Recruits List

[billiken_roy]

future, i have no problem with luke playing. in fact i believe luke is going to be our 5th starter and sf. i just dont want him at pf. unless we have failed in our evaluations of obi, adam and horace, he shouldnt be the pf.

[Hardball]

Cheeseman here is the problem SLU has that all the kool-aid drinkers keep putting their head in the sand about.

If you can't recruit big time players then you better be a hell of an evaluator of Talent. Brad has a history of inability in recruiting and getting big time talent. This has been the case since he came to SLU. Of course the kool-aid drinkers can point to KL and TL for the 1009 time but my position is that they wanted to come to SLU regardless of if Soderberg was SLU coach are not. Pullen is just another example of not getting the job done. Period. Wash it any way you want but this staff failed!

Second, so now if you can't recruit big time talent you better be a hell of an evaluator of talent. He didn't offer Tatum or Ahearn for whatever the blue slurpy people want to come up with as the reason of the week. Then he tells Shaw I can't offer you because I need to see you play more. THEN he says the same thing to Stemler a guy who was offered by Indiana and Marquette. Are you kidding me! Four HUGE missed opportunities to improve our team. Who do you want to blame for the inability to identify this talent that was right in front him? Tell me SLU would not be a better team without these four players.

So like I said if you can't RECRUIT big time talent and you can't EVALUATE talent where do you go? You tell me? I tell you where. Late signings of players no one has ever heard of left over scholarships for the spring or a fabrication of a story of keeping a scholarship open because of a possible transfer. Ridiculous! And now we are hearing from the blue slurpy people that the fall signing period is irrelevant. I wonder if the other big time programs are aware that the fall signing period is insignificant. Give me a break!

As for as my suggestion to follow Self's rule of recruiting. If BS would have offered the "take it or leave it" offer to Pullen a month ago he would have found out SLU was not in the running. Could he have spent the last month a little better than chasing a kid that didn't even want to come to SLU? You tell me? It is like asking one of the best looking girls to your school dance and she says let me think about it. What she really is doing is waiting for something better to come along and when it does she tells you so long. Now you forced to scramble and find any girl you can just to fill her spot.

[billiken_roy]

he didnt offer shaw because he wanted grimes. i have never heard the "i need to see you play more" associated with the shaw story and i have talked to folks from centralia pretty close to the situation. he lost shaw because of his obsession with grimes period.

you twist the stemler story with your statement:

"THEN he says the same thing to Stemler a guy who was offered by Indiana and Marquette."

you neglect to include that saint louis university offered stemler a scholarship BEFORE marquette and indiana even saw him play or even spoke to lance stemler. slu was the first higher major program to offer him a scholarship. before slu he only had offers from the likes of kent state.

it is common knowledge that stemler's juco coaches had insisted that stemler NOT accept an early fall offer anyway. thus he was going to wait until spring to decide. so soderberg took additional ncaa allowed visits and then offered him a scholarship BEFORE indiana and marquette did. i fail to see what offering him before christmas would have accomplished. the fact that stemler accepted the last offer made to him proves he didnt have the fortitude to block other recruiters anyway. and do you honestly think a convicted ncaa felon like sampson would have respected any verbal offer that stemler would have already made? sampson has gone around a number of verbal commits in the past. he would have done the same and stemler would have caved to the "indiana lore" speech.

last, how do you know coach soderberg hasnt been pursuing another player other than jacob pullen?

[cheeseman]

Roy, my point with Tbill is that while technically it does not matter when a kids signs - fall or spring or even summer, if you consistently have to be scrambling for kids that Nate described then you will eventually be in trouble. Lets also examine this statement - Brad got TL and KL so he can recruit - yes he got them but that was two recruiting classes ago if you count this one. Now I know he can still sign some good players still and I hope he does and I am not saying he necessarily won't but he is playing with fire if he can not start locking up kids earlier. The law of avgs will be against him. Also, if we want to be a top 50 or 25 program, we must have good recruiting classes every year not just every 2 or 3 years - that was what Spoon did and you of all people know how that played out. I am not dissing the three he got this year - DM, AK or HD. They may turn out to be a very good class and I certainly hope so but right now their paper rep is a little light. I also know that just because you are rated high does not mean you will be a good player but for now that is all we have to go with recruits.

[billiken_roy]

cheeseman said,

"right now their paper rep is a little light. I also know that just because you are rated high does not mean you will be a good player but for now that is all we have to go with recruits."

so was the paper rep of lisch and liddell. compare that to the recruiting guru's take on the likes of horton, dandridge and grimes at mi$$ouri. seems to me that there is little to take from the joys of winning the recruiting guru sweepstakes.

