Oral Roberts?

[SLU_Nick]

We are good...is that a school of dentistry. Behind my sarcasm I am a very dissapointed college student.

[kshoe]

nm

[Taj79]

Are we that bad? In my predicition, I had us at the complete reverse of where the record now stands. No good Division I college basketball team can lose to Austin Peay, a directional school, and a preacher in the same year and be a GOOD team. Maybe they wil BECOME one, but right now, this has the makings of one very long year.

Yeah, yeahm I know ... someone's going to point out that all three loses were to teams expected to have good years in their respective conferences. And I might buy that with the Virgin Islands thing. But you don't open at home with a loss to ORU.

They seem to have a VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY long way to go. At least we got up over a point-per-minute more. Ouch! Can't wait for the local analysis from you guys. What is up?

[jg99]

What the hell is going on?? St louis has 1 of the top 5 college coaches around. Bills lose to ORU, are we that bad?

[AlumniFan]

...in order to win a basketball game, the ball must go through the hoop when it is released from a shooting player's hands. This only happened 30% of the time today. We shot horribly!!!!

Husak played very well in place of Ian. He had at least four blocked shots, a few rebounds and played with a lot of spirit. That was the pleasant part of the day.

Polk actually had a decent game too. He is lightening quick and had two nice back to back threes today along with several steals. With Polk and Husak, at least we have a sound foundation for the future.

It seems that in the Austin Peay game and today, the problem is the same - we can get shots, but we do not make them. I don't know how many layups and open jumpers we just plain missed. Very frustrating.

Given what I have seen with this team, I am revising my season prediction to 1-29. Siiiiiggggghhhhhhh.....................

[Box and Won]

Absolutely disgraceful. If Tom hits ONE of the four thousand easy shots he missed, the game is ours.

With about four minutes left in the first half, I said to my girlfriend, "I just hope we make it to 20 points in the first half." With about three minutes left, we hit 19 points and my girlfriend said, "Well, it looks like you're going to get your wish." Now, she is a relatively new Billiken fan and is still acclimating herself to watching our brand of basketball and laughed when I told her, "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched."

It turned out I was right.

Losing to Oral Roberts is hard to swallow. Yes, I realize that was a very bad joke, but I need a little humor to ease the pain right now...

[Sheltiedave]

We are as bad as we were three years ago, when Marque tried to play within the team framework without establishing himself as an offensive force.

We need to establish a few things in order to get on track, namely

1) Really work to learn an outside/in and inside/out ball movement. There were times today when we would pass the ball into the paint, and thre it stayed. Also, there were at least three bad possessions were we came down and chucked up a wild three with nary a pass.

Polk's strength is not passing over people, it is knowing were someone is that is cutting, and delivering the ball.

2) Learn and create better spacing. Polk and Ohannon had one good give and go, but there were few examples of back cuts and stop/start cuts that take advantage of his talents. If everyone is going to stand around and wait for Polk/Bryant to deliver the promised land, then let's just start Drejaj and mail in some results.

3) Teach Drejaj not to gamble on defense 60% of the time. His man(Tritt) is going to show up big on the stats sheet. We also allowed three layups and a inbounds play in the paint were there was zero help defense. Ouch.

To the good, Husak played some big minutes and came up with 5/6 blocks by my count, with three altered shots, and he held on to some tough rebounds. He has some ungodly long arms, and suceeded in preventing three or four bunnies. He will be a load defensively in two years.

Polk is a player, and he was the man bringing us back from eight down. I think he might be getting the green light to shoot earlier in the game, because his shooting is going to be the trigger to get Reggie open, and good looks to the inside players. He might be a freshman, but we need wins, and he has the spine to deliver.

Isak looked much better than years past, and he is getting in good position on offense and defense to play, lessening his foul troubles significantly. Ian had a rolled ankle and did not play. I wish I could write more, but I don't want to dwell on the bad and ugly.

[3star_recruit]

"We are as bad as we were three years ago, when Marque tried to play within the team framework without establishing himself as an offensive force."

You ever notice that our primary scorers get their points in spite of the offensive scheme, not because of it? The motion offense looks like crap in practice so I'm no longer surprised that it looks like crap in the game.

[jjray]

>"We are as bad as we were three years ago, when Marque tried

>to play within the team framework without establishing

>himself as an offensive force."

>

>You ever notice that our primary scorers get their points in

>spite of the offensive scheme, not because of it? The

>motion offense looks like crap in practice so I'm no longer

>surprised that it looks like crap in the game.

