Re: College Basketball 2008-2009

[illiniguy]

Come on random T on Illinois just for funzies.

T on Weber for mouth breathing.

[SouthSideRyan]

So I wonder how long before Mr Elbows is back in the IU lineup? Dumes drives me crazy BUT he does know how to score the basketball.

 

I'd imagine he's back next game.

[E.J.]

Come on Michigan. Need a victory today.

[Sosa21MVP]

Awwww Crean and Brucie like each other. :oops:

[SouthSideRyan]

Awwww Crean and Brucie like each other. :oops:

 

Players too. There weren't a lot of hugs and butt pats on the court last year. Though there wasn't really a time winding down, game over moment.

Edited February 15, 2009 by SouthSideRyan

[Sosa21MVP]

Awwww Crean and Brucie like each other. :oops:

 

Players too. There weren't a log of hugs and butt pats on the court last year. Though there wasn't really a time winding down, game over moment.

 

Our gritty, scrappy play warms even the coldest of hearts. lolol

[E.J.]

Northwestern is shooting like 95% from the field to start the game. Bleh.

[bukie]

Northwestern is shooting like 95% from the field to start the game. Bleh.

Best way to beat Northwestern is to let them have their way offensively for 35 minutes, then do nothing but full court press the last 5. It's a sure thing.

[E.J.]

Northwestern is shooting like 95% from the field to start the game. Bleh.

Best way to beat Northwestern is to let them have their way offensively for 35 minutes, then do nothing but full court press the last 5. It's a sure thing.

 

Yeah, but we're talking about Michigan though. A 5-point deficit for Michigan is like a 15-point deficit for other teams. They just don't have people who can score.

[snoodmonger]

Indiana looked like a crappy mid-major. Crean has a lot of work to do. Kelvin really did a number on that program.

[radarluv1]

Indiana looked like a crappy mid-major. Crean has a lot of work to do. Kelvin really did a number on that program.

but they got a year of gordon though. suck on that, urbana!

[TruffleShuffle]

the big ten needs to do an investigation; i am sick and tired of illinois getting screwed by the refs every game. this has to stop!!!

[SouthSideRyan]

the big ten needs to do an investigation; i am sick and tired of illinois getting screwed by the refs every game. this has to stop!!!

 

Yawn.

 

It's a road game, Big Ten homering is brutal. Maybe they do things differently in the Patriot league, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Big Ten fan not agree that road teams get hosed. Find me the ref complaints on games in Champaign.

 

Last game you had a Kansas and Iowa fan laughing at the homering, and this game you had an IU fan jokingly say nice tackle to his own player.

Edited February 15, 2009 by SouthSideRyan

[Sosa21MVP]

Indiana looked like a crappy mid-major. Crean has a lot of work to do. Kelvin really did a number on that program.

 

Fortunately for us Crean has been working hard for months now and we have a recruiting class coming in next season that is Top 10 at worst, maybe even Top 5. If he can get those kids to play as hard as the current group then next season will be a bit more fun to watch.

[CP_414]

the big ten needs to do an investigation; i am sick and tired of illinois getting screwed by the refs every game. this has to stop!!!

 

Lol. It's pretty funny to read the crying about refs every game. In fairness, there just happen to be mostly UI fans here. Every teams fans (internet fans anyway) seem to think they get screwed by refs in every college basketball game. For some reason the crying is a lot more frequent in basketball than football and baseball.

[TruffleShuffle]

the big ten needs to do an investigation; i am sick and tired of illinois getting screwed by the refs every game. this has to stop!!!

 

Yawn.

 

It's a road game, Big Ten homering is brutal. Maybe they do things differently in the Patriot league, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Big Ten fan not agree that road teams get hosed. Find me the ref complaints on games in Champaign.

 

i'll be sure to find some ref complaints in a game in champaign this upcoming week :wink:

[Derwood]

Bad News: If the BTT were to start today, PSU would have to play on day one

Good News: They would get to play Indiana

[Sosa21MVP]

the big ten needs to do an investigation; i am sick and tired of illinois getting screwed by the refs every game. this has to stop!!!