[Hardball]

Roy sometimes you can be really naive or just uninformed. Just because you never heard the story you automatically question its validity. You say BS didn't offer Shaw because he wanted Grimes. What did BS tell the Shaw family in order to stall in making a scholarship offer? Do you know? Obviously not. BS told them I have to see you play more. Don't really know who you know down in Centralia but you information is incorrect.

The Stemler situation is well documented as is the seven evaluation statement. Ultimately you can blame the SWIC coaches or the character of Sampson but, you know what, Stemler is not at SLU and there is only one person to blame. If Brad didn't have a good relationship with the SWIC coaches shame on him. It is in his best interest and his responsibility to make sure all the JC's in the Area feel important and want to help SLU. SLU is the one who will benefit. So there is no excuse NOT to have a good relationship with them. Another failure for this staff.

Roy is Shaw and Stemler at SLU?

NO!

Who is responsible?

Simple question all you have to do is answer it?

But before you do take a big gulp of Blue Kool-Aid.

[slufanskip]

Hardball ... what do you think the team will do this year?

Next ... you refer to everybody who is generally happy wit UB as Kool-Aid drinkers. It doesn't have to be to one extreme or the other. Except for a select few, most people seem to think he has done some good things and needs to be better at others. You seem to have a personal grudge that gets in your way of looking at the situation objectively. I agree that if you are not getting recruits signed in the fall and are having to wait until the spring on a normal basis, you will not be able to sustain long term success. However, that has not been the case so far with UB. Does he need to improve in recruiting ... I would say yes he does, but I also don't think it has been as bad as you make it out to be. You seem to exagerate for a little shock value, like making it sound like we consistently play games in the 30's ... has our offense been poor, yes, but not as poor as you make it seem.

Imo ... the bottom line is this. Are we improving? I think we are, I expect that improvement to continue to the point that we are in the tourney 4 of 5 years and are consistently ranked in the top 40. If we get off that track ... then it is time to talk about what needs to be done.

Bottom line is ... what should happen is somewhere between the fire UB now camp and the let him stay for 4 or 5 more years camp. Which is exactly where the majority of this board sit.

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[Billiken Rich]

Good greif hardon! Do you have a wife? Do you have co-workers? Do you interact with any people in your daily life? Do you make excuses for yourself about the hundreds of thousands of people who despise you?

There's no excuse for Brad not to be loved by an assistant coach at SWIC? No excuse for recruits lost to big ten and big twelve programs? I think you are holding Brad and SLU to a standard that hasn't been attained here since the '40s. That will be more realistic in the next 5-10 years.....

Whatever happens on the recruiting trail you will not be happy. You'd have dismissed Stemler with the same disdain shown Dustin M. if he'd have signed with the Bills prior to his stock soaring by the late interest by Marquette and Indiana. You are a hater.

[billiken_roy]

who do i blame for stemler not being at slu? stemler. he listened to all the wrong people. sampson and asst swic coach campo.

would a better relationship with the swic coaches have made a difference? possibly. however very very very few jucos ever sign in the early signing period. juco coaches are all notorious for asking their kids to wait until spring. other than campo, i have not heard or seen any evidence that coach soderberg does not have a good relationship with coach harrington.

again who is responsible?

i have said numerous times soderberg is to blame for chasing grimes instead of shaw. that was a huge mistake. however many have complained here before that slu needs to not be afraid to go after the higher profile recruits, so it always confuses me when i see the naysayers in hindsight cuss about scenarios like grimes/shaw.

who is responsible for stemler? imo, stemler. i do not think there is a thing we could have done different to get him to come to slu.

btw, you neglected to answer my simple question in the above post. how do you know they havent been recruiting others besides pullen?

[billiken_roy]

of course soderberg didnt tell the shaw family "i'd rather have grimes".

but even those close to the situation in centralia were smart enough to see that as soon as grimes committed to mi$$ouri that brad wanted him then. my gosh, painter even pointed it out to the family.

you would have to be really dense to not be able to see that and even the centralia people around him knew it was because he was second choice. the wrong choice, but still second choice.

