Schedule - 2025-2026

[RiseOfTheBillikens]

20 minutes ago, brianstl said:

I think there are multiple issues involved.  Not winning enough and not traveling well are most definitely the reasons why we don't get constant top tier events like Dayton and VCU have been getting.  The reason we don't get to top events as often as some of our more similar A 10 peers on those two fronts is harder to nail down.  It is kind of hard to blame the coaching staff when it has been an issue over decades now.  It is, also, kind of hard to put the blame all on the current AD for the same reasons.  Some blame probably lies with the current and multiple former athletic directors, but if it is a real meaningful amount is hard to say.  I think it has probably been a university culture issue where these events weren't viewed as carrying much importance.  That kind of culture leads to a lack of time and resources being put into building the relationships with the people that put together the MTE's.  The further you fall behind over the years as a university in building those relationships, the harder it becomes to catch up with out winning big consistently or always showing up in big numbers as a fan base at these things.

Tough to travel well when the A dept doesn't set anything up for said travelers.

But I do agree we are small time

 

[TheA_Bomb]

However, it is fair to say that the current AD has not adequately addressed this deficiency, if at all.

[HoosierPal]

3 hours ago, brianstl said:

I’m not against it or okay with it currently.  We don’t have enough information one way or the other right now.  I think we will all probably be satisfied with how this shakes out, but that isn’t based on anything firm.

Totally agree. We have several ‘the sky is falling’ posters that need to relax until some actual information is available. 

[dlarry]

1 hour ago, HoosierPal said:

Totally agree. We have several ‘the sky is falling’ posters that need to relax until some actual information is available. 

[slu72]

On 4/10/2025 at 10:08 PM, willie said:

Neutral Obviously you have to take the game. 

More like Geography. 

[slu72]

17 hours ago, RiseOfTheBillikens said:

Tough to travel well when the A dept doesn't set anything up for said travelers.

But I do agree we are small time

 

That could be a big part of the problem, traveling alone is always more expensive than as a group. Air fare, hotels, dining costs ain’t cheap these days. If they have an attractive location to play in the AD should be seeking out group plans. They also should be doing this well in advance so folks can plan their vacay schedules and budgets for the trip. At Myrtle Beach we SLU had an ok turnout but still wasn’t impressive. Hell, Wyoming and Wichita had much bigger followings. A Wyoming fan told me a lot of them came as a group. This shouldn’t be that hard for SLU to figure out. 

[billikenfan05]

15 hours ago, dlarry said:

No, we have posters who have lived through the last 11 years of Billiken Basketball. We have general skeptics. Imagine seeing our program sign on for MTE's two years in a row only for them to fall through. And THEN being blindly optimistic that this will work out. The last decent MTE we had was the Maryland/Providence tournament in Connecticut. So yeah, I think posters have a good reason to be cautious. 

Always love when hoosierbot, a non-Billiken fan, shows up to tell Billiken fans how to feel.

What a guy!

[dlarry]

21 hours ago, billikenfan05 said:

No, we have posters who have lived through the last 11 years of Billiken Basketball. We have general skeptics. Imagine seeing our program sign on for MTE's two years in a row only for them to fall through. And THEN being blindly optimistic that this will work out. The last decent MTE we had was the Maryland/Providence tournament in Connecticut. So yeah, I think posters have a good reason to be cautious. 

Always love when hoosierbot, a non-Billiken fan, shows up to tell Billiken fans how to feel.

What a guy!

Nobody is being blindly optimistic but being pissed and thinking this MTE sucks before we have any details is a little premature. 

[billikenfan05]

6 minutes ago, dlarry said:

Nobody is being blindly optimistic but being pissed and thinking this MTE sucks before we have any details is a little premature. 

It wasn't an attack at you, FYI. 

I think the only person who has said anything straight negative is torch who asserted the field is bad. 

brianstl said there was no confirmation wether we'd be part of a more traditional MTE or a one-off like the women. 

I honestly don't know if the field is bad, but I don't think torch said anything out of pocket. I don't know if I agree with him. 

But I do agree with brian, no reason to celebrate when we don't know who we're playing or how many games. Combined with the fact that we went from Hawaii to Palm Springs. 

