PD showing LM some love

[slu72]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/st...A8?OpenDocument

LM's the PF....learn to live with it. And 17-5 w/him in the lineup ain't too bad. Got to love his attitude.

[cheeseman]

All the article showed is that we have a tough guy limited athlete who is playing only because Brad has not been able to recruit anybody better. Cudos to Luke for playing over his head but you got to question Brad's recruiting results. I agree nice article but look past the feel good part and you see the painful truth.

[GOSLU68]

what would you do? you have to play the cards your dealt and IV is gone next year and we would all love to have Horace or AK step up but

it really was not until league play last year that TL and KL took over

Where we are different this year if they get playing minutes even Bryce, JJ, HD, AK have more rebounds in limited action than last year

for that matter that is where IV has improved most. TL had way to many

rebounds last year compared to the others on the floor-we are better

this year but it may be year end before you admit it

[slu72]

No doubt, we're better, but even UB said if LM had to play the 4 this year it's going to be a struggle. Since he is, and appears he will, UB created his own struggle by not landing a D-1 ready, not all star, just ready PF. JJ is showing same tendencies as 3 prior years and once again we were duped into thinking maybe this has changed. All that said, you can't argue with 17-5 w/ LM in the game. So he's not a legit 4, big deal. We're 17-5 w/him and most of those came in the A-10. There will be a few teams in A-10 where LM will be overmatched, but luckily not many.

[billiken_roy]

slu72said, "but even UB said if LM had to play the 4 this year it's going to be a struggle. Since he is, and appears he will, UB created his own struggle by not landing a D-1 ready, not all star, just ready PF."

i said the same thing before the season and to a degree still wish we had karl malone jr at pf instead of luke meyer and luke could play the wing.

that said, i think luke has played far better than i ever expected and so has polk. that changes the perception of the team that the two of them have upped their game so much. thus, i am no longer as afraid of luke meyer being our 5th starter as before. personally i think tommie timmie's article this morning was a home run and described luke's ascension to the top very well. and i refuse to read into it as you and cheese have done this morning.

our struggle imo is going to be the down a-10. i had believed before the season that the a-10 would bounce back and deliver 4 tourney worthy teams. as it now appears our league rpi is going to be such that it is likely we will be lucky to get two spots and thus it will mean we have to excel even more than i originally expected to win our spot.

[Hardball]

BRoy,

I agree with alot of what you said reagrding LM and his play this year. He has definetly played better than expected at the four but he is still always at a disanvantage against upper echelon teams with traditional fours. Because of this all the other starters have to play near flawlessly for SLU to maintain an edge. That is huge pressure to put on a kid that plays hard but is just not a true D1 four man. You have to give the kid big time props for effort. Would love to see him at the three.

I also believe you statement about the A10 being a two team bid conference(at the most..maybe only one). What is funny is that I have made this statement before and people say I am negative and a basher. I call it common sense based upon the play of the A10 teams year to date. SLU's margin for error to make the NCAA tournament keeps getting smaller and smaller.

[billiken_roy]

hardball, you were saying the a-10 was a two or less bid conference though before the out of conference schedule was even close to being completed. based on historical performance, why wouldnt most have hope that the a-10 would bounce back to previous years where 3 or more was more the norm?

now that the out of conference schedule has pretty much played out, your earlier prediction is indeed closer to the truth. still you surely can see why most didnt appreciate your negative prediction early on.

i would venture to say though that most believed the billikens would be sitting either 9-3 or 10-2 at this point in the season. what we didnt know was that the a-10 would be the 14th ranked conference at this point. that is what has tightened our ncaa chances, not the billikens performance thus far.

[alameda bob]

Has anyone else noticed Luke's striking resemblence to John Havlichek? Mr. 6th man of all those great Celtic teams the STL Hawks could never beat.

I love LM's guts & blue collar game, but I'm sure BS knows he'd be a way bigger help to the team to be our Hondo if we had a decent 4 to start.

Give us that & Brad starts lighting stogies on the bench, he'd be so happy.

[jjray]

>>that said, i think luke has played far better than i ever expected and so has polk.<<

Am in agreement with Roy that Luke and Dwayne have played better this season than expected. We're a better team this year (when KL is healthy) but still a team with weaknesses. Isn't that about what everyone expected from the 2006-2007 Billikens? I'll admit only to expecting more from Ian earlier in the year but that may have been due to illness. Ian came on in the NC game. I expected us to be a bubble team if we do not win the A-10 tourney and this appears to be where we are heading. I look forward with anticipation to the rest of the season and whether or not we make the big dance.

[slu72]

Broy, I can't see where you got anything negative out of my 2 posts. IN fact just the opposite. Is it the best having LM at the 4? No...but, as I said, we're 17-5 since he's been starting. No complaints from me.

