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Tommie Liddell update....


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I talked to Tommie Liddell on the phone around 6:30 p.m. tonight (Thursday).

Liddell said: “I haven’t made my mind up.â€

I asked him who he has scholarship offers from, and he told me "Marquette, DePaul, Bradley and Illinois."

I also talked with someone close to the SLU program, and he told me the Billikens have not received a commitment from Liddell.

- Nate

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That is what McKinney said before his conference too if I remember. Hopefully it is just to bring more attention to the conference.

I expect someone to post what Liddell says at 1:31pm tomorrow, while I am sitting in my University Writing course (which I will run to a computer afterwords)

Steve

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I would hope this is a smoke screen. No one calls for a press conference when they haven't made up their mind...or at least I don't remember anyone ever doing that. I also noticed that SLU wasn't mentioned in the schools that offered? At least not on the quote that Nate wrote. Any chance he just mentioned every school that offered except for the one he's committing to tomorrow? Come on Tommie, we'd treat you like royalty if you chose to wear the "Billiken blue"!!!

"Praises we sing, to you our alma mater,

Praise to the white and blue.

Our hymn shall ring, in tribute strong to you,

We hail Saint Louis U."

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I caught the beginning of Bernie's Sports Open Line tonight. Bernie said Maurice Scott--whom he described as a close advisor to Liddell--would be on the program to discuss the pending announcement of Tommie Liddell. Bernie said he didn't want to steal Maruice or Tommie's thunder, but that he expects local college basketball fans to be real happy tomorrow afternoon. They also had someone on the air who they described as a local basketball expert (I think he was associated with UMSL); this guy described Tommie is the best high school basketball player in the area.

Did anyone catch Maruice Scott's portion of the show?

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I'll be shocked if we don't get the verbal tomorrow. The sources that have reported it have had pretty much a 100% accuracy to date. Since I live in Palm Harbor, I don't know Nate Lasch from squat, so I don't know what his motivation would be in calling a kid before he makes his big announcement. It seems to me that Master Liddell wants this to be his day and does not want anyone scooping his decision.

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Nate,

Do you know if the Post will have an article or at least a "blurb" in tomorrow's paper about Liddell having a press conferece scheduled for tomorrow? I was just curious.

"Praises we sing, to you our alma mater,

Praise to the white and blue.

Our hymn shall ring, in tribute strong to you,

We hail Saint Louis U."

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...that Nate Latsch works for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Even so, as I posted before, let's let Tommie have his moment in the sunshine. I see nothing wrong with his being the first person to make his decision officially public -- after all, it is HIS decision. The same thing happens in politics. Someone may say that someone will announce his (or her) candidacy for an office, but the subject of the rumor will be coy until the time of the official announcement.

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Yeah, I know what you mean Nate. Granted, I'm in small market media anyway and I just graduated from college, so of course I don't make much, but the general belief in the media is do it because you love it, not because you want to be rich some day...that more than likely will never happen!

"Praises we sing, to you our alma mater,

Praise to the white and blue.

Our hymn shall ring, in tribute strong to you,

We hail Saint Louis U."

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Schasz,

Nate has been real good to the SLU fans on this board. He provides great insights regarding the top local talent and is often willing to share with us information that does not get published in the paper. Nate is typically a reliable source and an asset to Billikens' fans.

That being said, I get the sense that Tommie, Maurice, and others in the inner circle want to break the official news themselves (and not give a guy like Nate the pleasure of breaking the story). Assuming my hunch is correct, this will be good for the program because there should be a significant amount of local news coverage for Tommie's announcement. It is also my understanding that Illinois and Marquette have recruited over Tommie, so Tommie's statement to Nate appears to conform with my hunch.

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I couldn't believe it when one of my former colleagues told me how much he would have made as a radio station sports director. The guy was already working at a low-paying gig as a newspaper writer, and the money he would have made working at a radio station was laughable.

You definitely have to love what you do to stay with it in this business.

- Nate

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Thanks for the information...we have enough weirdos who pay visits to this website trying to put our program down. I happen to be one of the fans who feel that we may be just on the cusp of doing some very good things in the near future, and I did not want anyone appearing to rain our parade before it even gets started.

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I wouldn't put the program down. One of the good things about not growing up here is I have no allegiances to any schools in the area -- high schools or colleges.

If Tommie Liddell commits to St. Louis U. tomorrow, there is a chance this could be one of the best recruiting classes for the Billikens in many years. Dwayne Polk has a chance to be a Marque Perry-type player and Tommie Liddell could be another Dwyane Wade. A very astute basketball mind told me today that Liddell is not as explosive as Wade, but has much better skills at the same stage. Luke Meyer is a wild card: He could be a very good college basketball player or he could be a sold back-up/role player for four years.

The Bills will also have a fourth scholarship to give and would be able to go after a player like Matt Shaw, the power forward from Centralia.

- Nate

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Nate,

We need to make you a Billiken fan (PSU is too far away) even if of the closet varitey. While I like Bernie and I may be one of the few on here that does, he rarely gives SLU any positive press. Stu does a decent job as our beat guy, but the P-D has not had a real good college basketball writer since Dave Dorr was reasigned some years ago and I left St. Louis in '96...it was before I left town.

I think that we do have a nice class in place and we owe this to the hard work of Coach Soderberg and his staff. We asked them to sign some of the good kids in this class and they have delivered the goods with one scholie to spare.

The old saying on this website is: it is hard to be a Billiken fan. Well, with this recruiting class added to the kids that we have and the awesome arena on its way...it's getting a whole lot easier to be a fan of this program. Jump on the band wagon, Nate, this program has plenty of room for a fan from the P-D.

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I'm a fan of basketball -- not really of any particular schools. You can't really be a fan of the teams you cover. I learned that when I was in college and covered the Philadelphia Eagles in training camp. You find out pretty quickly that the athletes are nothing special.

I am no longer a Penn State basketball fan because the administration had a chance to bring in an up-and-coming young coach (like former Michigan assistant Brian Gregory) in the offseason and instead went with a former Penn State assistant.

If I can, I'll definitely try to get to SLU games in 2004-05 to see how all of these local kids are doing at the next level.

- Nate

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