WBB Offseason

[billiken_roy]

3 hours ago, cgeldmacher said:

Is this a SLU thing, or do other A-10 schools experience this level of departure each year?  If it is similar to what other A-10 schools are seeing then it may just be the new reality that we live it.  If it is unusual for the A-10, then we probably have a problem.

Got to remember this free agency thing is only in its infancy yet.   I believe unless they rethink rules, the vast majority of teams will be turning over most of the roster every year.   Player development will almost become a waste of time as those players that significantly improve are going to be looking to improve their salary and exposure.   Those that haven't improved will be "advised" to move along.   

Before colleges became professional, I was totally against running off players.   But with this pay to play atmosphere, I no longer defend the players.   They can't have it both ways 

[Lord Elrond]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

Got to remember this free agency thing is only in its infancy yet.   I believe unless they rethink rules, the vast majority of teams will be turning over most of the roster every year.   Player development will almost become a waste of time as those players that significantly improve are going to be looking to improve their salary and exposure.   Those that haven't improved will be "advised" to move along.   

Before colleges became professional, I was totally against running off players.   But with this pay to play atmosphere, I no longer defend the players.   They can't have it both ways 

I still think in WBB there’s still room to get an incoming freshman, develop her, and keep her if you do it right. 

[Lord Elrond]

Stu put out another article today on the 4 players entering the portal (Gray, Shavers, Anumele, Nazario). Also mentioned, Tierra Simon has not announced for the portal, but has also not announced she’s coming back for her last year of eligibility either.

[Lord Elrond]

OK, the OVC Freshman of the Year, Zoe Best from SEMO is in the portal. 14.1 PPG, started all 28 games for SEMO, and a graduate of Incarnate Wood, 5’10” shooting guard/wing. If we’re not trying to get her to come play for her hometown crowd, what are we doing?

[OkieBilliken]

Tierra Simon enters the portal.   Yikes,  if RT doesn’t pull off some portal magic she is going to be on the hot seat next year.   

[Lord Elrond]

53 minutes ago, OkieBilliken said:

Tierra Simon enters the portal.   Yikes,  if RT doesn’t pull off some portal magic she is going to be on the hot seat next year.   

Correction: her seat was getting warm, now approaching red hot. Returners are:

Wallace H, Bergstrom, Tryantifylli, Tillett (we think, Bel may just start her coaching career somewhere), incoming freshmen class Koerkenmeier, Wallace, J (no relation to Wallace H), Brown. 6, maybe 7, 3 of them incoming freshmen, one of the players returning didn’t play a minute this year (Tryantifylli, I hope they get her a retroactive redshirt year).  8-9 new players to get us up to 15. Total rebuild in progress, not what I expected to see going into a coach’s 4th season.

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

56 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Correction: her seat was getting warm, now approaching red hot. Returners are:

Wallace H, Bergstrom, Tryantifylli, Tillett (we think, Bel may just start her coaching career somewhere), incoming freshmen class Koerkenmeier, Wallace, J (no relation to Wallace H), Brown. 6, maybe 7, 3 of them incoming freshmen, one of the players returning didn’t play a minute this year (Tryantifylli, I hope they get her a retroactive redshirt year).  8-9 new players to get us up to 15. Total rebuild in progress, not what I expected to see going into a coach’s 4th season.

So many players departing without a coaching change (I know we had a TON of seniors/grad students) but this is alarming.

[WUH]

There is no such thing as a retroactive redshirt, Triantafylli did not play at all this season and therefore remains eligible for three more seasons.

[Pistol]

If I'm looking for a positive spin, maybe Tillett got a good amount of NIL for WBB and a mandate to make a serious upgrade to the talent level.

[Lord Elrond]

4 minutes ago, Pistol said:

If I'm looking for a positive spin, maybe Tillett got a good amount of NIL for WBB and a mandate to make a serious upgrade to the talent level.

Maybe.  Right now, it’s on Tillett to go get the players, and get them to play like a team. As things stand now, we don’t have enough players to field a team. I cannot ever recall a similar situation in WBB without a coaching change.  When Tillett got here, there were 6 players left with experience, plus 3 incoming freshman, and she brought 4 players with her from Longwood. Now she has 4 players left with experience, plus 3 incoming freshmen, and no ability to bring in a group who she recruited and played under her at a previous coaching job. This is a much bigger challenge. But there is no option but for her and her staff to go get players. All we can do is sit and wait to see who she brings in.

