Billiken75 Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 I was at the game today - to tell you the truth, I was impressed with the team overall. We are going in the right direction. Hawaii made two lucky a** 3's - one as the shot clock was ready to run out, the 2nd at the end of the first half. Both shots were flat and happened to go in - one of those misses and we win. We have been in every game. We are not getting or making any breaks for ourselves. Defense wins games - just take a look at the Rams. Keep this team playing good team D, the offense will get better, and we will be a team to reckon with. I understand that these losses are killers for post-season play, but that is the present reality. Stay behind this team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 to those ready to commit suicide, our 4 losses are all games that could have went either way. we are not losing games badly. the key now, as brad keeps harping, is that the team keeps doing things right and playing hard. reggie played like reggie of old yesterday. polk gets more familiar with college basketball every game, izik is starting to play with some consistency, once frericks starts making his puppy shots, we are winning games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 I am a huge believer in UB ... I am with him and the team 100% Official Billikens.com sponsor of H. Waldman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basketbill Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 First the disagreement, while I agree with the premise that it was a close game and Hawaii had to gift threes go in, I disagree that if those did not go in that the end of game score would be to simply subtract three point from their score. If you change something in time the outcome is different. Perhaps Hawaii has the ball last and hits the shot to win etc...... I agree with the Idea that while they lost the game yesterday, they lost to a good team, which was very athletic. Polk had to play against an athletic player, who had 4 or five inches on him, eight inches on his reach at least, yet he played well enough to get his team to within a shot of the win. This team needs dwayne to run the show at the end, Reggie may lead the team for 35 minutes emotionally, but at the end of the game the ball should be in dwayne's hands.... This team needs a win or two to turn their season in the right direction. The rest of their home schedule is lighter, with Dayton, UWM, Oakland, and SEMO, but their road game are tough with SIUC, Zags and Iowa.....with luck they end up 5-7 by the end of that stretch.... Lastly, while I was never comfortable with lead, and hated the ending, the spurts of potential visible I liked the game. Other seasons it was just painful to watch, I do not know why but yesterday was not.....Perhaps that is because I know Nark will win the contest and the bills wil lose their last game in the tourney after 29 straight wins.........Steve we need a sign it ends at 29. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfootes Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 IMO, SLU looks like a team that will be lucky to win 12 or 13 games this year. Next year they'll have to rely on a couple of freshmen for offense. I don't think that people should abandon SLU, but unless the A10 is realy soft SLU probably doesn't have a chance to have a winning record until the '06-'07 season. That might not be a possibility unless the recruits continue be look as good as Lidell/Lisch. A couple of losing seasons might send the recruiting down the drain. That's why I'm unwilling to give Brad a free pass. He needs to start winning now and earning his extension, otherwise he won't be able to land any good recruits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 while i doubt that 20 wins is going to happen any more, i see no reason that the billikens cannot be over 500 this year yet. yeah we lost 4 games we shouldnt have, but they werent blowouts and could have easily been won. to take the drastic read that mr footes has on the billikens is really a stretch imo. the mistake brad has made imo is neglecting/poor choices the inside recruiting imo. that said, we still have two scholarships remaining. find two juco studs to man the down low. cincy is winning with two 6'6" pf's that do the job they are supposed to do. there is no reason we dont have more athleticism and power inside that could consistently clean up more of the misses our talented guards miss. if we had 2-3 more putbacks/bunnies per game, we would currently be 5-0 and the world would be singing billiken praises. find bonner II. imo that is the final piece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 basketball. The beautiful thing about this sport is it only take one or two good players to turn around a program. The Bills are clearly having a misereable season thus far and even if it continues there is no reason to believe it has to carry over into future years given the talent we have coming in. The key to any future success, however, will undoubtedly be the coaching staff's ability to recruit strong big men to compliment our young guards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jzstldc Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 I agree that we should not have lost four games so far. I believe that whenever we move into the new on-campus arena in 2 years and have a true home court advantage, we would not have lost to teams such as Oral Roberts and Hawaii. I am remaining optimistic about the team this year and all true Billikens fans have to do the same. I agree with Roy that we should still finish above .500 this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachstyles Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 I just want to be honest with my opinion... I think the bill will have a very rough season and a very rough month of December. Face it this team will not beat Iowa SIUC or Gonzaga. And with the way this team is playing now they wont beat Oakland or Dayton. This team will probably beat W Milwaukee but I thought we would defiantly beat Austin P and Oral R so I cant mark down any wins for sure for the bills. Im still supporting the team 100% but I think that its a rebuilding year for the bills ... give some of the younger players some pt in the games we are not going to win such as Iowa or the Zags. Wheres Luke Meyer we know he can score, give the kid a chance vrs elite talent in a tough enviornment, he couldnt do any worse on the offensive end that AD, put him in Brad!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 jzstldc said, "whenever we move into the new on-campus arena in 2 years" unless you know something the rest of us dont, or unless the billikens have tremendously scaled back the "new arena", this isnt happening in two years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 5, 2004 Share Posted December 5, 2004 coachstyles said, "Wheres Luke Meyer we know he can score, give the kid a chance vrs elite talent in a tough enviornment, he couldnt do any worse on the offensive end that AD" anyone else find themselves begging luke meyer to try to score when he is in? i know yesterday he had a couple of strong moves that i thought was going to result in a shot and then he just stopped and looked for someone else to give it to. shoot it luke. heck cant do any worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jzstldc Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 Hey I am just trying to stay optimistic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 As far as I know, no arena has ever won a basketball game, made a shot, or made the right coaching decisions. In fact, despite the supernatural animism attributed to arenas on this board; arenas are simply expensive buildings in which the games are played. Arenas do not win basketball games; players and coaches do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 ...then why do almost all teams win more games in their own place than they do in other buildings? