Alex Tyus

[billfan4life]

The new rivals rankings for the class of 2007 are out and Alex Tyus is ranked 41st. I hope we get this guy because he is a program changer.

[Pistol]

We have to go after him hard. He's shown interest in us, and he needs an offer on the table ASAP, no question about it. Let's bring him back to the Lou.

[stlsfinest]

>We have to go after him hard. He's shown interest in us,

>and he needs an offer on the table ASAP, no question about

>it. Let's bring him back to the Lou.

He has shown interest in slu IN THE PAST. However, he hasn't mentioned SLU very much recently. When I last heard from Tyus, his list was the following...Texas, Florida, UConn, Ohio St., Miami, Southern California, Memphis, Washington, and Illinois. He released this list within the last month or so. I can no longer see him considering SLU along with those major programs.

[Billsboys]

Tyus will go to a Big Time program. SLU has little to no chance unfortunately.

[FromGreeceWithLove]

I don't understand how you could say that SLU has no shot at this kid. A couple of weekends ago when his AAU team was on FOX Sports the announcers said his short list consisted of KU, Memphis, and SLU. His father was seen at several practices earlier in the season and I think somebody posted that Alex was at the Midnight Madness. There has atleast been some interest shown from his side. Whether or not he comes to SLU, now thats a different matter. But the interest is atleast there and this is the type of kid that we need to make us more than an average college basketball team. If we want SLU to become a big time program then this is the type of talent we need to start recruiting and going after hard. He is going to get a lot of interest from a lot of top programs, but only one program can offer him the chance to play in the city he grew up in. How fun would it be to watch a team of Tyus, Liddell, Lisch, Meyer, Polk, and Maguire. Thats a team that pretty much sells itself to the St. Louis fans.

[Billikenbooster]

A great start to the season by our Bills will go a long way to showing AT that this is a team with promise, on the way up, and one to which he can contribute, and have his family by his side for four years. None of the schools courting him can say all that.

mhg

[moytoy12]

...from everything i read (and that's the extent of my knowledge), Tyus seems to be a damn good player that at some point showed some degree of interest in SLU. Um...assuming there is no offer, what the hell is/was UB doing?

Could someone shed any reliable light on UB's (in)action with regard to Tyus?

If UB has pursued the kid and offered and continued to recruit the kid, then i have no beef with UB's actions.

[slu72]

I'd be really surprised and po'd if UB hasn't offered him....why wouldn't he? It's a what do I have to lose situation...the most he can say is no, sorry, not interested, going big time. Someone in the know please tell me UB has offered Tyus and is all over him, unless the kid has just flat out said don't waste your time, I ain't coming. To the best of my knowledge the NCAA doesn't restrict the number of offers a school can make.

[Pistol]

You couldn't be more right. Why does everyone on this board want to let the blue chips recruits get away? We aren't playing with the same hand as the biggest programs, but we have to go after big-time recruits to show that we're not content with mediocrity. I'm sick of looking at the top 100 in any given class and not seeing 'SLU' on anyone's short list. We have a real shot at this kid. The announcer at the most recent event he played at said "Memphis, KU, and SLU." That wasn't information from some recruiting board that hasn't been updated since last season. SLU fans need to push harder, create more excitement, and show we want top recruits to come here.

[ACE]

>Tyus will go to a Big Time program. SLU has little to no

>chance unfortunately.

Big Time... so in other words Mizzou has no shot. Where's the outrage from VTime?

[Quality Is Job 1]

>You couldn't be more right. Why does everyone on this board

>want to let the blue chips recruits get away? We aren't

>playing with the same hand as the biggest programs, but we

>have to go after big-time recruits to show that we're not

>content with mediocrity. I'm sick of looking at the top 100

>in any given class and not seeing 'SLU' on anyone's short

>list. We have a real shot at this kid. The announcer at

>the most recent event he played at said "Memphis, KU, and

>SLU." That wasn't information from some recruiting board

>that hasn't been updated since last season. SLU fans need

>to push harder, create more excitement, and show we want top

>recruits to come here.

