it showed last night!!

[naiabrad]

Well once again Brad was his old self last night. what we saw last night was not how close we are to being a good program, but how many lite years away we are. For starters depth we play the same 7 or 8 guys a game North Carolina played 10 they could have brought players 6-12 tonight and still won. Why the lack of depth,and poor recruiting we bring in players who are not ready to play good programs do not recruit like this. Examples obi and horace who have been in the program practicing with everyone else since october if they can't play by now especially here they sould not be division 1 players. One good recuiting class every 5 years is not going to cut it. What he is doing is counting on the class of 08, when the only one he is sure of gettin is his son. he is just not the man to build a program. We should follow the Marquette program as a blueprint.

[tseugnekillib]

welcome to the board....why the delay in joining all the fun?

[Billikan]

A new idiot! Ask me about something we do not need on this board--

Interesting, I had some people at the game that are not regulars and they said how impressed they were by Brad and his ability to develop a game plan against a much better opponent.

We have played 12 games and we are 9-3. But if Horace is not playing yet then he must be terrible. Give me a break. If you knew anything about basketball, and you obviously do not, then you would know that it often takes time to develop players and we do not have the luxury of having MD all americans sit the bench like NC. If you are an old poster with a new name then go away. If you are a new poster then give us some idea why we should give a damn about your ignorant postings!

[tseugnekillib]

always get a few new posters after a loss.......

[Bluecrewwebmaster]

It wasn't Brad's fault we went 1 for 11 from 3 pt land...he can't shoot the ball. While I agree we aren't nearly as deep as UNC, neither is anyone else in the A10. 9-3, how can you NOT be thrilled with that??

[courtside]

The one point the new poster may have unintentionally made was Marquette...not apples to apples because of SLU's lack of tradition...however..when Marquette was down and out, struggling..what did they do? They hired Lute Olson assistant Kevin O'Neill with huge recruiting reputation and he recruited his ass off without the facilities and budget at the time. A super recruiter...and team went to sweet 16. There is something to be said for that. Obviously since then it has become bigger time, big budget, big conference all that stuff....but that guy did it with nothing. Sure he's a jerk and didn't last long etc...but SLU needs a coach that recruit his bleep off to get them in the game, on the map...recruit against the schools with all of the advanatges....then have a little success then get the advantages at SLU that other schools have. You can coach your kids up and pull off upsets, sure...that is why they happen in NCAA tourney all the time....but in long season etc..gotta have better players to get there. Recruiting is a skill, not every coach has it.

[Billikan]

Welcome back with your super negative posts. I knew you would return when we lost a game. If you would read your two posts in this string you would think we are 3-9 rather than 9-3. You can't wait to post something negative about our team. Don't you know that every time you say we have no good recruits that you are insulting our team. You are really a bah humbug kind of guy!

[slu72]

Yes, we are 9-3 and have had some good wins (Houston, Loyola, UoP, MoState)...not great statement type wins but W's none the less. Still, Billikan, we are a program that lags behind schools very similar in nature to SLU. I think the only thing we can give UB credit for at this point is that we have shown improvement both in our style of play and the quality of our starting five. But the failure to follow up the TL/KL class with a D-1 ready player or two may haunt us all year. This is not a negative post, it's being objective after watching our bench, which right now consists of two players for the most part, not contributing a whole lot. The only person you should be accusing of knocking our recent batch of recruits is UB himself. He's the one not playing them. So, isn't he the one sending the negative message about them?

[cheeseman]

This week - I think it was Friday - Rammer and Frank had Ryan Robertson and Scott Highmark on for their roundtable discussion. One of the points Highmark made was and he said Spoon would agree - after the recruiting class of Highmark and Clagget we did not follow up with stacking any good recruiting classes 2-3 years in a row. Waldman was the only real very good player we added during that time. The point is, the recruiting class after Kevin and Tommie is really Dustin, Adam, and Horace. That group might end up being a solid class by their junior year but they would never be considered a class of the same caliber of Tommie and Kevin. That is the type of class Highmark was talking about stacking. At this point - year 2 after Kevin and Tommie - we have nobody signed. Anybody who can not see that this is troubling for the long term health of the program has their head in the sand. I am not saying 9-3 is not good but as Highmark pointed out - we are basically on target for the standard - couple of good years and then several down years format. As he said, this is why teams like SLU find themselves on this roller coaster ride with their program. Courtside and 72 are basically saying what Highmark said.

[billiken_roy]

it is always great to hear from you and lawman about how great marquette is.

[Billikan]

Spoon hated to recruit and we went years without him ever recruiting any blue chip players. All of his stars, except for Waldman who he knew previously and was from the west, were Grawer recruits for the four years of the time that Highmark and Claggett played. So for four years Spoon did basically little to recruit. I talked to him many times about recruiting and I know he disliked it. He fell in to a few overachievers and we survived. Until he got the Larry class we had few quality recruits between the Highmark, Claggett team and the Hughes team.

