Billiken Beat

[Alonzo P Hawk]

per the Post:

Post-Dispatch reporter Tom Timmermann discusses St. Louis University sports — primarily basketball — in “Billiken Beat.†This blog will be updated several times weekly during the basketball season.

link: http://www.stltoday.com/blogs/category/sports-billiken-beat

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*Official Billikens.com sponsor of Mike Beczkala

[Billikenbooster]

This could be good, interesting short read. let's see how much effort he puts into this.

mhg

[Cowboy]

Thanks to Tom and the PD for having this for us SLU fans.

Some stuff I found interesting, including UB's commment that not much will change from the SBU game.

Possible reasons for not changing

-UB thinks the game an anomaly

-UB thinks his system and this team are so good they do not need tweaking

-UB thinks he can go the distance with 7 players

-this could all be posturing to not let Duqu into his plan, but if it is same ole, same ole, it could be ugly

-if not posturing, UB is more hard headed than I thought

[davidnark]

My money says that he is just too damn stubborn to ever change his ways.

[AlumniFan]

Assuming you understand the definition of anomaly, the Bonnie's game was, in fact, an anomaly.

"A strong man stands up for himself; a stronger man stands up for others." - Ben

[Cowboy]

our getting behind seems to be quite normal

UB not using his bench seems quite consistent

[NashvilleBilliken]

In Brad's interview yesterday on the radio he said he was looking to make a few changes early. He had a few things in mind that he wouldn't disclose as to not give away game plans. IMO, if you want to bump up the intesity early, you should press. Especially against a weak team like Duquesne.

[billiken_roy]

i am not a fan of pressing. especially with our team. to effectively press you need some horses and we dont have enough depth to effectively press for sustained periods. if you want to show it every few minutes, fine, but sustained pressing would require far too much energy to stay effective and imo would end up resulting in layups for the opposition and missed shots because of tired legs for us.

i'd prefer to see us switch out of the pack to denial man to man half court. or switch that as well. denial would also give us the capability of stunting for traps at opportune moments.

when we were far less talented athletically 3 or 4 years ago, i had no problem with the pack, but i think the likes of polk, lisch, and brown are athletic enough to play effective denial man to man. and you have smart back defenders like luke and ian to play the needed help.

[SLUDrew]

The make-up of the team and lack of depth is immaterial when you are down late in the game. Against St. Bona the situation at the end of the game CLEARLY dictated that we go into a press to at least try ad force a turnover. We didn't ahve the luxury of allowing them to walk the ball down the floor.

[billiken_roy]

drew, we would have been far more successful letting either lisch or polk pick up the ball full court and the rest of the team switch to denial man to man at the half line. ESPECIALLY that late in the game. a great press is a thing of beauty and is dominating. a weak press or even one player not able to do their job on a full court press is a like a 3 inch hole in the bottom of a bucket of water.

[Cowboy]

roy, i would just like to see us change defense every now and again

also, for me this has been a good bball day, duke lost a home!!!