Jacob Pullen

[billiken_roy]

dont count on clarke being the lesser college player yet. he still has two years eligibility left to prove otherwise.

[billiken_roy]

i would have taken shaw before grimes. anyone that had seen the two play in h.s. or aau would have seen that shaw was the real player and grimes was relying on his physical advantages and flashes of play.

but your point is right on. too many people here have played both sides of the fence. that said i dont think you can play it one way or the other. it depends on the players available and the skill levels of those interested.

for example, what if spoon had told larry hughes now or never? he knew he was interested but he waited. if i remember correctly hughes was the last one to commit in that class as baniak and tatum committed right away.

now if you had two players of very comparable talents and character, as 3 star claims with the two point guards that soderberg has offered this year when it is pretty obvious he only wants one point guard in this class, sure throw out the first one to grab on gets it.

[Billiken Rich]

I'm not crying for leaving Blake unsigned but Clarke starring for UTEP doesn't help us any. Brad is not vindicated if Darren does there what he couldn't do here. Clarke was a bad call. Blake may have been a better one, who knows.

Is anyone here still po'd at the Greek army for drafting Paul Nondas???? Maybe we should let this one die too.......

[billiken_roy]

rich, if folks are going to use ahearn's missouri state performances as a reason he should have been a billiken, then why cant we use clarke's utep stats as proof he too was as good as ahearn when all is said and done?

[Billiken Rich]

BECAUSE HE'S NOT HERE! Neither player is helping us. If you want to argue that Clarke is a good player then you are saying Brad sucks as a coach instead of sucking as a recruiter. Why give the haters that opening?

[billiken_roy]

no i want to say that ahearn is not a better player than clarke. thus taking clarke as a scholarship instead of ahearn was not a mistake by coach soderberg.

[Billiken Rich]

Maybe I'm just having a tough day but I'm not getting that. I understand what you are saying but I can take no comfort from it. Doesn't the fact that neither player is here, producing for the Bills, mean that we screwed up somewhere? Again, Blake may not have been a better answer than Clarke but Clarke's future performance really won't end that arguement.

[3star_recruit]

"Doesn't the fact that neither player is here, producing for the Bills, mean that we screwed up somewhere"

Not all relationships work out, whether it be basketball or life in general. That doesn't necessarily mean somebody "screwed up somewhere".

[billiken_roy]

reggie bryant left villanova. had he not gotten hurt, i believe reggie would have been remembered as one of the best billikens ever. that doesnt mean that because he left villanova he wasnt a good player. he just didnt fit and wasnt comfortable there.

soderberg has said many times he likes playing upperclassmen. hell he started drejaj over lisch at the beginning of the year last year. clarke wasnt patient enough to wait his turn and put in the effort needed to change coach soderberg's mind.

as i have said all along, i believe if ahearn would have been a billiken those two years that clarke was he would have sat on the bench just as much if not more than clarke did. the fact that missouri state put up with his no defense no ball skills to utilize his shooting skills doesnt mean that any other school would have utilized that as well. sure slu needed scorers the last three years, but they also needed players that would defend as well.

[Billiken Law]

>

>soderberg has said many times he likes playing

>upperclassmen. hell he started drejaj over lisch at the

>beginning of the year last year. clarke wasnt patient

>enough to wait his turn and put in the effort needed to

>change coach soderberg's mind.

first off, Drejaj got significant playing time as a freshman - remember his 30 point game against USM in the 2003 CUSA tourney? Seems that if a freshman earns his playing time he's going to get it. Freshmen also got an opportunity during the 04-05 debacle, starting over upperclassmen. Ahern would have gottne that chance if he had earned it as well.

As for Clarke, can you blame the kid for being frustrated? He gets a chance to start, leads the team in scoring in that game, in other games shows the ability to knock down the 3 ball and displaying athleticism, and that lands him back on the bench.

[Hardball]

B,

The Shaw situation is a perfect example of when the Self phliosophy works. B Roy is not right about very many things but when he says Shaw was better than Grimes he's 100% correct. Grimes has been a bust at Mizzou relative to his hype from High School. Grimes was never a difference maker due to his size,shot and inability to play facing the basket. I could also question the staff's talent evaluation between Grimes and Shaw but that is a whole different discussion.