I've always been a fan of the motion offense but, to make it work, you need a slasher and nearly everyone has to be able to hit an open jump shot. Reggie is the only pure shooter on the floor. Should we have taken a guy like Blake Ahern a few years ago? That guy seemed perfectly suited to the motion offense even if his defense would relegate him to coming off the bench. The way it looks to me right now, even Drew Deiner would be a big help to his team. Where are the shooters?

[3star_recruit]

Yet we've signed Tommie Liddell and are recruiting Jarod Leonard and supposedly Bobby Hill, none of whom are pure shooters. Continuing with this style of play is like putting a square peg into a round hole or trying to make Brad Smith into a drop back passer. We need Creighton's shooters to make this work.

[TheA_Bomb]

Is four games of bad shooting a slump or is this how it is going to be.

DP looked decent today had 8 pts. There were so many times he'd rush down court and be the only one there no one to pass to.

Husak looked good altered more shots in this one game than the whole team last season.

TF had some pts. but could have had so many more. If I were 6'10 I'd dunk it every single chance I got.

Besides the bad shooting the team has bad chemistry. No anticipation of what your teammate is going to do. No inside outside movement. No runs what-so-ever. Never getting into an offensive rythymn.

[3star_recruit]

"No anticipation of what your teammate is going to do. No inside outside movement."

Let's be blunt -- this team has never had any consistent inside-outside movement. If Marque and to a lesser extent, Reggie, hadn't carried this team on their shoulders we would have been sub .500 the last three years. This team feeds off of whoever the offensive star is that year. Every once in awhile the role players will bail out the star when he's ineffective but its not very often.

[aj_arete]

That would be a good question to ask Brad or one of his coaches during the next Billiken Club meeting.

[guest]

"Besides the bad shooting the team has bad chemistry. No anticipation of what your teammate is going to do. No inside outside movement. No runs what-so-ever. Never getting into an offensive rythymn."

Absolutely correct, it seems like, when that ball goes inside its like a black whole. i'm only able to listen to the games. but by the sounds of it the ball goes inside and all i hear is oh great move miss, never did i once hear, what a great kick out to a guard for three, or cutting to the whole.

as far runs, runs come with scoring, i'm not sure if slu has a quick hit play. or and organized fast break to get some good looks at the basket. we have great players and a motion offense is always fun. but i believe when struggling (3-14) first 14 shots of the game. lets get a couple of quick hit plays that we can capitalize on.

This team is good, and will get better, lots of new guys, that get plenty of time, maybe too much so soon, i would have eased them into the rotation, until bang eventually these guys were making big contributions.

In the first half we sub like, its an exhibition game. the starters: polk, reg, newbourne, tom, izik. good line up. two guys here have never played d1 basketball til the last four games. first two subs off the bench: husak, danny brown. two more guys who have not played d1 basketball ever until the past four games.

chemistry you want??????? hahahahaha thats all u can do. these kids could play, they are going to be great. but if you remember what the line ups looked like when marque was a senior. drejaj saw little time, izik saw little time. the players that played were guys that had been there. reg year number one junior year, fish, sloan, ross, izik, tom, drejaj, all major minutes, nit second straight season.

this year once again hate to repeat but: reg, polk, newbourne, izik, tom, husak, danny brown, drejaj . and so much for consistancy drejaj the 8th man today. tutt was nice and warm to light his **S up. four games four different starting lines ups. theres ur constancy. what player in the nation plays consitant. drejaj just had 13 the other day, finally got hott just like the rest of the team, drejaj good job but you know what ur benched, in matter of fact ur not gonna even be the first off the bench today. then plays 30 minutes. in case no body realizes--- basketball is about 90 percent mental. by the time drejaj's career is over he'll be mental.

[billiken_roy]

as i said in the other string. our seniors need to start acting like seniors. until they play as expected, we are in for a long ride. the good news is that i believe this team has the talent. it's what's in the chest that counts. and the seniors typically make that tick.

[BillikenButch]

It's the first time I can remember where the senior class has no 4 year SLU guys.

[guest]

that Tommie and Jarod have the ability to get off better shots due to their skills and physical ability. I mean if we can get those type of athletes who can knock em down like Reggie Miller that would be great, but those guys are probably signing with Duke. All these guys think they have shooting ability and that skill will also improve with maturity. I still say if you are a Luther Head or Jimmy McKinney type of player, SLU is the place for you. You have a motion offense designed to get you good looks, and as long as you will play defense you will get to play.

