tonite's billiken club meeting

[billiken_roy]

bob ramsey was supposed to show, but did not. our speakers for the night were dan donnigan, mandy (luecking) despain, and angres thorpe.

dan was fantastic. the microphone didnt work and he had to talk to the room without one. i hope everyone in the back could hear because he is a classy classy guy. i remarked to anita on the way home, it was the longest and most enthusiastic reception during the q and a that any of our soccer coaches have ever gotten at a billiken club meeting that i have ever attended.

a few of his highlights:

told about the game at maryland and how uneven the refs were. he reminded everyone that slu has throughout the year been the team that has gotten roughed up. they are the team that plays with skills not brawn. yet at one point the fouls in the game were like 12-1.

he went over the roster and pointed out all key players offensively will be back. and that he has very capable replacements on the roster to replace the 3 graduating seniors without signing one single recruit. soccer's signing date is in february, so he could not talk about recruits. that said, he said since he has 20 something players coming back, and is only losing 3 players, he can afford to really be selective on the players they will bring on the roster new.

he said that the soccer team only has 10 scholarships to use for his entire roster. so recruiting becomes very tricky. he splits those scholarships and creatively uses financial aid accordingly to fill out the roster. interesting stuff.

he said all three seniors are graduating, 2 in december and the other in may. all three are honor students as well. (applause by the crowd)

dan was extremely complimentary to the basketball program as well as that led into mandy and the girls program.

mandy talked about how all three seniors are scoring well and the jillikens are winning at home. she said that the vandy game will be sunday dec 21 at 2 pm.

angres of course talked about the arizona game. there was a lot of questions about the officiating. he confirmed that all 3 officials were pac-10 officials. it was asked if it is standard that the visiting teams bring the refs, he said that it was one of the concessions slu had/has to make to get a home game with a team like arizona. he claimed he didnt know, but i got the impression he doesnt believe we are taking the refs with us this saturday either.

as to player discussion, oddly we didnt discuss recruits a bit.

as to our current roster, he was given an opportunity to blame frericks problems on asthma, he said that other than a little bronchitis, tom is probably in the best shape of his life. he said the coaches have recently met with tom to discuss his foul problem.

i asked about justin johnson and mentioned that since he seems to be playing better and better every game are we going to see him more and more in games. angres said that justin needs to practice with the same intensity. he doesnt. we have discussed this here before. no more needs to be said about his comments on the subject. i did follow up his comments with a question where i asked if possibly it might have been a scenario whereby justin wasnt "coached" much in high school and may have developed some bad habits that they havent been able to break yet. he agreed very much. he did compare justin to an athlete on the level with programs like cincy and louisville. so i like that.

he discussed darren some as well. he mentioned that darren also came from a high school program that did little to teach him the team game. he is now first learning the art of passing, moving without the ball and tough defense. however he compared darren's athleticism to that of the arizona guards and hopes that by year end darren can start to give anthony, reggie and josh some breaks.

he was asked about izik, and he said izik has been slow to come around after the ankle sprains, however thinks he now may lack a little confidence. but stressed that izik is a guy that can give us a lot of production.

i dont remember much else. i should really take notes at these things.

last mary alice reminded us that the billiken club is sponsoring an xmas party before the dec 17 game and subsidizing a deal to go to the sms game providing a bus, snacks and a ticket for only $40. imo that is a pretty good deal. especially considering the ride is now with a group of billiken fanatics. billiken club is a great deal. those not members should be.

january meeting has been moved back to january 20 so as not to conflict with the southern miss game.

[SluSignGuy]

SMS Game for $40 eh?

I just wish I still had all my signs.

Steve

[MUFAN2000]

...give you mine back, if you want. Might not be too relevant.

[Schasz]

Thanks for the great report Roy. I'm pleased to know that our soccer program is also in very capable coaching hands. It sounds like we should have a very good team coming back for another run next year.

I like the way this year is setting up for our basketball team especially after Saturday's game. We just need to keep our head above water in a very tough December non-conference schedule. Sounds like you had a good theory on JJ, and it does sound like he will be a nice player in time...he just needs some more time to mature and learn the game...no question that he has the physical tools. I think with consistent development of this young talent that over the course of this year...our Bills wiil be a tough team as we get into conference play.