Official postgame thread

[Sheltiedave]

Don't want to bully folks, but ten convergent threads get old...

Give Dwayne Polk a game ball for showing the rest of the guards how to play defense, to the extent that Blake Ahearn had to sit for significant stretches because he couldn't get open. Dwayne also threw down nine points and zero turnovers. Bark at the moon, Dwayne!

I hope Dwayne can play about fifty minutes in the Carolina game, because Tommie still is getting a handle on getting a handle. Kevin can't help too much until his hand gets better, but he's still a little bit of an adventure.

Kevin was vicous out there, and showed the other guards that a dribble drive is a beautiful offensive weapon. Early in the second half, MUState had five fouls, and Kevin personally had drawn four of them.

Saw the first timeout play of the season work, with Kevin executing a beautiful offwing backdoor cut. Twenty two horrible turnovers, with the best defense against Ahearn this season, excluding SIUC to come.

Way to go BIlls!!!!

[slufanskip]

this game was incredible. I can't talk right now. I was hoarse from coughing for a week prior to the game ... now I can't talk hardly at all. I know my brother is happy.

Dwayne Polk ... the best single defensive game I can remember seeing from a guard. His 2 coast to coast drives ... imo were the game and momentum changers. After the first one is when the crowd got semi loud.

Kevin ...I got you a spot saved in my foxhole.

Luke ... we aren't the same team when he is on the bench. I have often thought he should be a 6th man ... but I don't know how. I can see why Brad says someone has to take the 4 from him. I'm not sure that our baby 4's not playing is a knock on them as much as it is a compliment to Luks.

Ian ... welcome back.

Dwayne and Luke are why you can't judge a recruit until his Jr year. Teams like us don't get top 50 players, so we have to give our guys time to develop and win with Jr and Sr dominated teams.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of the Stemmler and Ahearn could and would have helped club.

[Billiken75]

It is such a treat to have Duane playing as a stud..... keep up the good work. Tommie - learn from this game... just go out and play hard - we know you will come back. Luke does all the dirty work a team needs to win. I respect the Bears - they played hard and efficient - let them win the Valley, that will definitely help our RPI and resume.

Where were these refs from? The jump ball that was called a foul - the fould that was called a charge.... the ticky tack fouls on Luke in the first half.....I dream of when we have a home court advantage with the refs.

[VTIME]

> this game was incredible. I can't talk right now. I was

>hoarse from coughing for a week prior to the game ... now I

>can't talk hardly at all. I know my brother is happy.

>

> Dwayne Polk ... the best single defensive game I can

>remember seeing from a guard. His 2 coast to coast drives

>... imo were the game and momentum changers. After the first

>one is when the crowd got semi loud.

>

> Kevin ...I got you a spot saved in my foxhole.

>

> Luke ... we aren't the same team when he is on the bench. I

>have often thought he should be a 6th man ... but I don't

>know how. I can see why Brad says someone has to take the 4

>from him. I'm not sure that our baby 4's not playing is a

>knock on them as much as it is a compliment to Luks.

>

> Ian ... welcome back.

>

> Dwayne and Luke are why you can't judge a recruit until his

>Jr year. Teams like us don't get top 50 players, so we have

>to give our guys time to develop and win with Jr and Sr

>dominated teams.

>

>

> Official Billikens.com sponsor of H

>Waldman

>

>Official Sponser of the Stemmler and Ahearn could and would

>have helped club.

Luke and Dwayne were all-metro first teamers in our area, you know I believe in these guys.

[billiken_roy]

amazingly gerry pollard who was sticking in our backs the whole game (and has been for years) was the ref that wanted to view the playback. and according to earl, he was the first ref to say "boy's it looks like it was good to me". maybe he finally decided he owed us one.

the fact is the replay doesnt lie and the right call was made. ironically, if the mvc isnt showing that game on their network, thanks to our wonderful cstv deal we would have lost as we wouldnt have had tv to let the refs view and change their minds.

i feel a linda bruno note coming on.

[Majerus Magic]

First off, Holy cow what a win.

Positives-

Dwayne- As one of DP's biggest doubters, I take it all back. He played spectacular tonight. Unbelievable poise, and he shut down Ahearn as much as Lisch did.

Luke- As one of his biggest fans, I think I was proven right tonight. The guy might not have the best stats but he plays his ass off. He is the person that keeps this team together. KL, TL, and IV may all be talented but Luke I think is a huge difference maker.

Kevin- Played a hell of a game for being all banged up. Blake Ahean who?