But moving on. If you took the Self philosophy to heart and offered both Grimes and Shaw and told them who ever takes the scholarship first it theirs. SLU would be sitting with no worse than Shaw for the last two years. Shaw WANTED to come to SLU and would have taken the schoollie on the spot if offered. It was only after the now famous delay tactics and the fact Painter hammered us on the waffling did we loose Shaw. BIG MISTAKE. A mistake that, by the way, was repeated with the Stemler recruitment. The main reason we lost Shaw is Brad pulled the old I need to see play more while stalling for the Grimes committment. By offering 1A and 1B at the same time and providing you recruited to the oppropiate level you win many more times than you loose. The Shaw recruitment verifies this.

The sad thing about this whole discussion is all four of these players (Tatum,Ahearn,Shaw,Stemler)were ours to loose and this staff managed to loose every single one.

Ahearn no offer

Tatum no offer

Shaw offered late then lost to SIU

Stemler offered late then lost to Indiana.

You tell me B how much better would SLU have been the last two years and the next two years with these players? There is only one reason these four are not in a Billiken uniform but will the kool-aid drinkers ever admit it. I suspect not.

Go Billikens

[brianstl]

I felt they judged the Shaw and Grimes situation wrong. But, just about everybody did the same. Painter would have done the samething if he thought he had a chance with Kalen. I wouldn't have offered Grimes at all. I never thought he was serious about SLU as a choice.

I think they made a mistake on Shaw and Tatum both. I dont think the samething on Ahearn or Stremler.

I think Stremler became like the last girl left at a bar. He looked alot better to everybody at the time becuase he was the last person still there. I think it worked out for us in the end with Dixon.

I think the staff failed to look deep enough in the Tatum case. It was the staff's job to find out what kind of person Tatum really was. They didn't do the proper job of finding out if it was a one time out of character thing. It is now clear that it was a one time mistake. Something that alot of young kids do, make mistakes. I also wonder sometimes if the incedent is just used as an excuse and people don't want to admit is was a mistake. Tatum should have been offered.

I haved let you know my feelings on Ahearn before.

[billiken_roy]

hardball stemler and shaw is not exactly the same.

with shaw, painter indeed was there all along and had the right to remind shaw of such.

with stemler, sampson was no where to be found when coach soderberg indeed offered lance stemler a scholarship. stemler just got bad bad advice from people around him when he made his final decision.

one more note, i work with a lot of waterloo people and i know his high school point guard. i have been told by a number of people very close to stemler, that they went to bed the night before convinced stemler was going to slu. something happened last minute. was it the right decision for stemler we shall see. i think he will live to dread that last minute decision.

applying the same facts, no one can blame shaw for his decision. and while i would love to see him in billiken blue right now, imo if i was in his shoes i would have done the exact same thing. it obviously is paying off for him at siu.

one thing i bet EVERY division one college coach believes is that they are the coach that can bring out that untapped potential. i.e. the reason that besides coach soderberg, $nyder, self (illinois at the time) and williams (kansas at the time) were also chasing kalen grimes. they all saw that big strong body and were sure they had found the next coming of paul silas if they could just get him in the right frame of mind and get him to work. at least we didnt get stuck with him like mi$$ouri did.

[billiken_roy]

nm

[Hardball]

Roy,

Here is where you have to expect more form our staff. Painter convinced Shaw that SIU was with him along and SLU was a Johnny come lately we lost. However when SLU was in the same position to convince Stemler about the Johnny come lately Indiana SLU lost again. You have to be able to win that arguement. No excuses!

[Billiken Law]

>hardball stemler and shaw is not exactly the same.

>

>with shaw, painter indeed was there all along and had the

>right to remind shaw of such.

>

>with stemler, sampson was no where to be found when coach

>soderberg indeed offered lance stemler a scholarship.

>stemler just got bad bad advice from people around him when

>he made his final decision.