[cheeseman]

First of all, I have said in earlier posts that Luke has earned the #4 position with his recent play - I also have said that Polk is playing better than last year. My comment above never was a knock on Luke for who he is - I gave him cudos but given the most recent threads on Brad's recruiting situation my post was simply to point out that this is another example of our lack of recruiting success. I agree we are stuck with what we have but that does not mean that we have to be satisfied with it. By the way - we are 17-8 with Luke in the line up - great but to say that he alone is responsible for that is an oversimplification. Luke has helped by playing his role - you can ask nothing more but really who was playing before Luke took over at PF - Danny Brown. Need I say more.

[courtside]

>All the article showed is that we have a tough guy limited

>athlete who is playing only because Brad has not been able

>to recruit anybody better. Cudos to Luke for playing over

>his head but you got to question Brad's recruiting results.

>I agree nice article but look past the feel good part and

>you see the painful truth.

Yes indeed.

[billiken_roy]

ian was very very good the first half vs unc. the second half i thought he was not a factor. i think ian in particular was beat by second half time. the work he did defending and rebounding in the first half had to take a toll. i like the way Brad kept taking him out for short rests and using justin, but then in the second half he was left in without break for too long imo.

[billiken_roy]

"UB created his own struggle by not landing a D-1 ready, not all star, just ready PF."

i read that as negative.

imo, if the same luke as last year showed up this year, knollmeyer would be playing and likely doing a fair job. i think from the little we have seen from knollmeyer he is ready, he just is beat out by an overachieving luke meyer.

[tseugnekillib]

if you don't appreciate LM's skill base and intangibles.... and LM plays well.....one might say that LM is "playing over his head".

if you can appreciate LM's skill base and intangibles.... and LM plays well.....one might say that LM is maximizing his god-given talents.

if you don't like LM you state that "he doesn't have a mid-range jumper".

if you look at the stats thru 12 games you will see that LM is SLUs leading FG shooter, leading FT shooter and the leading mid-range shooter (FG less 3pters).

you don't have to be Marty Blake to recognize that SLU has failed to recruit a legit PF at the defensive end for the 2006-07 season. LM defending the other teams PF may cost SLU the A-10 post-season tournament and an NCAA bid, but LM is our best/only chance!

[Billikan]

It is not a matter of hype or size--it is a matter of performance that makes the difference. Luke has played very well and deserves the credit--not the blame--for the fact that he is playing.

Cheese says it means we do not have a decent 4 and so recruiting has been terrible. I say it is because Luke is a real all around player who can do a lot of things that big strong 6' 8" guys cannot do. Sure, he cannot do what the pf for NC--Wright--can do but he played his butt off against him and did better than most players who play against him on tv who are the big strong types that are so hyped some of the posters here. I have watched NC play 5 times and Wright dominated a number of the so called power forwards. Wright is a lottery pick in the draft and a potential NBA all star. Yet he did not have a lights out game against Luke on the offensive end and his blocks, which were spectacular, would have come against our guards regardless of who we were playing. In fact, he was forced to come out of the paint to guard Luke so it opened Ian somewhat and kept a shot blocker away from some of our other shots.

Why won't people just give Luke credit for playing well and hard and effectively and forget all of this negative crap?

[slu72]

Agreed, negative against UB, but true and he said the same thing at the beginning of the year. Nothing against LM.....I like him. Hard to argue w/ 17-5. Am sure the Eagles didn't want Cherry Garcia playing QB, but they're winning. Same w/ Luke. Would I rather have Matt Shaw there, yes. But we don't....

[courtside]

>It is not a matter of hype or size--it is a matter of

>performance that makes the difference. Luke has played very

>well and deserves the credit--not the blame--for the fact

>that he is playing.

>

>Cheese says it means we do not have a decent 4 and so

>recruiting has been terrible. I say it is because Luke is a

>real all around player who can do a lot of things that big

>strong 6' 8" guys cannot do. Sure, he cannot do what the pf

>for NC--Wright--can do but he played his butt off against

>him and did better than most players who play against him on

>tv who are the big strong types that are so hyped some of

>the posters here. I have watched NC play 5 times and Wright

>dominated a number of the so called power forwards. Wright

>is a lottery pick in the draft and a potential NBA all star.

>Yet he did not have a lights out game against Luke on the

>offensive end and his blocks, which were spectacular, would

>have come against our guards regardless of who we were

>playing. In fact, he was forced to come out of the paint to

>guard Luke so it opened Ian somewhat and kept a shot blocker

>away from some of our other shots.

>

>Why won't people just give Luke credit for playing well and

>hard and effectively and forget all of this negative crap?