Negatives-

TL- Cleary he was not the same tonight. I would venture to say he had more turnovers than points. Does anyone know the stats? That was the worst game I have seen TL play in person, so that says something about us still pulling out a win.

JJ- seemed lethargic tonight. I was dunno what was up with.

Excellent win, hopefully this will turn the tide for the rest of the week. GO BILLS!

[AugieBilliken]

I have a cousin in Madison who is a Badger Fan. When Brad was hired she said that she was just glad that he is not their problem.

Tonight I felt compelled to advise her of tonight's score along with Brad's Christmas wishes to all his friends in Wisconsin.

This may not have been the most charitable note, but, if it is a sin, there must be a Jesuit out there who will forgive me without the need to express sorrow.

[Go_Bills]

Agree nice win, just kinda scary.

[VTIME]

>First off, Holy cow what a win.

> Positives-

>Dwayne- As one of DP's biggest doubters, I take it all back.

>He played spectacular tonight. Unbelievable poise, and he

>shut down Ahearn as much as Lisch did.

>Luke- As one of his biggest fans, I think I was proven right

>tonight. The guy might not have the best stats but he plays

>his ass off. He is the person that keeps this team together.

>KL, TL, and IV may all be talented but Luke I think is a

>huge difference maker.

>Kevin- Played a hell of a game for being all banged up.

>Blake Ahean who?

>

>Negatives-

>TL- Cleary he was not the same tonight. I would venture to

>say he had more turnovers than points. Does anyone know the

>stats? That was the worst game I have seen TL play in

>person, so that says something about us still pulling out a

>win.

>JJ- seemed lethargic tonight. I was dunno what was up with.

>

>Excellent win, hopefully this will turn the tide for the

>rest of the week. GO BILLS!

back-to-back strong games for polk. BALLIN!

[courtside]

>I have a cousin in Madison who is a Badger Fan. When Brad

>was hired she said that she was just glad that he is not

>their problem.

>

>Tonight I felt compelled to advise her of tonight's score

>along with Brad's Christmas wishes to all his friends in

>Wisconsin.

>

>This may not have been the most charitable note, but, if it

>is a sin, there must be a Jesuit out there who will forgive

>me without the need to express sorrow.

Soderberg still pines for U of Wisconsin, but he enjoys SLU. It is rather extreme just how many people in Madison that aren't fans of his.

[Sheltiedave]

Missouri State Bears

STARTERS MIN FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS

N. Bilyeu, F 24 1-8 9-10 4 6 3 3 11

D. Richards, C 15 1-4 0-1 0 3 0 4 2

T. Chaney, G 30 2-7 0-1 0 2 0 1 6

S. Laurie, G 33 3-8 0-0 0 3 3 2 8

B. Ahearn, G 29 0-4 0-1 0 3 4 2 0

BENCH MIN FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS

D. Lamberth, F 22 4-8 0-0 1 3 0 1 8

D. Mitchell, F 22 6-12 3-4 0 4 1 1 15

S. Laurie, G 15 0-2 0-0 0 0 1 3 0

K Rausch 10 0-1 0-0 1 2 1 3 0

TOTALS FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS

17-54 12-17 6 26 13 20 50

31.5% 70.6%

TEAM REBS: 26

TURNOVERS: 10 (S Laurie 1, B Ahearn 2, N Bilyeu 1, D Mitchell 1, D Richards 2, K Rausch 3)

BLOCKED SHOTS: 3 (B Ahearn 1, D Richards 2)

STEALS: 13 (B Ahearn 1, N Bilyeu 2, T Chaney 2, D Mitchell 3, S Laurie 4, K Rausch 1)

3-PT FGS: 4-15, .267 (S Laurie 2-4, B Ahearn 0-1, N Bilyeu 0-1, T Chaney 2-5, D Lamberth 0-2, S Laurie 0-2)

Saint Louis Billikens

STARTERS MIN FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS

L. Meyer, G-F 25 3-6 0-0 3 9 2 3 6

I. Vouyoukas, F-C 33 5-8 3-6 1 7 2 3 13

D. Polk, G 33 4-8 0-0 0 3 0 1 9

K. Lisch, G 39 5-11 5-6 0 1 4 3 15

T. Liddell, G 37 1-7 4-4 2 9 2 3 6

BENCH MIN FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS

D. Brown, G 20 1-3 0-1 0 2 0 2 2

J. Johnson, F 11 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 3 0

A Knollmeyer 2 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0 0

TOTALS FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS

19-43 12-17 6 33 10 18 51

44.2% 70.6%

TEAM REBS: 33

TURNOVERS: 22 (J Johnson 2, I Vouyoukas 6, L Meyer 1, D Brown 3, T Liddell 9, A Knollmeyer 1)