[almaman]

On 4/25/2025 at 7:51 AM, dlarry said:

Nobody is being blindly optimistic but being pissed and thinking this MTE sucks before we have any details is a little premature. 

but typical

 

[Brighton]

Dayton and VCU (including Richmond in the Richmond area) are the only major game in their respective towns. No major four sport nor MLS there. They’re IT. Big difference.

[TheChosenOne]

51 minutes ago, Brighton said:

Dayton and VCU (including Richmond in the Richmond area) are the only major game in their respective towns. No major four sport nor MLS there. They’re IT. Big difference.

I think that’s a fair comment. I also don’t think SLU has ever done a good enough job connecting as the city’s team. Sure we do cheesy tag lines and talk about being as much, but since Spoon we just haven’t accomplished that. I realize one can make a strong argument that winning would solve that, but just a general failure in my opinion. I also thought we failed in marketing Avila, but I suppose we have another season to do better there. Winning tends to cure all which sadly seems to be the plan of our athletic department.

[VeniceMenace]

50 minutes ago, TheChosenOne said:

I think that’s a fair comment. I also don’t think SLU has ever done a good enough job connecting as the city’s team. Sure we do cheesy tag lines and talk about being as much, but since Spoon we just haven’t accomplished that. I realize one can make a strong argument that winning would solve that, but just a general failure in my opinion. I also thought we failed in marketing Avila, but I suppose we have another season to do better there. Winning tends to cure all which sadly seems to be the plan of our athletic department.

A10 is a weak, one-bid conference, not anywhere close to Great Midwest or early CUSA….Big East or bust.

[willie]

1 hour ago, TheChosenOne said:

I think that’s a fair comment. I also don’t think SLU has ever done a good enough job connecting as the city’s team. Sure we do cheesy tag lines and talk about being as much, but since Spoon we just haven’t accomplished that. I realize one can make a strong argument that winning would solve that, but just a general failure in my opinion. I also thought we failed in marketing Avila, but I suppose we have another season to do better there. Winning tends to cure all which sadly seems to be the plan of our athletic department.

I agree with the overall tone of your comment. Where I sort  disagree is the marketing of Avila. I thought they tried. Was it successful? No but not for lack of effort. I think we could do more community service projects. Maybe with Schertz being here for a year he might have a better feel on what we could do. Yes winning would help. 

[Brighton]

4 hours ago, TheChosenOne said:

I think that’s a fair comment. I also don’t think SLU has ever done a good enough job connecting as the city’s team. Sure we do cheesy tag lines and talk about being as much, but since Spoon we just haven’t accomplished that. I realize one can make a strong argument that winning would solve that, but just a general failure in my opinion. I also thought we failed in marketing Avila, but I suppose we have another season to do better there. Winning tends to cure all which sadly seems to be the plan of our athletic department.

Fair enough. Some programs in cities with multiple teams have managed to make it work. No excuses..

[WUH]

5 hours ago, TheChosenOne said:

I also don’t think SLU has ever done a good enough job connecting as the city’s team. Sure we do cheesy tag lines and talk about being as much, but since Spoon we just haven’t accomplished that. I realize one can make a strong argument that winning would solve that, but just a general failure in my opinion. I also thought we failed in marketing Avila, but I suppose we have another season to do better there. Winning tends to cure all which sadly seems to be the plan of our athletic department.

I would be interested to hear examples of how SLU could do better in this regard or examples of other universities that are doing better with comparable levels of success, basketball-wise.

[Lord Elrond]

6 minutes ago, WUH said:

I would be interested to hear examples of how SLU could do better in this regard or examples of other universities that are doing better with comparable levels of success, basketball-wise.

I think it’s more marketing the team effectively than anything else. More money in marketing, but before you do that you need a plan.  The goal should be to make SLU the St Louis hometown team. 

[WUH]

1 hour ago, Lord Elrond said:

I think it’s more marketing the team effectively than anything else. More money in marketing, but before you do that you need a plan.  The goal should be to make SLU the St Louis hometown team. 

I am completely on board.

I just think it is hard to build on a program that was 13-20 last season and down far enough overall that they had to replace their coach.