 

Yawn.

 

It's a road game, Big Ten homering is brutal. Maybe they do things differently in the Patriot league, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Big Ten fan not agree that road teams get hosed. Find me the ref complaints on games in Champaign.

 

Last game you had a Kansas and Iowa fan laughing at the homering, and this game you had an IU fan jokingly say nice tackle to his own player.

 

Absolutely correct, I mean I've been watching Big Ten basketball for 22 years now and the road team has always gotten the screw job. It is just an accepted part of life to me so I rarely even complain about it anymore. And sure, it is the same way in other leagues I would think.

 

A road team in the Big Ten has to outplay their opponent to win the game and generally I think when you accomplish that, you win. But you can't expect the refs to help you at all and generally the teams that lose on the road and the fans whine about the officials, I think in most cases you could point more to what the losing team did and did not do as being the deciding factor as opposed to bad calls.

[SouthSideRyan]

Indiana looked like a crappy mid-major. Crean has a lot of work to do. Kelvin really did a number on that program.

 

Fortunately for us Crean has been working hard for months now and we have a recruiting class coming in next season that is Top 10 at worst, maybe even Top 5. If he can get those kids to play as hard as the current group then next season will be a bit more fun to watch.

 

RSCI isn't a huge fan, with IU coming in at 16th as of their November update. This wouldn't take into account Rivers(3 star on rivals) though, and I think the big addition for Indiana next year is depth. Being able to 9 deep without resulting to walks on who can't shoot or dribble or guys who should be redshirting is a big help.

[CubColtPacer]

the big ten needs to do an investigation; i am sick and tired of illinois getting screwed by the refs every game. this has to stop!!!

 

Yawn.

 

It's a road game, Big Ten homering is brutal. Maybe they do things differently in the Patriot league, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Big Ten fan not agree that road teams get hosed. Find me the ref complaints on games in Champaign.

 

Last game you had a Kansas and Iowa fan laughing at the homering, and this game you had an IU fan jokingly say nice tackle to his own player.

 

In fairness to the foul disparity in this game, Indiana was playing a zone for 3/4 of the game and they were letting Illinois have a lot of shots. Illinois only drove the ball into the lane a handful of times today..why would they need to? They could pass it in and get an uncontested layup or have Tisdale come out and shoot a wide open 15 footer. So there really wasn't many situations for UI to get fouls especially shooting fouls.

 

UI on the other hand was playing tough physical defense all day. Add in the fact that Indiana didn't have Dumes and their offense consisted of driving into the lane hard all day or Pritchard taking the ball strong. When Indiana did take it in the lane, Illinois was making an effort to block it on every play. It's not surprising that caused a lot of blocks or bad shots (10 blocks and several plays where the ball didn't even hit rim when it was thrown up there) but also a lot of fouls. Also most of the fouls are going to be shooting fouls playing this type of game. And in this game, a much higher percentage of the fouls for Illinois than normal were shooting fouls going for blocks around the basket.

 

It was the perfect situation to have such a huge foul shot disparity. Of course, it's also not a winning strategy to play that way for IU. They may have avoided foul trouble, but they also let Illinois have whatever shot they wanted for most of the game.

 

That's not to say the game was called perfectly-I thought the technical was questionable (it depends on if Brock said something or not, the bump should not have been called). There were a couple of loose ball situations that went Indiana's way, and my guess is that only one of those should have gone their way. But the game was not officiated very unfairly.

[Sosa21MVP]

Indiana looked like a crappy mid-major. Crean has a lot of work to do. Kelvin really did a number on that program.

 

Fortunately for us Crean has been working hard for months now and we have a recruiting class coming in next season that is Top 10 at worst, maybe even Top 5. If he can get those kids to play as hard as the current group then next season will be a bit more fun to watch.

