Day Two from Cincy ....

[Taj79]

.... ugh! That's about it. If I had posted this eight hours ago, I might be ranting and raving like some of you are. I see my two favorites are ranting and raving over their favorite boring things again. All I've got to say is thank gawd they'll be no day three. I'd rather play golf in the rain and cold than sit through that crap basketball anymore.

And it was crap. How come all the other tournaments and March Madness games have guys making shots and doing spectacular things and this league makes taking a free throw an odyssey??? Temple looks good right now, they are playing real well. St. Joes' looks good also, but playing us and Dayton is about as easy as it gets. What Xavier is doing is why I despise league tourneys that play in home towns. Of course, it doesn't work for St. Louis but it does for everyone else it seems. Oh well ....

Bottom line for me is that we did not have the talent to compete. Someone called about us not pressing. We don't have enough guys to run the floor full out like an Arkansas' "40 Mintues of Hell." With five mintues to go in the game, AD had one point, KL had two and TL had three. Even if Ian is throwing down a career day and scoring 40, add in the rest and its 46 total points. At the 35 minute mark, if your team has 46 points, you're still probably losing. And might I remind all that we scored 37 the whole day ..... we didn't put up a point a minute and it was that bad.

Those who said it is right that Brad plays to a jump shooting team that can't shoot, what can you do. Right now, JJ Redick is hitting the wall as the only scorer Duke has. Don't you think for a minute the same thing was figured out by our opponents? Beat up Lisch and you stop the Bills. Drejaj was 0-for-6 today. Nuthin. TL might be a great point guard someday ... but without options to dump it off to, he's screwed. How can Luke Meyer score over what, 30 ppg a game in high school and be a non-factor in college? And we are not four guards .... Villanova is four guards. We are not. And they can all shoot. We cannot. At best, we might be two guards and two backup guards.

We are a program short on talent. Plain and simple. I am fearful that its chances of improving next year are not good. We have a high school center we are converting to a wing next year. That's it folks. It would not surprise me if Stemler goes elsewhere ,,,, and some are saying Stemler isn't the answer.

If this were a fantasy keeper league, I'd keep Tommie, Kevin, Ian and Danny and Danny only because he shows some promise. The rest could all be thrown back into the pond right now. Maybe Luke as my eighth or ninth man.

The A10 was a league short on talent overall. It has to be ... how else do you explain ALL four seeds going down today. Mediocrity ladies and gentlemen, pure and simple. If there was ever a year for some also-ran, non-bubble team to come out of the pack and steal a bid, it is now and you will see it come Saturday.

We will not sneak up on folks next year. Xavier gets Drew Lavender eligible to go with Cage, Doellman and Duncan. In two years, Charlotte has the #1 or #2 ranked high school player in the country coming in out of Oak Hill. Philly kids will stock the rosters at SJU, La Salle and Temple. Philly kids are tough and good. Much better than St. Louis kids. Whittenberg is making inroads in NYC; Fordham could rise from the ashes. We cannot sit still. We need toup the talent quotient and now.

Hey ... at least I ain't Steve ... he lost twice in one session today... GeeDub and us. There's always a brighter side of the storm.

[Quest]

GREAT POST! wow...now let's not rip him up like you do to the young guns out there...we must recruit the Inner Cities of New York and Phila.

[courtside]

Well....

Philly is almost TWICE the size of St. Louis in population for metro area. And Philly city population is 3 times larger. Philly has long history of hoops, pro, college, high school....and stands out as most popular in that area of all sports. So many to choose from.

Philly is also less than two hour drive from NYC....and D.C./Baltimore area....two other hotbeds for high school hoops. Two other massive population areas.

SLU needs to recruit the region first. Get a few more of the high end local and regional players. They could come from different parts of Missouri, Il, Ark, Tn, etc...then SLU can venture out to other regions.

Why would a kid from NYC or Philly want to go to SLU??? If they are a great player, they could play in Big East or ACC out there. They could also choose to go to an A-10 school in Philly....SJ and LaSalle beat SLU this year...why not go there?

SLU has to win with local and regional players first. Develop and build something. Then expand recruiting base. By playing in the A-10...SLU can eventually recruit in those Northeast areas where kids are more exposed to SLU because of the conference.

[billfan4life]

Brad Soderberg can recruit but it seems like he doesn't recruit on a consistent bases. A good 2005 class with a chance to be great and we follow up with a piss poor 2006 class. I can't believe we are waiting for the spring to sign a big man. I think I read a post that said that he only wants players who are going to "fit" into his system. Well I guess that means that we are not going to win any prize recruits any time soon. A lot of top talent in the area is still available but I guess we won't pick them up because they don't fit into our system. I am outraged that Brad has not given Leon Powell a scholarship. It would be nice to find a mid major couch like Creighton’s coach who is a proven winner and a good recruiter. Earn your dam* paycheck Brad

[StLouBlue]

Actually it is not all that unusual to sign big man recruits during the late signing period. Post players often take longer to develop and will sometimes show strides in their senior season to where they deserve an offer.