[cheeseman]

Roy, you are correct but at least with KL and TL, they were local players and we had many people who saw them and could attest to their ability. DM - he is local but there is mixed thoughts on him. Good shooter, quick release, slow, weak on defense - just to share a few thoughts that have been posted. Adam - not really local but some did get a chance to see him play. Banger, plays with his back to the basket, rebounder, may not be a scorer at the D1 level, Missouri had second thoughts are some of the things said about him. HD - not local and until recently we knew virtually nothing about him. What has been posted is from a couple of people who saw him in pick up games recently - he sounds good but still really hard to say. My point is simple - this last class may be very good but we do not have enough info to really say that now - perhaps in Jan we can start to form some reliable/informed decisions on them. All I know is that Brad has to start landing kids every year that are good players and the pond he is fishing in after the fall signing period is much smaller than before. If you want to catch a big fish, you usually want to be in bigger water as a general rule - same for recruiting. Like I said, I am not knocking Brad - I will wait until the fall signing period is over to pass judgement but always relying on the spring and summer hidden gems is risky business.

[billiken_roy]

first i want to say that i too would rather see us find the top choices and sign them in november.

that said, keep in mind that the spring signing period gives a coach two opportunities. first, it gives the coach a chance to evaluate his own team further and refine his opinion on needs and weaknesses. if a coach thought he needed a banging pf, but when the season starts the development of shooters is not what was expected, maybe you can switch focus to recruit a shooter as well. had you already signed all pf's in the fall, that wouldnt be possible without chasing someone away possibly.

second, to use your pond example, sure the fall pond has more fish in it, but the spring pond probably has less fishermen in it. that late bloomer might be easier to catch in the spring with little competition.

[Majerus Magic]

I would love it if he was at the sf. I think we could out rebound every team. We would be strong up front.

[Hardball]

"second, to use your pond example, sure the fall pond has more fish in it, but the spring pond probably has less fishermen in it. that late bloomer might be easier to catch in the spring with little competition."

Let's try that again! That theory worked so well with Stemler!

C'mon people wake up. There isn't another Top 50 program that would put up with this situation.

And as to are we getting better? I don't really know. We are playing in a lessor league than the old Conference USA. We're still not making the NCAA Tournament. We missed the NIT last year. A year after making it. I trully believe we are one injury away from being a sup 500 team. We still struggle getting highly rated recruits. We are still signing players in the spring no one has relly heard of. We have gone another year w/o an early committment. We still taking players who other programs don't want.

I don't know how you measuring getting better. You tell me.

[kshoe]

Skip said:

"I agree that if you are not getting recruits signed in the fall and are having to wait until the spring on a normal basis, you will not be able to sustain long term success. However, that has not been the case so far with UB."

That has been the case with Brad! Off the top of my head here is every player that has signed under Brad and the period they did so. I will ignore the 4 that he signed immediately after being hired. This also ignores the fact that we often have entered a season with only 11 or 12 scholarship players. I am also ignoring the players that were signed but never showed. (the two/three jucos)

Clarke - Fall 02

Frericks - Spring 03

Vouyoukas - Spring 03

Husak - Spring 03

Polk - Fall 03

Liddell - Fall 03

Meyer - Fall 03

Newborne - Spring 04

Brown - Spring 04

Lisch - Fall 04

Obi - Spring 05

Maguire - Fall 05

Knollmeyer - Spring 06

Dixon - Spring 06

I count 14 signings, only 6 of which were in the fall. That is a terrible ratio. If anything, about 80% of your signings should be in the fall and maybe 20% in the Spring.

There is no way you can keep up this ratio fo fall/spring signings and expect to make the NCAA in 4 of 5 years. Even if you are a great evaluator of talent (which Brad is not as of yet) when you are always picking from the bottom of the barrell it is going to be hard.

[NashvilleBilliken]

I'm not going to debate this topic anymore. Our team is 10 times deeper and better from when Brad took over. I don't care when a recruit signs. Apparently many of us aren't going to see eye to eye on that.

BUT, if the "kool-aid" drinkers can't use KL and TL as examples of good recruiting, then I implore you to stop using this Shaw/Stemler example for the "1000th" time.

[slufanskip]

In the last 3 years it is 5-5 I believe. Not as bad as some make it sound. I agree ... we won't sustain success unless it improves.

Do you think we will make the tourney this year.

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[brianstl]

Hardball, I'm getting little nervous about this class. But, you really need to wait and see how it plays out. Kids always change their minds before signing day. I, also, think you only want to sign two incoming freshman at most. If they plan to sign five players next year, you do not want to become overloaded with under classmen. I think they will need to try to balance that out with transfers or juco players. I just think we need to wait closer to loi day before we start panicking.