I think SLU made the right hire and bringing in Robbie Avila was great, but I am not sure that either was big enough to move the needle in a season.  Schertz was not a household name coming in.

I would say marketing did what they could.

[Lord Elrond]

23 minutes ago, WUH said:

I am completely on board.

I just think it is hard to build on a program that was 13-20 last season and down far enough overall that they had to replace their coach.

I think SLU made the right hire and bringing in Robbie Avila was great, but I am not sure that either was big enough to move the needle in a season.  Schertz was not a household name coming in.

I would say marketing did what they could.

Maybe now is the time to make that push?  New players coming in, but it seems like in the new NIL era that will be the case every year. Marketing the team will have to adjust to that. 

[Adman]

2 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Maybe now is the time to make that push?  New players coming in, but it seems like in the new NIL era that will be the case every year. Marketing the team will have to adjust to that. 

I’m a big fan of marketing. But it starts with product. We don’t have that. The reason Spoonball worked - and we averaged 16,000 butts in seats - was that we had an underlying product.

If we have a winning and exciting product, Robbie can be a star.

Just win.

[thetorch]

I believe we've aways gone the wrong way here.

We are never going to be St. Louis' team.  We are small private school in a huge city surrounded by much larger public schools.  Trying to be St. Louis' school is always going to be a losing effort.  

We are a niche product and should market ourselves as such.  Spoonball was lightning in a bottle and not repeatable.  20 years later we had better teams, a more nationally recognized coach, and we could barely sell out Chaifetz.  

We dropped the ball mightily in marketing Robbie.  He was the hottest returning star in basketball and nary a peep was made about him.  Why weren't we producing the same social media clips that he had at ISU the season before?  He completely fell off the national radar, through no fault of his own.

And our MTE we signed up for this year sucks.  There are no top 25 teams in the field, not even close.  Just a bunch of middle of the pack to lower level P6 teams with some half way decent mid majors.  We need multiple chances at Quad 1 games, I just don't think this tourney will afford us that opportunity.  This may be the best we can do but it isn't a great field by any means.

[WUH]

15 minutes ago, thetorch said:

I believe we've aways gone the wrong way here.

We are never going to be St. Louis' team.  We are small private school in a huge city surrounded by much larger public schools.  Trying to be St. Louis' school is always going to be a losing effort.  

We are a niche product and should market ourselves as such.  Spoonball was lightning in a bottle and not repeatable.  20 years later we had better teams, a more nationally recognized coach, and we could barely sell out Chaifetz.  

We dropped the ball mightily in marketing Robbie.  He was the hottest returning star in basketball and nary a peep was made about him.  Why weren't we producing the same social media clips that he had at ISU the season before?  He completely fell off the national radar, through no fault of his own.

And our MTE we signed up for this year sucks.  There are no top 25 teams in the field, not even close.  Just a bunch of middle of the pack to lower level P6 teams with some half way decent mid majors.  We need multiple chances at Quad 1 games, I just don't think this tourney will afford us that opportunity.  This may be the best we can do but it isn't a great field by any means.

SLU is a large private school in the 30th largest Metro area, but one without an 30 NBA team.

I do think it makes sense to market to those who have no connection to SLU, but just want to see good basketball and if that is around a campaign about making SLU the St. Louis team, I support that.  No only to fill the seats in Chaifetz, but also to fill the seats in Cook Hall.

As far as I know, college basketball attendance is down nationwide, but maybe I am wrong.  I believe Spoonhour had some advantages there.

Avila was the most recognizable star last season, but it is hard to know how long that would have lasted at Indiana State or elsewhere.

[Macallan 18]

It is beyond simple.  Win and make the tourney.  Chaifetz would be filled.

[billikenfan05]

7 hours ago, Macallan 18 said:

It is beyond simple.  Win and make the tourney.  Chaifetz would be filled.

It's not a zero sum game. You can do both, market like a competent athletics department and win. Currently SLU has done neither.

[cheeseman]

10 hours ago, Macallan 18 said:

It is beyond simple.  Win and make the tourney.  Chaifetz would be filled.

Those of us who have been around a long time supporting this program have heard this mantra numerous times.  Guess what - there were times we did win but filling the arena was never an outcome.  There is more to it then this - what, not sure, I wish I knew.