I agree with you except for the last sentence. I think fans have very little to do with recruits' decisions on where they go to school. It's the job of the coaches to sell the program and get the players necessary for the program to rise. My sitting here wishing with all my might and even begging on a message board won't get the recruits to come.

[Orange Julius]

I have grown to like SLU a lot. I like the coaches, I really like the players and I like the people associated with the program. I just have no idea how the Coach chooses whom he wants to offer or not offer, it is the most confusing thing in the world. Of all of the younger kids he has offered I found out because they have all played for me at some point over the past couple of years.

I say that to say they have not offered Tyus, and I talked to someone who saw him in Fort Wayne and he said he hasn't given SLU much thought lately, just focusing on school and playing ball.

That sounds like a polite I am not really interested in SLU statement, hopefully I am wrong. SLU needs to get at least one kid someone else wants. That one big time player a lot of other people want. True they have Liddell but they need to keep building around him and Lisch, but I just don't see it happening.

[VTIME]

>>Tyus will go to a Big Time program. SLU has little to no

>>chance unfortunately.

>

>Big Time... so in other words Mizzou has no shot. Where's

>the outrage from VTime?

I dont believe he'll go to either school. If he wanted to go there, he didn't have to leave Saint Louis and go to prep school for that. What's the point of playing for most high profile AAU team in the nation if you want to go to a mid-major in SLU or a local Big 12 school in Missouri. Nate, has said repeated that the athletic Powell wouldn't fit SLU's system, so how does the athletic Tyus fit?

[slu72]

OJ, you seem to know a lot about the local recruiting scene since you're connected to the AAU. If you are lost as to what UB thinks when it comes to local recruiting, think how baffled all of us are. If he hasn't offered Tyus, and he should have a year ago, I find that inexcuseable. What the hell risk is there to making an offer to a kid and then staying in touch with him by phone? As said previously, unless Tyus has said forget it no way no how am I going to SLU, we are still a possibility to land him. Slim maybe, but slim is better than doing nothing.

[Pistol]

I know what you mean- fans can't excactly recruit. But our fans and students have done little or nothing to create an energetic college basketball atmosphere that can help bring in recruits. The "gut feeling" factor can be helped by creating this kind of environment. It seems to have played a big role in IU landing Stemler. Do big recruits want to go to schools where it seems like the students and fans don't care?

[Major Majerus]

Hey, Brad thought he was landing Stemler and didn't need Tyus...:+

[kshoe]

Somebody relatively connected told me a while ago that SLU will only have as many offers outstanding as it has scholarships available. Apparently this is Brad's policy. I thought at the time and still think today that if this is indeed true it is a bad policy. Can anybody verify that this is indeed the case and maybe give me reasons why Brad does it this way. I can think of many reasons why this is a bad policy but want to hear what the positives are.

[ACE]

>>>Tyus will go to a Big Time program. SLU has little to no

>>>chance unfortunately.

>>

>>Big Time... so in other words Mizzou has no shot. Where's

>>the outrage from VTime?

>

>

>I dont believe he'll go to either school. If he wanted to

>go there, he didn't have to leave Saint Louis and go to prep

>school for that. What's the point of playing for most high

>profile AAU team in the nation if you want to go to a

>mid-major in SLU or a local Big 12 school in Missouri.

>Nate, has said repeated that the athletic Powell wouldn't

>fit SLU's system, so how does the athletic Tyus fit?

Exactly. The beat goes on for Mizzou. They miss out on more local talent - David Lee, Hansborough, Tatum, Miller, Lisch, Liddell.

[slu72]

It appears bad, but maybe not. Am sure they have a board with plan A's and plan B's Plan C's. Say he offers 8 scholies for 4 openings. Plan B PF comes back and says yes, while Plan A PF sits on the fence. What do you do? Say to Plan B PF, uh we're still waiting for Plan A (ala Grimes and Shaw), so what does Plan B PF do? Does he say stick it, I'm going to Wichita State and we lose him. Then Plan A goes to Big State Univ as well and we're left looking at +300 talent to fill a slot? SLU's not Duke, we don't a long line waiting to get into West Pine. So maybe UB's thinking is, we offer to who we really want so the kid feels comfortable knowing he's not going to have to wait on a fence sitter waiting for a better offer. I can see the sense in that. That said, I still don't see any reason not to offer Tyus....go hard after the 4 players you really want, make only one offer for those positions/roles...let the kids know that's it. But still take the flyer on Tyus....if he says no, you really haven't lost anything.