[Speyburn]

On 3/25/2025 at 1:36 PM, Lord Elrond said:

Right now they need Bel Tillett to come back, who else is your point guard out of this group?  Who else is your back up point guard?

No other option at this point but to see what we get in the portal (or additional freshmen/JUCO players). I do think that Coach Tilletts tenure here depends on on getting good players who fit in to our style of play this year.

Now another question: I’ve been a WBB season ticket holder for years (since before Coach Tillett). I’ve been to every home game the last few years I could, I’ve watched every away game I could, I made a couple trips to other schools to watch the WBB team play last year.  Can someone tell me exactly WHAT our style of play was last year?  I honestly have no idea.  The closest guess I can make is that we were like chameleons, reflecting back whatever the other team was doing to us. If anyone has a serious answer to that question I’d love to hear it, it was a very serious question.

I would take the freshman from Portugal, Rita Nazario any day over Tillet. Tillet runs the ball up the court and does not have a clue what to do with it.

[Lord Elrond]

10 minutes ago, Speyburn said:

I would take the freshman from Portugal, Rita Nazario any day over Tillet. Tillet runs the ball up the court and does not have a clue what to do with it.

Rita Nazario is in the portal, so good luck to her. Right now the only returning player with any college experience at the point guard position is Bel Tillett. None of the incoming class is shown as a point guard, although Zhykera Brown among the incoming freshman is a combo guard.  An experienced point guard would seem to be a priority in the portal, I think we totally agree on that point.

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

22 hours ago, Lord Elrond said:

Rita Nazario is in the portal, so good luck to her. Right now the only returning player with any college experience at the point guard position is Bel Tillett. None of the incoming class is shown as a point guard, although Zhykera Brown among the incoming freshman is a combo guard.  An experienced point guard would seem to be a priority in the portal, I think we totally agree on that point.

I just honestly have no clue what's happening/going to happen. Did we just get supremely unlucky with a combination of players graduating/running out of eligibility and portal, or is there something wrong with Tillett?

[Lord Elrond]

1 hour ago, BrettJollyComedyHour said:

I just honestly have no clue what's happening/going to happen. Did we just get supremely unlucky with a combination of players graduating/running out of eligibility and portal, or is there something wrong with Tillett?

Tillett had to know how many players she was losing at the end of the year because they were running out of eligibility under the rules at the beginning of the season (7, plus her daughter was on track to graduate at the end of this year, despite having 1 more year, so maybe 8). Knowing this, she only got commitments from 3 freshmen to replace 7-8 players.  Was she unable to get more?  Did she think she would just get players from the portal? I have no idea. The problem got worse when 3 players who had eligibility left decided to leave (Gray, Anumele, Nazario). For Simon and Shavers, they came into this season with everyone thinking it was their last season of eligibility, then in January a court case decided that they, as JUCO transfers, had more eligibility. Tillett was unable to convince them to stay, I have no idea why.  But again, she had to plan on them leaving at the end of this season because that’s what the rules said, not getting them to stay is more a lost opportunity. But still, she lost 5 players from the team that could have played next year.
 

All I can guess is that she thought she had a better chance of getting better players in the portal to replace ones she knew were leaving than what she could get from additional incoming freshmen/JUCO players. Three more leaving just added to the size of the problem. It is the coach who is responsible for getting players for the team, so it is up to the coach to fix the problem.

P.S. - a good way to judge Tillett is to compare how many players she lost with additional eligibility to the portal to what other coaches in the A10 lost.  Right now I don’t think we have anywhere near the final numbers for all programs, so maybe after awhile this can be revisited.  But we do have some data right now.  Tillett lost 5 players with eligibility remaining. George Mason right now has 5 players in the portal, VCU has 7, St Bonaventure 6. So maybe not as bad as we thought?  

Edited March 28 by Lord Elrond
Forgot to add

[slufanskip]

If she is on the hot seat, I hope someone is investigating the crack cocaine problem in the SLU athletics department. 