I think people go to games and root for the team, including LM. They appreciate hard work and efforts and committing to being a rold player when he was a scorer in high school. He isn't good enough to be a big scorer in college. Nobody is picking on him. But when you add up LM, DP, ....etc...it adds up to a bunch of guys trying hard that play because the team did not recruit better players to play those positions. Guys try hard at the other schools too. In an ideal world LM would come off of the bench for so spell minutes and that would be his role on the team. In a real ideal world he wouldn't be ont he team, because recruits would be better than him and he wouldn't find himself a spot.

If that kind of talk offends you, tough. This to my knowledge isn't the let's cheer the guys who try hard board. Then we would cheer most teams in the country. You have the right to not think objectively about the program, as others have the right to do so. Everybody has a different opinion. My opinion happens to be that college hoops is big business. If I wanted to just root for the kid who tried hard, I would only watch high school hoops. BS is a big boy, he understands that he is making the best of his situation getting LM to find some positive contributions to the team. Everyone roots for LM. Cheer cheer. But in objectively discussing the team based on state of the program, and people's goals of the program, it isn't going to be 100% positive because a guy tries hard.

[billiken_roy]

i think luke has surprised coach soderberg as well though. i dont think he expected luke to beat out obi and knollmeyer and justin johnson. johnson and knollmeyer's injuries gave luke the opportunity, and he capitalized on it. you dont hear soderberg making such statements now. he said it in early october but hasnt since.

[cheeseman]

Thank you Courtside. My comments are not attacks on Luke - by the way he has not consistently hit him mid range jumper and his shooting % is up because of his drives to the basket, stats can skew the picture if you are not careful - simply objective observations. Just go back and look at Highmark's comments that I shared, he agrees that we have not stacked good recruiting classes - he knows that of what he speaks about. Finally, if some of you are happy to have a Luke type player as your pf all the time then I guess you do have lower expectations for Brad and the program then me and the money I have been donating to the program the last few years. Perhaps I should reconsider those donations if what you are telling me that it won't get any better than it is now.

[billiken_roy]

so cheese, please tell us what luke's true mid range shooting percentage is? i find it hard to see your point on this issue. what do you think that teams just get out of the way and give luke uncontested layups or something?

[tseugnekillib]

in what years did SLU "stack" good recruiting classes? please go back to

the late 50's or early 60's if you can. (imo, the reason SLU has been overall medicore for 50+ years is that the recruiting has not been at a consistently high level....its not major science)

luke does not score on all of his drives to the basket....nor did highmark! TL and KL make layups as well!

you are getting silly again suggesting that someone stated they would be happy to have a Luke type PF all of the time. However, LM is what we have this season and all of your harping won't change that.

my expectations are as high as any realistic SLU fan. it amazes me that some think they are the only ones with high expectation.....again your silliness.

reconsider your donations if you are a frontrunner.....keep or increase your donations if you truly love SLU and what its student-athletes stand for!

[Schasz]

Heck Cheese if it would get us back to back good recruiting classes then please increase the donation. I think we all want what you do and that is to see the team succeed and success to me is making the NCAA more years than we don't. It has been too long of a dry spell and hopefully Coach will get us to the Dance this year.

[cheeseman]

I have never said that SLU has stacked recruiting classes which is my point. Until they do that we will always have a program that has couple of good years and then a few down years. If we want to break that cycle we have to stack classes. Brad is the person responsible for stacking classes now - if he leaves then the next coach is responsible. Sorry that some of you can not understand this concept. As far as Luke's mid range jumper is concerned - no I do not have a stat on that just my observations from games. For those of you who think that he is really a 48% field goal shooter then fine - by the way do you think that Ian can hit 47% of his perimeter shots? - but can you really tell me that you have confidence in Luke taking that 12-15 ft shoot much less 3pters? I doubt it. I also never said that Brad has to do something to change the situation with having a Luke type player at pf for this year - my comments are for the future and for what could have been if we had recruited better. What gets me is people who taking exception with my comments have said over and over in the past that they just don't see why Brad can not get a pf that can jump and be athletic since places like Tenn. Martin and Western IL find them. How are my comments any different. If I was a front runner, then I would not be giving the program any money since the truth be told, it has not accomplished anything for at the past 7 or more years. So, for those of you who say you have higher expectations but seem to be happy with the recruiting process to date then try getting your heads out of the sand. I have hopes that Brad will recover this spring with some good players either through transfers or jucos or whatever and that he lottos out this fall but hopes don't put food on the table.

[Sheltiedave]

It is pretty easy to assess our recruiting efforts over the past three years.

On a great team, Dwayne and Luke are very capable backups.

On a very good team, one of them is starting.

On a good team, both of them are starting.

On a good team with a very limited bench, they are both starting and seeing over 25 mpg.

With the A10 in a down cycle, we are a very good team, but we are also back to the Anthony Bonner era where we need to be the top dog in the conference to make the dance.