 

RSCI isn't a huge fan, with IU coming in at 16th as of their November update. This wouldn't take into account Rivers(3 star on rivals) though, and I think the big addition for Indiana next year is depth. Being able to 9 deep without resulting to walks on who can't shoot or dribble or guys who should be redshirting is a big help.

 

I could be mistaken but I think IU is after one more kid and if they get him, it would push them into the Top 10. I really don't follow the recruiting talk as much as others do, I will admit as much.

 

16th still sounds pretty good to me at this point. And yeah getting some depth will be cool. Quality depth.

[Sosa21MVP]

Bad News: If the BTT were to start today, PSU would have to play on day one

Good News: They would get to play Indiana

 

You do realize our annoying scrappy white guys will keep that game close and possibly be in a position to win the game in the last 5 minutes right? \:D/

[CubColtPacer]

Indiana looked like a crappy mid-major. Crean has a lot of work to do. Kelvin really did a number on that program.

 

Fortunately for us Crean has been working hard for months now and we have a recruiting class coming in next season that is Top 10 at worst, maybe even Top 5. If he can get those kids to play as hard as the current group then next season will be a bit more fun to watch.

 

RSCI isn't a huge fan, with IU coming in at 16th as of their November update. This wouldn't take into account Rivers(3 star on rivals) though, and I think the big addition for Indiana next year is depth. Being able to 9 deep without resulting to walks on who can't shoot or dribble or guys who should be redshirting is a big help.

 

Agreed. For example, IU played 7 guys today. That included a not Big 10 caliber player playing probably the most important college position to at least be adequate at (point guard) and another player who should be near the back of a rotation playing 32 minutes in Taber. They can't play these kinds of minutes and even the guys in the rotation can't stay fresh playing 35 minutes a night.

 

Many of IU's players are capable. But there's no one there if they get in foul trouble or if they get tired or if one of them is having an off night. Pritchard has to play so carefully because we've gotten killed when he has to leave the game due to foul trouble. Taber had to get off the floor in a key situation the other night when he was having a solid impact because he was so exhausted. Roth should be a guy who gets minutes if he's shooting well and not if he isn't, but there isn't anybody to replace him in the games where he isn't. Your 7th, 8th, 9th guys might not get that many minutes, but they're vitally important to be capable when they're out there. IU's aren't.

 

BTW, one quick note on Illinois. Out of the 8 teams IU has had to play this year, Illinois has been the hardest to match up against. They played the toughest defense against IU (with the possible exception of Michigan State since they had to face an Indiana team with Dumes), and the only team to be better than Illinois on the offensive end was Ohio State. If they can find a consistent mix over there, they could go places. But I'm not sure if they can because the pieces don't quite fit, and I can't put my finger onto why that is.

[rawaction]

I don't know about the rest of the IU fans, but I have really enjoyed watching this team this year. I didn't think I could or would. This team is absolutely horrible. The talent level may be on the bottom 5% of division 1 basketball, and clearly bottom 10 total in all of major conference basketball. I know it's cliche, but this team does not quit. They started 4 freshman and a senior who was a walk-on today. They only went 7 deep without Dumes, their leading scorer, including 6 freshman and 5 scholarship players.

 

I think with next year's class and the experience gained from this year's group will make this team a tourney team right away. Having an experienced big man like Pritchard next year will be huge. Having a couple experiened PGs with Jones III and Rivers will be great. Having Dumes as a senior and Roth playing with players that can create shots for him will be huge. Going from an 8 man rotation with 1 year of combined experience to a team with 9 years experience (1 for the 6 frosh and Dumes this year, and 2 for Rivers) along with a solid freshman class will be huge for this team.

[Derwood]

Bad News: If the BTT were to start today, PSU would have to play on day one

Good News: They would get to play Indiana

 

You do realize our annoying scrappy white guys will keep that game close and possibly be in a position to win the game in the last 5 minutes right? \:D/

 

it's actually a game without much upside. If PSU wins, it's not a quality win and they've expended energy in the 1st round, and if they lose, they're off the bubble.