Sampson was nowhere to be found but Crean was and he offered after 1 observation by an assistant and 1 by himself. Read the articles and quotes from Stemler, it was MU or IU, SLU had their chance early and when MU and IU entered the fray later in the game the chance was gone.

Interesting how it's always outside influences that push a kid away from SLU. Just another excuse to add to the list....

[Billiken Rich]

We won the same argument for Lisch against a better program, Illinois.

We are going to win some and lose some. Chances are that the future will hold the same and you'll have more fodder to shreik about. The botton line for me is wins this year especially, and next years recruiting. If Brad isn't getting it done in the next year or so, you'll be joined in your malevolant crusade by many you now consider koolaid drinkers.

[boomerang]

clarification - the Semo offering of Harrelson is not entirely accurate. Semo's previous coaching staff offered Josh last year, his Jr year, the current coaching staff hasn't made much contact with him really.

[brianstl]

Read and replyed.

[billiken_roy]

if we assume that sampson didnt get slimy in anyway at the end, ok, i can give you that.

so that makes the key in the stemler case, the probability that slu did not do the job "recruiting" assistant coach campo who was the guy campaigning against slu. not sure what we could have done to win him over. i guess we could have had our car's washed more at his dad's car wash. maybe the slu coaches should have done the same.

look, i dont know what campo's hardon was about. it is my understanding and i find hard to believe otherwise, that slu didnt ignore him or try to go around him. and like i said above, a lot of locals believed he was going to pick slu. when a coach is getting that kind of feedback 24 hours before decision time, what else can be done?

i think it just happens. and if you ask weber he will tell you that when kevin lisch made his unofficial visit the week before lisch committed to slu he was sure kevin was going to champaign. kruger's crooked assistant that tried to steal liddell will probably tell you the same thing.

thorpe and soderberg was all over the liddell and unlv deal and managed to turn it around. however that wasnt the day before decision time either. so we had time to fix damage.

in lisch's instance, soderberg had the advantage of the slu official visit after kevin took the unofficial visit to illinois and used the right pressure to get the verbal. we are likely lucky that it is kevin lisch we are talking about though who was man enough to stand up to weber after that verbal was announced and weber demanded he withdraw it and take his official visit to champaign.

the point is all scenarios are different. every recruit is different. and it just doesnt always line up. myself, i am very very interested to see how it works out with the future recruits that are now juniors and seniors and coach soderberg has had the time to really build a rapport with.

it seems to me that lisch and liddell are great examples of kids that he chased long term. what examples do we know of that were long term recruiting chases that soderberg lost? it seems like the ones we lost out on were more of the short term variety due to the circumstances of taking over the program on the run with romar running and players and recruits leaving with him more or less. it took us three recruiting years to get out of the short term recruiting mode. however, the junior, sophomore and freshmen classes at slu now are his real classes and conversely this is the first year we are all expecting an ncaa berthlike team. that has to tell us something.

[billiken_roy]

i dont care what the articles say, i have talked to folks pretty darn close on the stemler side that say it was slu the day before.

to give lance the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was just very conflicted and his answer was changing often.

they all had their positives and negatives and maybe it came down to the last school to talk to him. who knows.

[nostatic]

All the complaints about losing Stemler for 2 years may go away quickly after watching Dixon for 4 years -- this may be the silver lining.

[brianstl]

Roy, B-law will rip Brad every chance he gets. He will do this just because Brad was an asst. at Wisconsin. People think you and some other Bill fans have issues with Mizzou. You have nothing on B-law and his issues Wisconsin. It is a shame that, with the exception of the short D Wade run, that MU is now the second rate team in that state. It was the other way around for a long time.

[billiken_roy]

nostatic. i know i would like nothing better than for you to be correct. but i will wait until we see dixon play. for all we know he is really dwight stones trying to play basketball. one would think there is a reason we got him other than being in the right place at the right time. but stranger things have happened.

[brianstl]

I, also, love how he talks about Brad blowing the Stremler case. But, if you believe him when he talks about MU being second in the running, it really would be his beloved Crean that blew it. Crean let Sampson come in and steal Stremler from MU at the last minute.