End of a (mediocre) era. Travis Ford is out.

[TRN]

57 minutes ago, SLUMedBilliken15 said:

You also have a choice. If you want to talk down to people, talk down to people. There is a reason people don't like you around here.

If you're not smart enough to realize that post was sarcasm, I'm sorry.

The ignore function is your friend…

[majerus mojo]

11 hours ago, RiseOfTheBillikens said:

I mean I don't think he's necessarily way off. We kind of suck and we are pretty irrelevant nationally. A10 is meh. I want Schertz but I definitely think he could go p5 if he wanted. Just depends what he is looking for. 

We shall see.

Yea I’m pretty over hearing about what a “good job” this is. We’re in a big city and have great facilities (some good boosters too, though some prefer to dump on them), but isn’t the elephant in the room that our athletic department is terrible/has never done the men’s basketball program any favors? Seems like an important piece of the picture. 

[TRN]

1 hour ago, majerus mojo said:

Yea I’m pretty over hearing about what a “good job” this is. We’re in a big city and have great facilities (some good boosters too, though some prefer to dump on them), but isn’t the elephant in the room that our athletic department is terrible/has never done the men’s basketball program any favors? Seems like an important piece of the picture. 

Trilly Donovan says it’s a good job, and underrated.  I’ll take that over majerusmojo, no offense.

[Bay Area Billiken]

https://x.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1768336690928628191?s=20

It looks like SLU has some competition.

[majerus mojo]

On 3/15/2024 at 1:44 AM, TRN said:

Trilly Donovan says it’s a good job, and underrated.  I’ll take that over majerusmojo, no offense.

Yea everyone says that. Was kind of my point, TRN. It has literally taken a HOF coach to do anything of note with said job this century, though. 

[TheA_Bomb]

7 minutes ago, majerus mojo said:

Yea everyone says that. Was kind of my point, TRN. It has literally taken a HOF coach to do anything of note with said job this century, though. 

Spoon did alright on a low budget, practicing in West Pine Gym playing Cincy and Louisville. He still had a top NBA draft pick and at least won a game in the tournament. Since we've upped the facilities and budget we've had 1 good hire and sadly Majerus' tenure ended abruptly.

Booster(s) just ponied up an estimated $10mil to fire a coach. That is notable for a "mid-major" paying $2.5/yr is a high salary for any non P6 school and pretty good for a lot of P6.

The support is there, the facilities are there, the geographic location is good, we just need better leadership to make better decisions.  Once we get that SLU can win.  The only thing holding SLU back is keeping people like May.  People that have no vision, make had decisions, get played hard by agents, can't influence groups of powerful boosters or the board and fail at running an organization.

All SLU's issues are self inflicted.  Does UD have richer boosters?  Does UD have better facilities? Is UD better situated geographically? No they've just made better choices overall, not always right but a little better than we've done.

So we will probably get a better coach than Ford with this next hire but until May is gone sustained success will elude us.

[slu72]

If we can land a coach that delivers W’s and Tourney bids, who the AD is not all that important. Say Schertz delivers bigly(sorry Mr Trump), the AD’s primary job should be catering to donors for NIL$’s, compliance, watching over the non rev sports, and marketing the hoops program. For example, who’s the face of the nations most successful hoops programs? Hint; it ain’t the ADs, and I would guess they’re happy to leave all the responsibilities in the hands of the HC.  Hire the right guy and get the hell out of the way. 
Is SLU a good job for Schertz? One big factor in our favor is we will likely be more patient than a P6 school. Also, Spoon and Majerus proved there is a market for GOOD college hoops in St L. In a way we are a sleeping giant. See St John’s for example. It was dying on the vine until Pitino took over. Now it’s a hot ticket. I hope Schertz takes the above into consideration when making his decision.Of course there are other factors where we fall short of a P6 program, but we still have our pluses. Enough? We’ll see shortly. 

[Taj79]

Question:  did Spoon have a system?  We all know Majerus was a genius but I can't recall if Spoon had a system like that or not.  Many people are talking about Schertz having a system of 5-out.  We all know the last guy didn't have a system, just hero ball.  I really don't recall if Spoon had something or just got somewhat lucky with Claggett, Highmark, Waldman, DSobbs and then Hughes.

[willie]

I don’t know if he had a system but he definitely had defensive principles 

[TheA_Bomb]

40 minutes ago, slu72 said:

If we can land a coach that delivers W’s and Tourney bids, who the AD is not all that important. Say Schertz delivers bigly(sorry Mr Trump), the AD’s primary job should be catering to donors for NIL$’s, compliance, watching over the non rev sports, and marketing the hoops program. For example, who’s the face of the nations most successful hoops programs? Hint; it ain’t the ADs, and I would guess they’re happy to leave all the responsibilities in the hands of the HC.  Hire the right guy and get the hell out of the way. 

You're partially right if Schertz or whoever the next coach happens to be, wins that cures a lot of issues.  Marketing isn't as important as people will come out to games, boosters willingly donate and generally people are happier.  However, if Schertz wins at SLU wins the A10 regular season, tournament, makes a couple NCAAs maybe makes a run. Then he's a target for P6.  Now you need that proactive leadership again. You need someone proactive that is seeing the landscape of coaching changes, NIL changes, conferences re-alignment, TV deals. Coaches are handling more these days than before constantly re-recruiting their own roster, transfer portal turn over, near full rebuilds each year. They need the AD support.

Does the stated BVF NIL strategy sound like it's in line with how BB recruiting works?

Does the BVF market itself effectively?

Did the BVF help Coach Ford win transfer battles on his preferred players last year?

I think the answer to all of the above is No. May is not directly responsible for BVF but he should be the one along with the BB coach to have the most influence on the organization. From what we've heard it sounds like the BVF has adequate funds to compete in the A10. We acknowledge that May is a talented fundraiser with the SLU big money boosters. Just need to spend the money wisely.

[cheeseman]

31 minutes ago, Taj79 said:

Question:  did Spoon have a system?  We all know Majerus was a genius but I can't recall if Spoon had a system like that or not.  Many people are talking about Schertz having a system of 5-out.  We all know the last guy didn't have a system, just hero ball.  I really don't recall if Spoon had something or just got somewhat lucky with Claggett, Highmark, Waldman, DSobbs and then Hughes.

He certainly did have a system - everything ran through the defense.  He was not interested in simply outscoring his opponent but to keep their score down.  His offense was primarily based on who his players were - Hughes could play hero ball on offense,  Claggs and the guard from Vegas were set up to get open and make 3s.  Highmark was the same but if he couldn't hit he was told to drive.  While his approach would not be a specific system as some talk about today he did have an approach - defense drove the team and his offensive scheme was based on the players skill he had.

[slu72]

Took the words right out of Bob Huggins’ mouth; playing Charlie Spoonhour is like a trip to the dentist, or some such words. Hugs was commenting on Spoon’s defense. 
And Majerus with to win Defend and Rebound. What killed Travis these past two seasons was the collapse of the team’s D especially in the second half. For example. how did they allow SIUE to make up an 18 point deficit? That game more than any other wrecked the 22-23 season for us.