In answer to your statement about a top 50 program putting up with this: Marquette. They had only one early signee last season. They added to that one juco, one transfer, and one late signing incoming freshman. They also missed out on Stremler. That is just one off the top of my head.

[billiken_roy]

all these posts keep saying that brad is not a great evaluator of talent, yet i am waiting for anyone of you to explain then how is it that this team projects to be one of the best billiken teams ever. either he is a good recruiter....no wait, a good recruiter would sign everyone in the fall from top 100 recruits, or he is a good evaluator of talent, no wait, a good talent evaluator wouldnt have to take more than one visit to see if a recruit was offer worthy.

this whole conflict has me confused and someone needs to explain it.

[kshoe]

us making the tourney is a 50/50 proposition. We have the ability to do so (assuming absolutely no injuries to the big 3) but because we play in the A-10 and won't get many, if any, top 25 games once conference play starts our margin for error is small.

I'll turn this around to you, if we make the tourney this year and Tommie has a great year and decides to go pro and we only get one recruit for this current class will you be satisfied?

Brad will have been to 1 NCAA in 5 years but with only Lisch left our future prospects for the NCAA will be bleak due to a weak incoming class this year and probably another weak one in 07-08. 1 in 5 with no hope for the future is not the "track" I want this program to be on, regardless of whether we make the dance this year.

[slufanskip]

I'd say 60-40 this year, but we are close. I expect us to start getting in the tourney on a consistent basis. 3-5 years as a minnimum. No excuses ... if Tommie goes pro (which he won't at the end of this year, sorry, he's not good enough yet.) I'd assume we would have 1 down year, but then need to be back. Regardless of reason he needs to get us in and make it a habit.

What makes you think Lisch will be all we have left? Don't you think you should give the incoming guys and young guys a chance before assuming they aren't any good.

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[billiken_roy]

i think a team the next year without liddell and ian would still be good. first off, the juniors will be seniors. second, the power forwards all have a year under their belts. and you havent even discussed the recruits that we havent signed from this recruiting class yet.

that all said, i think we need to let tommie show us first before we even talk about nba in 2007.

[kshoe]

We all seemingly agree that this team has three difference makers in Ian, KL and TL and a bunch of role players around them. I find it highly unlikely that we recruited true difference makers (AK or HD) in the spring signing period that were being recruited by UWM and god knows who. If either of them were THAT good they'd have already been gone. So, no I don't think we have properly found equal replacements to compensate for the sure loss of Ian and the potential loss of a guy like Tommie.

And yes, I agree that Tommie has a long way to go before the NBA is realistic but if this team improves enough to go from not good enough for the NIT to NCAA caliber, with most of the improvement coming from the same players since we have no impact recruits, then it stands to reason that Tommie will have improved his game a bunch.

I guess I'm just having trouble envisioning the 07-08 team making the dance with DP, KL, LM, AK and BH as our starting five (or some variation thereof). Those of you prediciting 4 NCAA bids in 5 years should get a reality check.

The recruiting misses of this year and last year are going to kill us during TL (if he has one) and KL's junior and senior years.

[3star_recruit]

> If

>either of them were THAT good they'd have already been gone.

>So, no I don't think we have properly found equal

>replacements to compensate for the sure loss of Ian>

Winning programs don't necessarily replace the production of a departing player with the production of another player. Did Illinois have a another player step in and score the 20 ppg that Brian Cook provided? Did Xavier have another player step in and provide the 20 ppg that David West provided? No, the rest of the team just picked up the slack. That's what winning programs do and if we're interested in being a winning program that's what our returning players will have to do.

>And yes, I agree that Tommie has a long way to go before the

>NBA is realistic but if this team improves enough to go from

>not good enough for the NIT to NCAA caliber, with most of

>the improvement coming from the same players since we have

>no impact recruits, then it stands to reason that Tommie

>will have improved his game a bunch.

Or it could mean that 5-6 players are slightly more productive offensively, turning last year's 3 point losses into 3 point victories.

>I guess I'm just having trouble envisioning the 07-08 team

>making the dance with DP, KL, LM, AK and BH as our starting

>five (or some variation thereof).

We don't even know how productive our starting 5 will be this year and you're already putting Tommie in the NBA and dismissing the productivity of an imagined starting five a year from now?

>The recruiting misses of this year and last year are going

>to kill us during TL (if he has one) and KL's junior and

>senior years.

Well I'm glad that Greek recruiting miss who averaged 2 ppg as a freshman continued to work on his body and his game. I guess there's no chance any of our incoming players could do that.

[TheRaginCajun]

What would you honestly say Brad has done well so far?