Kahok Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 For those willing to say we are playing like this because we are a young team, take a look at many of the top teams in the country and see how many of them are as young if not younger then we are. Even Duke starts two freshman, Texas has two sophmores that are their key players. Memphis has 1 Senior and everyone else that plays is a freshman or sophmore. Look at North Carolina they are real young. It all starts with recruiting and coaching. We thought that VN was going to come in a be the player we were looking for NOT. We thought that DP would be able and lead us to greatness NOT. We thought that KL and TL would come in as freshmen and lead us to greatness NOT. They are playing about where they were ranked coming out of high school, despite Roy thinking they should have been ranked much lower, they are playing about where their ranking suggested they would. I don't believe that DM coming in next year will give us any greater threat on the court then we have now. Unless coach can pull some rabbits out of the hat, we are in for another long year this year and next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiphan Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 >For those willing to say we are playing like this because we >are a young team, take a look at many of the top teams in >the country and see how many of them are as young if not >younger then we are. Even Duke starts two freshman, Texas >has two sophmores that are their key players. Memphis has 1 >Senior and everyone else that plays is a freshman or >sophmore. Look at North Carolina they are real young. It >all starts with recruiting and coaching. If you think we get the same recruits as DUKE, TEXAS, NORTH CAROLINA or even Memphis for that matter than you're crazy. Our youngsters make mistakes. Theirs will be playing in the NBA in a year or two. Big difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kahok Posted January 19, 2006 Author Share Posted January 19, 2006 That's good then, your expectations are not as high as mine. We should all be satified with .500 years. Like I said it is recruiting and coaching. We should be happy with getting top 100 recruits, but we shouldn't expect when they get here to suddenly be top 25 recruits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLUDrew Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I said much the same thing in an earlier post. Like you said, teams being young is just a reality of college basketball these days. Freshmen are expected to contribute on just about every team in the county. TO be fair, many of those teams also have real strong leadership from upperclassmen. We have AD and he does a nice job at being the emotional leader on this team, but we need to have someone else step-up to be the man on this team. Until last night I would have said TL is becoming that guy, but I don't know right now. My opinions are: 1)JJ needs to play more. He is maybe the best athlete on the team. He can board and has shown nice touch from 12-15 feet. 2) Luke Meyer can fill in for a few minutes, but he got way too many minutes last night. 3) With DP, TL, KL, DB, and AD we have some nice athletes at the guard spot. Why don't we do more full court pressure? And when we do press we should try some trapping not just man fullcourt. 4) TL needs to have his ego stroked a little bit. Somebody needs to get in his hear and tell him he is the man. It needs that a lot of the feddback he has been receiving lately has been negative. He seems like the type of kid who better responds to postive feedback as aooposed to a kick in the pants. 5) Set picks to get Kevin, Danny and Drejaj open looks from three. Yes Kevin has a tendency to miss one early and not shoot again for a while, but I think he is the best shooter on the team, and just needs to get his confidence up a little Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 i dont think i ever said that lisch and liddell were top 25 recruits. i questioned them being ranked like 300 and i still do. i think they are both top 100 freshmen in the country. but i dont remember saying they were top 25 players. also, think about what the likes of texas and duke freshmen come in and merge with. i dont think we have sheldon williams at power forward or jj redick at the wing. we dont have buckman at power forward. yes those programs have handed some big time minutes to freshmen, but they also have all americans returning to lessen the focus. that all said, i dont consider our major problems lisch and liddell, and in reality what success we have had has pretty much been because of them and ian. it is the surrounding cast that needs to come up to their level imo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLUDrew Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I think the "we just aren't as good" mindest can really hold this team back. I, for one, think these kids ARE real good and should be playing better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3star_recruit Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Until Brad recruits marksmen across the board, not just 1 or 2, his offense will stall. The only way for a jumpshot oriented offense to work is for guys to take and make a ton of jumpshots, a la West Virginia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billiphan Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 >i dont think i ever said that lisch and liddell were top 25 >recruits. i questioned them being ranked like 300 and i >still do. i think they are both top 100 freshmen in the >country. but i dont remember saying they were top 25 >players. > >also, think about what the likes of texas and duke freshmen >come in and merge with. i dont think we have sheldon >williams at power forward or jj redick at the wing. > >we dont have buckman at power forward. yes those programs >have handed some big time minutes to freshmen, but they also >have all americans returning to lessen the focus. > >that all said, i dont consider our major problems lisch and >liddell, and in reality what success we have had has pretty >much been because of them and ian. it is the surrounding >cast that needs to come up to their level imo. Wait a second. Just earlier