[Nate Latsch]

If I remember correctly, I believe a couple months ago there was some talk about Soderberg not being sure whether to offer Alex Tyus a scholarship or not based on how likely Tyus really was to sign with SLU.

Basically, why should SLU offer the kid if he's not seriously going to consider SLU?

That makes sense if, as someone pointed out, Soderberg only extends as many scholarship offers to potential recruits as he has available. Instead of offering a couple kids scholarships when you know you're not going to get all of them, you offer three or four kids and then wait and see what happens.

I still don't really know why Tyus left the St. Louis area. Had he stayed at Hazelwood Central for his senior year, he would have played on a good team — with other Division I recruits Mo Smith and Marvin McNutt — and would be about to graduate and move on to a good D-1 basketball program. He still would have had several good options to choose from, though not as many as he'd have if we reclassified and graduated one year later.

Tyus definitely had some interest in SLU — he went to midnight madness and I saw him at the Gonzaga game — but everything I've read on the recruiting sites seems to point toward him playing the recruiting game with big-time schools in a long, drawn-out process.

- Nate

[Nate Latsch]

>Nate, has said repeated that the athletic Powell wouldn't

>fit SLU's system, so how does the athletic Tyus fit?

I've said Powell needs to get stronger to have a chance to play the power forward spot at a school like SLU.

I'm not sold on Tyus's game at the college level either — is he small forward with a suspect perimeter jumper or a springy under-sized power forward? — but Tyus is like a bigger, stronger, more dynamic version of Powell.

- Nate

[cheeseman]

Sorry, I see no downside to offering to a couple of kids more than you have schollies with the cavet that who ever commits first gets it. Brad seriously can not be thinking that only the players he has offered to will work for SLU. He should have at least a couple of players that are of equal to those he has as his top choice. The problem with not offering more than you have is that you seldom get everybody so you always have open schollies. One is fine but not 3-4.

[Star Wisher]

I see no problem with offering multiple players assuming the players are relatively equal in what they will bring to the program. But what if the first two or three are prospects that are head and shoulders better and Coach feels there is a real good chance that they will eventually come?

This is the dilemna that has plagued the Billikens for years and we have continuously gotten burned which ever way we have approached it. Offer only the top guy and get burned when we get strung out till the end, or offer first come first serve and later hear from the better player he would have came had the Billikens waited.

[bg]

Could be a practice he learned while in the Big 10(11). Don't know if it's still the case, but even though the NCAA allows it, they used to have a conference policy that prevented teams from offering more scholarships than were actually available.

[VTIME]

>>Nate, has said repeated that the athletic Powell wouldn't

>>fit SLU's system, so how does the athletic Tyus fit?

>

>I've said Powell needs to get stronger to have a chance to

>play the power forward spot at a school like SLU.

>

>I'm not sold on Tyus's game at the college level either — is

>he small forward with a suspect perimeter jumper or a

>springy under-sized power forward? — but Tyus is like a

>bigger, stronger, more dynamic version of Powell.

>

>- Nate

There are a lot of springy so-called undersized power forwards in college basketball. It's become/becoming the norm rather than the exception. If you dump the ball off to the pf inside, we need to know that he'll spring off the floor and dunk it. Tyus and Powell will do that. Speed kills. We've seen that against us and all over college basketball. Tyus and Powell are bigs who can absolutely fly up and down the court. The standout pf's in college are not 6'10 250 pound guys. A ton of the centers arent even that big. The majority of the top impact pf's are rangy guys between 6'7 and 6'9 and between 200 and 225 pounds. Athleticism is something that SLU is sorely lacking, particularly in the frontcourt.