Now let's look at this year. We have 4 local recruits who have proved they can play and two who are potential stars in Kevin and Tommie. We have the best center in modern Billiken history and the two stars are only sophomores. The time for comparison will be a year or two after Tommie and Kevin graduate. If Brad has not signed any good players between now and then--there would be a valid comparison. Right now we have a good team and a bright future. There is absolutely no comparison to the last year of Claggett and Highmark. But you and others just harp and harp on how bad our players are and it drives me insane!! When you say we have no recruits then it is an insult to our players. Please remember that when you post.

[slufanskip]

we?

Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman

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

[GOSLU68]

right after his first year he refused to answer questions from the media about would he go to

a bigger program and when he and Norm Stewart were co-coaches of the year he as much as

said he was looking-same thing with Romar-not a SLU grad and until we get a local coach like a Clagget or Bonner that wants this to be his home much like Irons did with Vashon except-cleaner we are going to suffer these ups and downs. The media has not given SLU a break we take MO State after the predictions are they would run us down and we are on page

eight. Shimmy Gray gets some press; but not much on our men's soccer or men's basketball;

Cheryl has to take some responsibility for that. With the Blues and pro soccer at new lows it was obvious 25,000 would come out to see how we fared against NC; Our building an arena of 10-12,000 is a weak committment from Biondi. Even loyal fans such as myself are tired of waiting for two good recruit years in a row; Play Horace Dixon and AK in the second half for the exposure and fresh legs what could be the worst that would have happened we lose by 25 instead of 21? I'm waiting for Brad to come out with a fresh plan the second half of an important game instead of having a seasoned coach close all of our doors after we play the hell out of the game first half. Take it to them Brad-stop waiting to see what the other guy is going to do. Take the time out with two baskets in a row instead of waiting until they take us

down 12-2 to open the second half. Kick some butt. The players we had in did just fine until

they wore out. Look at the numbers JJ, BH rebounded and D Brown added 2-2 shooting-build

on that.

[slu72]

Billikan, no one's saying they're lousy. We're saying UB's not playing them...how can we judge? Merry Xmas.

[cheeseman]

Billiken - the comparison is to Highmark and Claggett's time is very similar. Right now you got Ian and then TL and KL - who else has Brad signed after this of their caliber? DP is not of this level nor is Luke or Dustin. Brad has not stacked any good classes just as Spoon did not. Romar never stacked anything. Grawer never stacked classes either - Douglas/Gray, next Bonner - then nothing until Clags and Highmark. Same scenero being recruited. If Brad lands some of the local top talent next year then he has to follow it up with stacking good classes after that or else the cycle continues. Look at who he has signed since KL and TL - Obi (apparently not even on the team now), Dustin (some of the most positive posters are saying don't pass judgement on him until he is a junior) Horace (seems athletic but we have not seen enough of him to know what he will do at SLU) Adam (he is playing a couple of minutes a game so maybe he will be able to contribute significantly before his junior year). You can not say that we have stacked good recruiting classes recently. All I am pointing out is what Highmark was saying as to why SLU is on a roller coaster ride as a program.

[Billikan]

I disagree entirely with your analysis. The Highmark Claggett team was terrible early and then they matured into a good team. If you and the other posters here were posting during the second year of that group you would say they were terrible, coming off of a 5 victory season, and that they would never be any good and that we could not recruit any good players. It was not until their senior year that they were a great team. You are comparing that group to a team that has two sophs that are stars and the team has been good since the day they arrived. Based upon the w/l record this team is miles ahead of the Highmark Claggett team at the same time in their careers. The time to compare is in two years when these guys are seniors and if there are no new good recruits either on the team or on the way so the team can be good after they graduate then you can start with the "sky is falling" hand wringing. But now we have a nice team--much better than the team was in the sophomore year of Highmark and Clagget--so let's just enjoy it!

[billiken_roy]

claggett and highmark's junior year was outstanding as well.

but other than that, i agree with your comparison. if we come up with a rugged inside defender and rebounder to replace ian (i dont really care if the pickup matches ian's points) i agree that there is no reason that next year wont equal or exceed this year.

if tsuegnekillib is right and there was indeed that juco player behind the bench friday nite, coach soderberg may be closer than most believe to doing just that.

[cheeseman]

Billiken - I am not comparing records/seasons all I am doing is talking about stacking good recruiting classes - you have missed my point completely. Also, when Highmark and Claggs were recruited along with Winfield, it was considered a very good signing class by everybody - they did not become a good recruiting class just in their senior year. By the way, as juniors Claggs and Highmark when to the NCAA tourney so to say they only provided us with one good year is not true.

[Schasz]

I would agree with Roy on the Claggett and Highmark years...they made the NCAA tournament in both the Jr. and Sr. years, and we started seeing very large attendance starting in their Jr years which by the way was the frst of the two years we had H. IMO we were hampered in those two years by not having a truly good big man to go with the fine shooters we had on those two Billiken teams. An Ian type player then could have meant deeper runs in those NCAA Tourney years.