As far as recruiting players that fit his system, I think this is also a good thing. In the past Brad has signed JJ and Husak because both ended up being avaliable and both certainly looked talented. I am not sure that either one really fits the system Brad wants, JJ is a certain no and Husak is still developing.

I still think that Brad is a quality coach, but he has to develop as a coach just like his players. I know Beane's name was mentioned for the head coaching position at SEMO and I hope for his sake he gets it. I also think it would be a good thing to bring in a new assistant, not saying that our current assistants are doing a bad job, but sometimes a fresh look from a new person might help.

[billikenmetz]

Husak will be 40 and still developing. I love Bryce and think he's a tremendous student, but the athlete part is far behind. I'm sure as a 7'2 kid he beat the corn out of those Iowa boys in High school, but at the collegiate level, a 6'8 guy who can jump over a silo will dominate a 7'2 player like Husak. The game is too fast for him.

[Taj79]

... SLU must recruit the inner cities of Philly and New York ... I merely pointed out that the Philly schools will get Philly kids and the New York school is making inroads to getting some NYC kids. And that traditionally-speaking, these kids are better players than St. Louis kids. Courtside pointed out that Philly has three times the area of St. Louis. While that may be true, there are also five or six schools that play Division 1 ball in Philly .... Nova, Penn, Temple, La Salle, St. Joe's and Drexel. A lot of Philly kids end up at places like Towson, Coppin State and others that play a few games in Philly or nearby. The best player in Philly is committed to North Carolina right now.

What my post was meant to say was that we are talent-light. On our entire roster I said I'd keep four players. If that's a rip, that's a rip. What can I say ... the truth hurts? What if some Greek team waves a whole bunch of cash in front Ian in the next few weeks? Tommie? Might I remind us all of a little Nevade-Las Vegas action not too long after he went to Hargrave. Can you say Ricky Frazier? Now, I know nothing and it may be considered rumor and I don't mean to incite TDell but do-do happens. We are not immune to things like this are we????

I said early on that I appreciate all the things AD brought to the floor. But I've always said talent-light. Guts and desire only go so far.

This team overachieved but at this time of the year, there will be times that talent has to rise to the top and get you through some hard spots and tough times. We ended on a three-game losing streak and two of those losses ... at home on senior night to Dayton and then yesterday ..... were downright embarrassing. If that does not demonstrate my point, then you're living in a complete alternate universe and you are part of the choir I won't preach to.

I have advocated giving Brad one more year until it reaches critical mass. I still believe that even after yesterday. I don't have the answer and I still believe the jury is out. But if all the pieces come back from this year, then he'd better have some kids to add to the lineup and get a few early verbals from the St. Louis area for the following year or my stance changes.

Not that it means much. But I never said recruit Philly, NYC, LA or anywhere else. I still think we can protect the home fornt, keep kids for four years, and improve that way. After the time in this program, I know that there are no quick fixes or answers out there.

[Sheltiedave]

Our lack of an active mobile big body killed us at times this season. Ian is great as our center, but we are still playing as we were back when we had Bonner. When we go up against a team that has two or three decent big bodies, we lose because we can't contain.

There are three/four teams in the conference that only need to adequately execute their gameplan, and it takes a great effort for us to beat them. Saint Joe's is the team that matches up better than us at every position except Ian, and they are a top 50 team, so it comes as no surprise that they outmuscled our guards, and beat us soundly.

I said it before this season, and I'll say it again now. We will go as far next year as our power forward position improves. The onus is on JJ to staple 20 pounds of muscle and gristle to his body, so he can physically dominate in the paint. Bonner did it when he fell out injured for Golden State, Ian changed his body mass index greatly over the postseason, and JJ needs to do it if we are to remain in the top tier of the A10 next year.

We need to see Tommie and Kevin achieve similar improvements. The added muscle will help Tommie have better ball control in traffic as he drives, and both will become more physical defenders.

We improved by seven games this year, and it would not be a stretch to expect another 4 -5 game improvement next year. Both Dayton games, the GW game, and Richmond would put us at that level immediately, disregarding the non conference games. The players need to take care of business in the weight room so we are almost always the tougher team, and the staff needs to recruit the physical active PF we need. Get at it, guys!

[3star_recruit]

West Virginia might have the worst talent level of any team in the Big East but they are a top 20 team because the coach has a system and recruits perfect fits for his system. If you want to shoot a lot of 20 footers, recruit a bunch of gunners and someone who excels at putbacks. A complete retooling of the roster is unnecessary and frankly Brad doesn't have another three years to do that anyway.

I think we are literally one shooter away from being a top 40 team next year. If Lisch, Maguire and hopefully Stemler have all been woven into the offense by the start of the conference season, we will be very hard to beat.