come on.  I'm enjoying the win and that ending was fun but it's LA Tech at home, 2nd year for their coach (ever as a HC) vs our 8 year HC. LA Tech is picked to finish 4th in the CUSA maybe they'll be better.  1 game does not a season or career make. The overall body of work is not good. We've seen this before, that's partially why it's very frustrating, you see the team is almost there but never quite all the way there. It's never just one thing because then you could possibly fix it, it's different things. I admire anyone that is optimistic enough to believe that Ezewiro at his 3rd school in 3 years is the key that Ford's been missing all these 27 years. It wasn't Marcus Smart, it wasn't Jordan Goodwin, it wasn't the national leader in assists, Yuri Collins, it's Ezewiro and now Ford will show that he's a cut above as a coach and win a regular season A10 title and his second ever game in the NCAA tournament. We're tied for 1st place in the A10 right now. So I'm saying there's a chance.

Yea - I am on record of wanting us to run the table in the A-10 tourney from the 6th seed and then firing Ford with an absolute headline coach already lined up.  This would be akin to Sodie winning 20 games, everyone feeling good about the little-engine-that-could program....and then he is blown out with Majerus strutting up to the podium.

My only point was that what occurred last night in 2H was not the typical "deer-in-the-headlights" down the stretch with Ford yelling fruitlessly.  Starting at the 10 min mark, looking at the box score, it went LH3 open missed 3, Dalger miracle hakeem 2, Eze missed layup, Gibby open missed 3, turnovers and fouls for 4 straight mins, Medley turnovers and missed 3s....and then TJ went bonkers.  

All the global comments about roster construction, non-existent NIL, past performance floor coaching still represent all reasons why Ford should be gone at the end of the this year.  The fact that we have BillikensWin coming on here and acting like we should be happy means that I am personally preparing for him to absolutely not be fired.  

La Tech has the pre-season conference USA POY and a 5th year Center who was recruited to Zona, then Texas Tech and is finishing up at La Tech.  We were 3.5 point home dogs and we won.  People trying to say last night should service as additional evidence of why Ford should be fired are just wrong in my opinion.   

 

[billikenbill]

2 hours ago, gobillsgo said:

Yes it is, and you are rife with it… along with all your other accounts (DOC, billikenbill, assuming I’m forgetting others). Not sure how you keep them straight

Now how did my name get into this? slu72 and a few others know that Count Istvan Teleky, er, billikenbill, exists.

[Aquinas]

2 hours ago, willie said:

TJ is probably our 3rd best scoring option behind Jimmer and Parker. He is now playing the 4. I believe he only took 2 shots while playing the 4. His heroics all came at the 5. Ford needs to figure out how to get him involved at the 4 spot. Seemed to me he basically just stood in the corner. 

In the final 30 sec, they didn't appear to be in their typical half court roles. On both of TJs 2 point baskets, Jimerson set a screen. That is normally done by our 5. It looked like a set play. They were not going to let Jomerson get the ball so have him set the screen and his shadows follow him and it opened the lane for TJ. 

[Compton]

2 hours ago, TheA_Bomb said:

LA Tech is a decent team (53 in the NET, I think) and they played well. Their 0 TOs is a combination of their taking care of the ball and SLU's lack of defensive intensity turning the ball over. As pointed out before if you want steals recruit ball-hawks like Majerus. We don't seem to have ball hawks that get steals and our D isn't forcing turn overs. That's a concern.

I don't think that assessment is fair to LHJ, who is a ball hawk and was trying to force turnovers. He was out there going for steals and disrupting the opposing offense. He got whistles a couple times in the second half when he was going for steals, loose balls, rebounds, and inbounds passes. Maybe one was a legit foul, but the refs were pretty quick with the whistle when he mixed things up.

[Billfan7]

2 hours ago, gobillsgo said:

Yes it is, and you are rife with it… along with all your other accounts (DOC, billikenbill, assuming I’m forgetting others). Not sure how you keep them straight

Sorry, I have no other accounts.   Just more evidence that you are deranged.  I have to believe a lot of people think the same way we do; we just don't post 100 times a week like you and your cohort.  Many, like me, probably rarely posted until this site became unbearable with continuous repeated negativity from a relative few posters.

[David King]

6 hours ago, TheA_Bomb said:

17 points in a debut game for Ez. That's pretty impressive. Let's see if he sustains that and becomes a scorer at SLU. He only averaged 12mpg last season. Highmark remarked that he dropped some weight.  So there's a chance that he's developed now at his 3rd school. He's got size and weight to throw around vs A10 front courts.

Yeah, small sample size, but it appears TFord did a good job of developing this big.

[wgstl]

2 minutes ago, David King said:

Yeah, small sample size, but it appears TFord did a good job of developing this big.

Small sample size indeed. His previous coach was one of the worst coaches ever. Hope this is the case, we all know he’s good with guards, hope he can add a big to the list. 

[WVBilliken]

3 hours ago, wgstl said:

Uh what? A home win against a team ranked 90th means we should be totally content?  This proves nothing more than how far this program has fallen. 
 

 

Grinch  ..... let's look at the bright side.  This team could actually be fun to watch the rest of the year!  That's what I'm excited about.  There's 352 Division I basketball teams ...... you do know that almost none of them will ever reach the level of Duke, UNC, KU, Kentucky, et al ?

[wgstl]

17 minutes ago, WVBilliken said:

Grinch  ..... let's look at the bright side.  This team could actually be fun to watch the rest of the year!  That's what I'm excited about.  There's 352 Division I basketball teams ...... you do know that almost none of them will ever reach the level of Duke, UNC, KU, Kentucky, et al ?

You don’t have to tell me, I think once everyone’s back and clicking we can be ok. Right around 6th in the a10. But here’s the kicker, that’s still not good enough. 

[HoosierPal]

A poster was looking for a recording of Rammer and Earl. Here it is. You might have to download the app. Post game show is also there. From Earl, he doesn’t remember TJ ever taking a three off the dribble and he did it twice. Other info. Thames tried to go but his ankle wouldn’t cooperate. Brad really doesn’t know the plays yet as he has been playing on the Scout team. Part of the reason no TO was the game plan was to not switch on screens. We get many TO’s off switches. 
 

https://thevarsitynetwork.com/audioapplink/source/oas-1707/content/saintlouisu:allaccess-Archive-180

 

[DOC]

1 hour ago, Billfan7 said:

Sorry, I have no other accounts.   Just more evidence that you are deranged.  I have to believe a lot of people think the same way we do; we just don't post 100 times a week like you and your cohort.  Many, like me, probably rarely posted until this site became unbearable with continuous repeated negativity from a relative few posters.

Ya, and I exist as well. I didn't post either until the haters just wouldn't stop. Now everything I say somehow becomes a pro-Ford post.  

[wgstl]

35 minutes ago, DOC said:

Ya, and I exist as well. I didn't post either until the haters just wouldn't stop. Now everything I say somehow becomes a pro-Ford post.  

One could say the same thing about others with everything being anti. It’s truly become a sh!te show 

[TheA_Bomb]

Did you guys and the students rush the court?

[Brighton]

4 hours ago, WVBilliken said:

Grinch  ..... let's look at the bright side.  This team could actually be fun to watch the rest of the year!  That's what I'm excited about.  There's 352 Division I basketball teams ...... you do know that almost none of them will ever reach the level of Duke, UNC, KU, Kentucky, et al ?

Forget those four, they aren't on the level of VCU and Dayton. They should've been on that level with competent leadership from the top down many moons ago. One of them has a good chance to move to a great conference in the near future.