this week you were saying the Bills needed more "role" players. So which is it? Do we need guys like REddick and Sheldon Williams that IV, KL, and TL can "merge" with or do we need more of your role players? I said last night and I'll say it again, this team won 9 games last year, will be lucky to go .500 this year and you want more role players. Great analysis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kahok Posted January 19, 2006 Author Share Posted January 19, 2006 I didn't mean to imply that TL and KL were not good players, just that they were about in the top 125 where they were ranked in HS. And Roy you did say that they should have been rated much higher then they were. The fact that we are young does not mean that we should lower our expectations, hell a lot of teams are as young as we are. I still however believe that a head coach should look at where his coaching strengths lie and then recruit to his strengths and I don't believe that Brad has done that. For what is worth I agree with your assessment 3 Star. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I for one predicted slightly under a .500 team this year. But what grates me is last night should have been a win. We played like crap, got outcoached, fouled everyone but the people working concessions, and gave the ball away like it was a promotional item. Yet we were still there with about 2:00 to go. The cure is to shorten the rotation, get VN and DP out of there. Neither contributes much. DP's got time to work his way back in if his shot improves, but what do we expect from VN? Nada this year and then he graduates. Go with a starting 5 of IV, TL, JJ, AD, KL. DB, LM, and BH off the bench get the rest. The 10 man deal we got right now is not the answer. I shudder every time VN or DP comes in because you know nothing's going to happen. At least DB generates a prospect of a score, LM's shot hopefully will improve and he does play D, and BH can get some boards and clog the inside. Yes, JJ is not the PF we hoped for, but he's the best we got. Accept it, play him 25-30mpg. KL and TL will only get better. TL got a little wake up call last night, let's see how he responds against X. What's killing us is the 10 man rotation. It means at least 6-7 guys aren't in there long enough to get comfortable. For example how must JJ or DB feel knowing first boo-boo they're most likely getting yanked? Being pulled is not motivating or inspiring. If UB would just tell them this is it, I'm going with you guys the rest of the way the comfort/ confidence level has to go up. I think they, thanks to UB's schizophrenic approach, are a very confused bunch right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slumn1 Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 "I think they, thanks to UB's schizophrenic approach, are a very confused bunch right now." If I remember right didn't we go through this last year? We had threats to bench the seniors, we had players pulled the first time they made a mistake while other were given a long leash. These kids have to be confused. I think the TO's are up because the players are looking at the bench instead of the ball to see if they are getting pulled out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 there is a big difference between the likes of jj redick and a good starting level player that doesnt necessarily fit into our needs. of course i would take a reddick or sheldon williams with glee. as far as i know we arent close to signing any top 20 players. now if you meant to say that we should sign top 20 level players without regard to position, i will agree with that whole heartedly and i admit i totally misunderstood your goals. but like i said, i dont think that is close to being in the works right now, and i am not sure what makes anyone think signing top 20 players at saint louis university is something that can easily be accomplished right now without a previous in or a long term recruitment effort (see some of the area freshmen and sophomores that might come close to fulfilling that kind of potential). my comments were directed at signing players without regard to position just because they might be as good or slightly better than the guards we already have. i contend if we are going to use scholarships, it should be for specific roles on the team that are currently going unfullfilled not for more guards/wings. i.e. we need a power forward that can start and some quality depth at power forward and center. not additional guards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 neither lisch nor liddell were ranked top 100 that i am aware of. i believe most rankings had them in the 200-300 range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 slu72 said, "What's killing us is the 10 man rotation. It means at least 6-7 guys aren't in there long enough to get comfortable." we only played 9 guys last night. and johnson and newborne both got less than 10 minutes and polk, meyer and liddell all got less than 20 minutes. vouyoukas, lisch and drejaj all had over 34 minutes and brown had 28 minutes. it looks to me coach is searching for the worthy 5th, 6th and 7th players. someone just needs to seize the opportunity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Yes, we had the same discourse last year. It's called Billiken Flu, hits us every January early February. Typically, by the middle of February it leaves as by then you just can't feel any lower and you get used to it. Really, who cares at this point where KL and TL ranked. They have been good additions and will hopefully turn out to be solid citizens and memorable Billikens. I'm thinking we ought to offer the Kennesaw State coach the Head coaching position if we see a continuance of last night. Awww, the hell with it. Hire Hugs and we get OJ Mayo. Just think of the fun Signguy would have with that moniker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Stand corrected B'roy. No matter I still prefer BH to VN and drop DP for awhile. Give those 8 the bulk of the minutes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scoop Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Good post SLU72. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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