BLOCKED SHOTS: 10 (I Vouyoukas 4, L Meyer 1, K Lisch 1, T Liddell 3, A Knollmeyer 1)

STEALS: 4 (D Polk 1, L Meyer 1, T Liddell 2)

3-PT FGS: 1-10, .1 (I Vouyoukas 0-1, D Polk 1-3, D Brown 0-2, K Lisch 0-4)

Grabbed this from AP, notice that Polk's line went 33 minutes, 4/8 from the field, 3 rbs, 1 foul, 9 points, and zero turnovers. Add Richards(who bested Polk as MO POY) and Ahearn TOGETHER, and you get 44 minutes, 1/8 FGs, 6 rbs, 6 fouls, 2 points, 2 blocks, four assts, and 4 tos. Wow, great game Dwayne!

[VTIME]

why didnt you just go to the box score on slubillikens.com?

[courtside]

Well if this is the official post-game thread...SLU won with rebounding and defense. Somehow with only 2 bench points, 10 percent 3pt shooting, playing roughly 6-7 guys...22 turnovers. But a win is a win as I said before. And I expected SLU to win this game, as said before-hand. It is a good solid home win for SLU. MSU doesn't have enough inside to get easy baskets when they aren't getting it from elsewhere. And they didn't take advantage enough of the 22 turnovers, just 9 pts off of turnovers. And blew a big lead and let one get away. Lisch and Polk with strong games, IV continued his pattern of too many turnovers for a big man, 6 again, but contributed in other ways. This was not the kind of game that will get many bandwagon fans to jump aboard, ugly, low scoring, etc..but it is a win over a similar team trying to make the tournament. A good win for SLU in the Loyola category...only Xavier and Dayton loom as possibly potentially close to similar level wins, slightly less...left on the schedule...besides of course UNC. SLU can hope that MSU and Loyola can go on to win a lot of games and keep up their early season level of play.

MSU has had a pattern of recent years of falling back in conference play when expected to do more. I know they beat a legit Final Four contender Wisconsin, and played Oklahoma St tough, hope they can keep it up and get near top of Valley.

[Bucky]

As a Badgerfan who still follows Brad let me say that I would take Bo Ryan any day of the week. I am glad to see Brad is having some success at SLU. I really believe he has a very good squad this year and I'd expect to see them in the Big Dance.

Nice win tonight over a good MSU team. Go get UNC. Remember Roy Williams was the coach who attacked Wisconsin when Brad was an assistant for making the final four and setting the game back 50 years! I would love for Brad score one for the good guys this weekend.

[MadBird]

>I have a cousin in Madison who is a Badger Fan. When Brad

>was hired she said that she was just glad that he is not

>their problem.

>

>Tonight I felt compelled to advise her of tonight's score

>along with Brad's Christmas wishes to all his friends in

>Wisconsin.

>

>This may not have been the most charitable note, but, if it

>is a sin, there must be a Jesuit out there who will forgive

>me without the need to express sorrow.

Hello Billikens - first time poster, Illinois State alum, living in Madison and a Wisconsin season ticket holder. I'm a many time visitor to your board because I like Coach Brad and really appreciated the job he did at UW and have been following his career at SLU.

Just wanted to say that there are plenty of fans up here who did not necessarily want to see Brad get canned at UW. The simple fact is many of the big donors had been wanting to install Bo Ryan as coach for some time, even before Dick Bennett was hired. There was tremendous pressure on the administration to let Brad go and bring on Ryan.

All of which is to say, good for Brad and the Billikens tonight. He's a class act and it sounds like this team is playing the gritty style that put Soderberg and Bennett on the map.

[Sheltiedave]

If many of the bigtime boosters wanted Bo Ryan, why did they first all chase after Majerus like mad?

While Wisky earned their Final Four run, it was a season that fell together perfect, much as James Madison last year, and they fell back to at or slightly below their potential in Brad's year at the helm.

[Tonka]

Very gritty win. I love this win. Like the Pacific game, we wouldn't have won the game in the past. We show a great comeback in California and now pull out a buzzer beater.

I am recovering from pneumonia and had to miss the UT Martin game. Yelling like that tonight did nothing for my lungs!