[willie]

1 hour ago, slufanskip said:

If she is on the hot seat, I hope someone is investigating the crack cocaine problem in the SLU athletics department. 

????????  Or is the blue font. 

[White Pelican]

I think he means they are crazy or on drugs to have her on the hot seat already. That's my guess.

[slufanskip]

16 hours ago, willie said:

????????  Or is the blue font. 

Sarcasm, but if she’s on the hot seat it must be some sort of chemical clouding people’s judgment. 
 

3 years. Their 1st ever NCAA tournament and an NIT tournament championship. Yes, the regular season records weren’t great but, had she had a great regular season record and not the postseason success, no one would be saying yea but she had 24 wins. 

[billikenfan05]

11 minutes ago, slufanskip said:

Sarcasm, but if she’s on the hot seat it must be some sort of chemical clouding people’s judgment. 
 

3 years. Their 1st ever NCAA tournament and an NIT tournament championship. Yes, the regular season records weren’t great but, had she had a great regular season record and not the postseason success, no one would be saying yea but she had 24 wins. 

She should certainly not feel comfortable. If we're talking car seat warmer scaled, it's a 1 out of 3 bars. But also 2 sounds about right as well.

[Lord Elrond]

1 hour ago, slufanskip said:

Sarcasm, but if she’s on the hot seat it must be some sort of chemical clouding people’s judgment. 
 

3 years. Their 1st ever NCAA tournament and an NIT tournament championship. Yes, the regular season records weren’t great but, had she had a great regular season record and not the postseason success, no one would be saying yea but she had 24 wins. 

I’m not saying fire her now, but the fact is we are going in to year 4 of the coach, and we couldn’t play a game right now with only 4 players on the team. There are 3 freshmen coming this fall, so that puts us up to 7. Total rebuilding of the roster.  The 5 players in the past 2 years who have left with eligibility remaining (next year) could form the nucleus of a competitive team in the A10. We couldn’t find a way to keep them?
Right now, it’s on Tillett to go get a roster to play next year. 

[cheeseman]

1 hour ago, Lord Elrond said:

I’m not saying fire her now, but the fact is we are going in to year 4 of the coach, and we couldn’t play a game right now with only 4 players on the team. There are 3 freshmen coming this fall, so that puts us up to 7. Total rebuilding of the roster.  The 5 players in the past 2 years who have left with eligibility remaining (next year) could form the nucleus of a competitive team in the A10. We couldn’t find a way to keep them?
Right now, it’s on Tillett to go get a roster to play next year. 

She will either solve this issue or hang herself.  Let it play out given we both agree that firing her now is not going to happen.

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

20 hours ago, cheeseman said:

She will either solve this issue or hang herself.  Let it play out given we both agree that firing her now is not going to happen.

Yeah, I mean firing her now would be a massive overreaction. She's not been in this situation before, though, so how she reacts will be the factor on whether she's done after this year or not, in my opinion. 

Edited March 30 by BrettJollyComedyHour

[billikenfan05]

29 minutes ago, BrettJollyComedyHour said:

Yeah, I mean firing her now would be a massive overreaction. She's not been in this situation before, though, so how she reacts will be the factor on whether she's done after this year or not, in my opinion. 

I totally agree with letting it play out this season, no reason or chance she gets canned. But it needs to stay in the forefront of fan conversation, because the flags are all there.

[Pistol]

53 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

I totally agree with letting it play out this season, no reason or chance she gets canned. But it needs to stay in the forefront of fan conversation, because the flags are all there.

Yeah, this is where I'm at, too. Absolutely no reason to move now. Not worth eating the contract years. She deserves a chance to rebuild the roster and put a winner on the floor.

But yeah - eyes wide open.

[billikenfan05]

1 hour ago, Pistol said:

Yeah, this is where I'm at, too. Absolutely no reason to move now. Not worth eating the contract years. She deserves a chance to rebuild the roster and put a winner on the floor.

But yeah - eyes wide open.

It’s certainly interesting that she is spinning the transfers as a purge of players that aren’t up to snuff. Her quote that they weren’t able to get players of the quality they wanted last year was certainly one that got a side eye out of me.