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quality Is Job 1 Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 It's not that the Bilikens have to play in a new arena to win; rather, if they have an attractive on-campus facility in which they can control their dates and draw more students to the games to create a college-basketball atmosphere and appeals more to recruits than West Pine Gym/Bauman-Eberhardt Center, then the team will probably win more -- home and away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 imo, one of the biggest reasons i see a new arena as a benefit is to raise money. assuming they only fiance a relatively small portion, and the rest is paid in donations, saint louis university could turn the arena into a money maker that enables the billikens to expand recruiting, develop a better marketing program and compete on a higher level for all sports. no longer would the billikens be paying bill laurie to play in the savvis, instead they would effectively be paying themselves and keeping all profits from not only ticket sales but making coin off of concessions as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SluSignGuy Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 I am getting really nervous about our Season Ticket sales. How many season ticket holders are their still? I have heard rumblings of low ticket sales. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 i would guess about 7500 considering that was the approximate announced attendance the last game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonwich Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 The Savvis Center recently reported that it ranked 7th in the world in ticket sales. Even given this, Laurie recently said: 'Blues owner Bill Laurie loses $40 million a year running the team and Savvis Center, Sauer told the Association for Corporate Growth, and "no owner is going to lose money indefinitely to entertain you folks." 'He said the Blues could get "close to break-even" if they could pare salary costs by $25 million to $30 million and cut $4 million from their state and local tax bills. The team has complained that it pays the highest ticket tax in the league.' Do the math. Even if Laurie sleazes give-backs from the team (assuming we ever see hockey again) and local taxing authorities, and even given the Savvis Center ranking 7th in the WORLD in ticket sales, THE SAVVIS CENTER LOSES MONEY. Ain't no way in God's green earth that the new SLU Arena will EVER be a money-generator for the University. As for the "control its own schedule" argument, in 2001, when there was talk of an NBA team coming in, Woolard said: "Woolard wants to make sure that the school continues" (italics mine) "to have access to good dates, for the convenience of its fans and the ease in lining up games against high-profile, non-league opponents." In other words, our athletic director admitted that, under the current set-up, we already have access to good dates. Do we have access to ALL dates? Nope. Is it worth $75M to have access to all dates? I think most rational people wouldn't try to argue in the affirmative. The new arena, in a nutshell, comes down to ego and perceived prestige, and -- at least at this point -- not much more, other than the actual advantage of being able to practice in the same facility where you play. Better dates, ability to generate revenue -- those are myths. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 The orginal post was that an "on-campus" arena (as opposed to Savvis) would have beaten Hawai'i. Savvis is our "own place". There is a significant, consistent advantage to playing at home of 3-5 points (I have some thoughts based on older research on why that is true, but suffice it to say it has NOTHING to do with the building itself). There is no additional statistically proven effect of "owning your own building". While it is not exactly the same thing as "rent vs. buy", I recently saw a study by a Duke prof that showed that the "home court advantage" was smaller for "big schools in small towns" (which generally have their own arenas though) than schools in bigger places. What he did was look at the home court advantage compared to a ratio of student body to area population. Smaller schools in big cities have a curiously better home court advantage. Apparently, as Duke fan he wanted to show that Cameron had amazing statistical properties, but he found the nearly the opposite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 The board of trustees are meeting later this week, so I am hoping for a report/timeline to follow in the next week or so. I agree within next two years unlikely, but still should be some kind of schedule in place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 do the math on the difference in financing 75 million vs 25 million and compare the difference in the "monthly payment". dave sinclair has been telling us for years about "owning his own lot". there is the difference. now of course laurie has the ability to own the savvis outright as well, however he prefers to play accounting games and finance the thing so he can garner all the tax benefits of being in debt and erasing the on paper income. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwyjibo Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 One of the things already shown is that SLU currently possesses an above average home court advantage. There is little to no evidence that an "on-campus" arena would improve that. There are reasons to build an "on-campus" arena--several people on this board have shown very clearly that it would make them happy and no doubt many have contributed--they just have nothing to do with any additional competitive advantage. There are potential positives for recruiting (although those effects are probably small), but I find it interesting that I was one of the few people who complained about the lack of a regular ESPN/ESPN2 game this season. The recruiting benefits of playing on ESPN/ESPN2 have been mentioned numerous times by players and recruits (although I have no idea how much of a role it plays generally). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kshoe Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 The 7th in world ticket sales # shocked me so I decided to look it up and found this. http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/sto...01/daily33.html Basically that is talking about music (concerts) sales only. It says nothing about the NBA, NHL, Circus, wrestling, college basketball, arena football, indoor soccer, etc. Either you are purposely trying to mislead us with that headline or you didn't know any better. Either way it is hard for me to believe the rest of your argument when such the basic premise that the Savvis is always busy is so misleading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MU88 Posted December 6, 2004 Share Posted December 6, 2004 No offense, but UWM is a much better team than Dayton or Hawaii or Oakland. They are the class of the Horizon League, beat Air Force, and just beat UIC on the road. SLU will have to play its finest game of the year, by far, to beat UWM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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