MSU is a very good team. They play great defense and many of our turnovers and Tommie's turnovers were great defense by MSU. Not sure why any negative from MSU fans towards us. I enjoy playing them. Their fans turn out and don't cause trouble. Their team is always competitive. I like them on the schedule every year.

I did not like how we let them dictate the tempo. Did anyone notice when we ran how we did well. When DP flew down the court they couldn't hang with him. BTW, I think DP is slowly becoming the unsung hero this year.

Skip, I went to talk to a buddy in the top of our section while we were biting our nails waiting for the refs decision at the end and 2 more Scottrade ushers headed down to our section and one said to the other: "Make sure they don't leave the section". Anything come of that? What was with all the security in our corner.

Side note: For as much criticism as the Scottrade ushers get, the ones down in our section are fabulous about making the RIGHT decision when people complain about obscure things.

Friday will be tough but we couldn't ask for any more than having the momentum of a buzzer beater win on our side.

[thetorch]

Wonderful game and finish. I haven't been this hoarse since Louisville.

This win goes to DP and Luke. They not only played great ball, they were leaders on the team. Dwayne and Luke pulled the team together after timeouts and during breaks in the late stages to keep the guys focused and they both kept Tommie from running out of the arena and taking a dive off the poplar st bridge.

I would say Tommie was sick tonight except for the alley oop dunk he made in the first few minutes. Tommie was on fire during our opening run, he was blocking shots, tipping balls, rebounding getting steals and then the dunk really fired him up. After the break he was stone cold, like he went to sleep or something. Did he think the game was won or something? Although SMS played tough physical D most of his mistakes were self induced errors, ie dribbling off his foot, throwing balls away, not protecting his dribble. After a couple mistakes he went off the deep end and was out of it offensively the rest of the game. He did stay active on defense and the boards though.

Ian had a great game. He is still visibly frustrated from not being able to get the ball down low. He works his tail off to get position and gets only a handful of shot attempts. He was getting murdered inside, SMS really plays physical and that Bilyue is a dirty player. Every time one of our guys was bring down a rebound Bilyeu was getting in kicks, kidney punches and elbows. No wonder we had a hard time holding onto the ball. Still with all that Ian managed to put up some decent numbers.

Don't give the refs credit for reviewing the play. They were ready to walk out. It is a rule you have to check replays on last second shots when available no matter what.

[BleacherBum593]

Great photo by Chris Lee of the Post-Dispatch

http://images.stltoday.com/stltoday/resour...yeah19flash.jpg

[TheBand]

TL had 6 points, 9 rebounds and 9 turnovers

[tdog]

Roy, you're right, and if this had been in Springfield we would have lost too.

The TV situation is a joke and we have to have a better deal. No one wants to play for a team that's not on TV.

[slufanskip]

Dwayne Polk stopped Ahearn not Kevin.

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

Official Sponser of the Stemmler and Ahearn could and would have helped club.

[jjray]

I was proud that the boys never gave up and kept fighting. There were some terrible calls against SLU in the 2nd half when they were down big. The players could have easily got their heads down and packed it in. They didn't. Part of the credit has to go to Brad. He drills the kids to play a hard 40 come what may.

On another note, this was the worst game I have seen Tommie Liddell play in a Billikens Uni. Brad is going to have to consider installing Dwayne as the point guard and moving Tommie to wing. Tonight he had 2 assists v. 9 TOs. For the year he is 30 assists v. 43 TOs.

[Bucky]

Honestly I don't know what really happened behind closed doors. It was speculated that Majerus was offered the job and I think they called Ben Braun, Cals Coach who is a Wisconsin Graduate. Personally I was very happy when they hired Bo. He was kind of a Dick Bennett in the state of Wisconsin in the fact that he had some great success at the lower levels in Wisconsin Basketball.

[jimbofive]

Did anyone see Luke Meyer play like a REAL 4??? I did - he missed a few shots, but every rebound was HIS, at least he saw it that way. Did everything he possibly could, and I saw him calming the other guys down, or firing them up, all game. Great leadership. Same from Polk, he was even nice enough to let Tommie shoot his free throws after going all out for a loose ball. And those end to end takes, holy sh!t. Lisch gets the Ironman award, and everybody knows what Ian did.

Took my little brothers (13 and 16) to their first SLU games Sat and last night, and now all they can talk about is how they want Vouyoukas and Lisch jerseys and how they're going to go to SLU in a few years and help this team win "cuz these old fart fans suck" LOL

Great win.