[guest]

i agree 100 percent, but its hard for these upperclass men. why?

well, we have some great young players that want to get theirs now. well teams that i've seen be good or go far, the last two seasons.

slu's two nit runs. the young did the dirty work and the upperclass men were rewarded. but its a team effort. for instance. when reg is in the game with danny brown, husak, polk and izik, who should be gettin screens set for them, and are they the number one options???? easy right REG AND IZIK, if they happen to get an easy shot which believe me the underclass men will, if they try really hard to get these guys open. the person that usually gets open is the person that sets screens.

LETS GO BILLIKENS, LETS GO DANCING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WE CAN DO IT

[BillikenButch]

I am not quite sure what it is you have said, but I agree the offense should be set around those who can score.

[3star_recruit]

I would argue that Tommie and Jarod would struggle in this offense because it emphasizes passing and screening rather than passing and cutting with minimal screening to open up driving lanes to the bucket.

I've often complained about the lack of back cuts and ball penetration in this offense but it's pretty damn hard to make to get in the lane when you've got all the congestion in the that results from high AND low post screening. So we're left with our wings running to different spots on the perimeter to catch and shoot. And since we're not attacking the basket from the wings, we rarely get to the line.

[Billikan]

I am sorry but we do not need Creighton shooters to make wide open 2 or 3 foot shots. In fact, what we need are people like Tommie who can finish in traffic and Lisch who has a mid range game and can finish. Our two young big men need to get strong enough and develop quickly so we have someone who can finish the shots that Tom is missing--probably because he is so out of shape that he is tired after running the floot 4 or 5 times. The problem is that Tom is a senior and he will probably get many minutes until at least mid season. Simply put, Tom and Reggie need to get it together or we are sunk for this season.

[billiken_roy]

meyer has the midrange game. i say give him the chance and tell him to score.

[jjray]

I'm with 3Star on this one. Our lack of poor perimeter shooting is compounded by not attacking the basket and getting to the line. Yeah, we could have won the Oral Roberts and AP games if Tom or some other people would have made a few bunnies ... but that is not really the point. We should dominate AP and have no trouble handling OR. There's something fundamentally wrong with our offensive scheme based upon the player personnel (and their skill sets).

Here is qutoe from the article somebody posted about Hughes winning a game in OT for the Wizards (and scoring 21 in the 4th quarter to send get to OT):

"We were down and it looked like we were out of it, it looked like we were spent," O'Koren said. "Give a lot of credit to Larry, who, while we couldn't make a shot, he got himself to the line and made some shots."

-----

When the Bills cannot hit its outside shots, we are toast. We don't attack the basket and get to the line allowing us to generate some sort of offense until the shots start falling. As 3Star points out, with all that high-low picking we do around the lane, the wing is the place where one gets open looks or would have the room to attack the basket. We haven't had anyone out there who was capable of both shooting and driving since, sorry to bring up his name, Jason Edwin--averaging 11 ppg and shooting .410 from the field (he had a .423 3PP all of last year) for Kent State. Tommie Liddel is not known as a perimeter shooter. Maybe Luke Meyer will develop into a wing scorer. I hope so.

[jjray]

>meyer has the midrange game. i say give him the chance and

>tell him to score.

I was writing a post above when you made this comment. Agree that Meyer is a guy most suited to taking advantage of those open looks that should be available with our offense. Newbourne is not helping us on the wing. I thought Clarke would be an option out there this year but he's been hurt alot and just does not seem to have found his shoot yet (maybe he'll come around).

[guest]

1 and 3 wow!!!! i believe the billikens can turn it around. they play a tough hawaii team out of the high scoring WAC. another good home test for the bills, but 2-3 isn't bad after the first 5.

FIVE KEYS TO VICTORY FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON.

1) DEFENSE- it wins championships i believe

2) rebounding goes with DEFENSE

3)TURNOVERS- imagine this*** everyone has been talking about how the bills have had more shots than the other teams**** imagine shooting 5-10 more shots instead of turnovers WOW!!!!!!!!! FOR REAL 4-0 EASILY

4) BILLIKENS IF YOU READ THIS BOARD AT ALL HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

winning is fun i know, get dirty do what we have to do to win, get scrappy, no prisioners, stop being nice guys, get to the basket, you miss, big deal, you guards have 7 footers on the boards after an oppentents big man steps up to make a play, this will create layups for the bigs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5) BELIEVE IN THE DANCE, YOU WANT TO DANCE, MARCH MADNESS IS NOW NOT IN MARCH, MARCH,DANCING, THATS ALL GRAVY FOR WHAT YOU DO NOW, LETS DANCE BABY, BUT WE HAVE TO GET READY FOR THE DANCE BEFORE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BILLIKENSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS