illiniguy

I hope this is as good as his career gets. Good luck with that. Kelvin Torbert Bracey Wright, it has happened before. That said I don't think it will here. Gordon is much higher regarded than Bracey. I don't remember the Torbert hype, so I won't comment on how highly he was though of. EJ would be a top 10 pick if he could go pro right now. At no point in his life was Bracey a top 10 pick. Plus, I know this is a high school game, but EJ has gone to the basket more times tonight than Bracey did his whole career in college. Torbert was thought to be pretty much the best HS player in the nation coming out of High School. While he had a fine career at Michigan State(I think he went to 2 Final Fours), his performance definitely didn't match his hype. By his senior year he was second fiddle to Chris Hill and Alan Anderson. Gotcha. Well, it's always a possibility, but I would not bet on it with Gordon. By the way he now has 26 points with 2 min left in the first half. His season average of 33.8 points per game on 60% FG's is about to go up. But, no one would have bet on it with Torbert either. It is a high school game, he is so much stronger than all these kids. I can't believe how fast he is is combined with the strength.

I hope this is as good as his career gets. Good luck with that. Kelvin Torbert Bracey Wright, it has happened before. That said I don't think it will here. Or Frank Williams? Frank might have been the third best player in Illinois that year behind Corey Maggette and Quentin Richardson, but other than that you are spot on. :roll:

I hope this is as good as his career gets. Good luck with that. Kelvin Torbert Bracey Wright, it has happened before. That said I don't think it will here.

I hope this is as good as his career gets. I love how ESPN adds in he decommitted from us. Never happened guys, he just strung us along telling us he was solid.

Well Wiscy does play great defense and arevery well coached. Ithink they would suprise many with how well they would do against those type teams.

Illinois's remaining schedule vs. Minnesota at Northwestern at Indiana vs. Northwestern vs. Michigan at Penn St. at Iowa I'm not saying it's impossible for Illinois to lose 3 of those games(I assume you meant finish 9-7 when saying win 6 of their next 8), but it doesn't look very likely to me. Bruce Weber stated they need to win 6 of their last eight (including tonight's game) to get an invite to the dance. I think they need to go 6-1 in their last seven. Even if they finish 9-7 in the conference, they will likely lose their first round Big Ten conference tourney game and I think they wouldn't get invited if that happens. I'm an IU fan, I don't like U of I, if you want to disregard my opinion because of that, feel free to do so. Unless U of I starts putting it together I think they lose at NU, and IU, and at Iowa. Unless you are UW or OSU road wins are still really tough in this conference. I don't disregard a fan's opinion just because they root for another team than my favorite team. Based on what you wrote, you were agreeing with my feelings toward Illinois right now. Although I wouldn't rule out a loss at PSU as well. This will be the first time in many, many, many years that I won't be sad to see the seniors leaving on senior night. I really don't like this team much. I didn't mean you personally by "you", I just have been in enough arguments in this thread to know what was coming if I didn't include that first sentence. Who are the U of I seniors? Lately we have finished strong. However, those years we were much more talented. We need to just win one at a time and not assume any road wins.

You might not have anymore if we lose tonight.

I just saw this play and I have to say is that referee went down easier than an Argentinian soccer player. I'm not condoning what Mayo did because he shouldn't have even got close to the referee but there was no need for the ref to flop like that. That was a joke, he didn't even warrant a second T. That ref totally baited him. Guess what Joe Ref in three years he will still be a millionaire and you will still be a bad, petty referee for high school basketball.

Does that sound like a bad kid to you? Its not his fault he is growing up in a very violent environment. Your the one that was showing "class" with that comment. I actually hope the kid makes it. I read he got shot at and is moving to IU a little early. Living that way is just a crappy thing for anyone to do, but i feel more for the kids who aren't great at basketball, but want to escape that environment.

yeah, if you call that one intentional, then every foul in that situation inside of 1:30 should be called intentional. The Stanford player was clearly past the UCLA player and he reached out for the jersey and made no attempt for the ball. That's an intentional foul. And either way, when you blow a 17 point lead, you don't really deserve to win the game. He just missed the ball by about the foot. He only made contact with the arm and then the jersey after going for the ball. It was a pretty bad call. There were certainly some head scratchers. Aside from the kick called against UCLA that only hit a Stanford player's butt, the biggest head scratcher was definitely the double foul against Mbah a Moute. You don't see that too often. I didn't see the double foul so I can't comment either way on that one. No one saw it Still haven't heard an explanation for it. How did you guys lose that game? You were killing them when I left for work. I am so impressed with Afflalo.(sp)? I had no idea he was that good, I mean I knew he was good, but he is gonna be a great pro type good.

An IU recruit did the same thing in high school, and got suspended for over a year for it. It will be interesting to see if something similar happens to Mayo. Just another example of the class Kelvin is bringing in.

And yet an injury ravaged U of I team with a coach that is nothing special without Bill Self's kids just beat IU. Yes they did. We'll see them again though, on their way to the NIT. Not sure I'd be on my high horse if I was an IU fan. You've got to dig pretty far back into that nostalgic past to find any glory. As for the future, I doubt there will be any IU national titles coming, maybe forever. You doubt IU will ever win another national championship? Ever? Um, ok. I'm not going to take a bunch of crap from Illinois fans, they have to go all the way back to, never to talk about any of their own National Championships. We have to go far back to find any kind of glory at IU? We were in the National Title game 5 years ago. Um then our glory would be two years ago.

Just quickly glancing at this, it seems like he looks at who has super-prospects close to the majors and judges entire systems based on that. Who does KC have besides Gordon and Butler? Who do the Yankees have besides Hughes? Both these systems, while strong at the top, are quite thin in terms of depth Luke Hochevar Chris Lubanski Zach Greinke Mitch Maier Justin Huber Tyler Lumsden Billy Buckner KC has a much better farm system than we do Hochevar hasn't pitched above A ball, Greinke's no longer a prospect, and Lumsden, Buckner, and Maier are all varying levels of meh. Lubanski looks like a solid prospect and Huber can rake(though I think he's been a hot prospect for about 31 years) though. Hochevar pitched in the AA playoffs. Was great one game and meh the other, that said we all think Jeff ND is a great prospect and in all reality he isn't anywhere near what Luke is.

Just quickly glancing at this, it seems like he looks at who has super-prospects close to the majors and judges entire systems based on that. Who does KC have besides Gordon and Butler? Who do the Yankees have besides Hughes? Both these systems, while strong at the top, are quite thin in terms of depth Luke Hochevar Chris Lubanski Zach Greinke Mitch Maier Justin Huber Tyler Lumsden Billy Buckner KC has a much better farm system than we do

How things have changed in the last 6 months. 6 months ago, I would have wanted Illinois to kill Purdue, but this IU-UI rivalry has become so intense very quickly, and I found myself rooting for freaking Purdue to win a game. HA HA HA you have beat us once in the last what, 5 years now? I wouldn't say it is too intense just yet.

Like Scheyer and Collins together instead of banking two schollys? that could work...hell, i think i'm better than frazier and i haven't played ball in 8 years, hah. He can play, just can't shoot to save his life. He has about 8 boards again and is fourth in the conference in assists.

Like Scheyer and Collins together instead of banking two schollys?

Nice david teague is going off.

This reminds me of that article by ? who said having Dusty was like 5 free wins each year for the Cubs back in '04. Good call by whoever wrote that one.

Seriously? Hey they looked into the steroid thing. Duke wins at least two games a year because of terrible clock keeping, how does this happen we have replay to make sure this crap doesn't happen. By the way best avatar ever.

Unreal how badly Clemson got screwed out of that game against Duke. At what point does someone within the NCAA look into this? Hell why doesn't Congress? People bet on these games that are obviously fixed all the time.

Not quite sure how Pujols is "overachieving." He was drafted low mostly because no one had seen him and he had just arrived in the US. Maybe he wasn't expected to be one of the greatest hitters of all time, but he always had talent and was projected as a middle of the order hitter. Prior shouldn't really count as a good pick: Terry Ryan essentially made that pick for him. Willis was a pretty good pick, but one good pick doesn't make a good scouting director. Since Stocksill came over, we've had one good position prospect (signed out of Latin America) and some OK pitching prospects with average ceilings. The only one with a high ceiling (Guzman), was signed as FA by Hendry after KC released him. Rich Hill might have been drafted by Hendry too Oh I don't know he was on no ones top prospect lists and then goes on to be the best hitter in the history of baseball(or at least in the argument). I can see where someone wouldn't consider that as an overachiever Well he was in the Cardinals' system for one full year before going to Majors, and he made the Cardinal's top prospect list for Baseball America. Maybe you didn't hear about him for years like other top prospects because he made the Cardinals out of A ball. Usually, players without talent don't make their major league team out of Class A. In fact, only special players do. Right I know he made a heck of a jump, but who could have predicted any young guytogo onto to immediately do what Albert has done? Without that the Astros have a lot of NL Pennants.

Not quite sure how Pujols is "overachieving." He was drafted low mostly because no one had seen him and he had just arrived in the US. Maybe he wasn't expected to be one of the greatest hitters of all time, but he always had talent and was projected as a middle of the order hitter. Prior shouldn't really count as a good pick: Terry Ryan essentially made that pick for him. Willis was a pretty good pick, but one good pick doesn't make a good scouting director. Since Stocksill came over, we've had one good position prospect (signed out of Latin America) and some OK pitching prospects with average ceilings. The only one with a high ceiling (Guzman), was signed as FA by Hendry after KC released him. Rich Hill might have been drafted by Hendry too Oh I don't know he was on no ones top prospect lists and then goes on to be the best hitter in the history of baseball(or at least in the argument). I can see where someone wouldn't consider that as an overachiever

Pretty much every team goes through that funky 7 to 10 day stretch when they struggle. The key of course is to take advantage of that timeframe! Not when they are way better than the rest of the league. We didn't two years ago and I doubt Wiscy does this year. They've already squeaked by a couple of their conference opponents. If they keep letting their conference opponents get them down to the last 5 minutes with a tie game, eventually they are going to lose a couple of games. Yeah a couple of games, maybe. I guess you don't plan on losing again the rest of the year. Or maybe they got through their bad games with wins. They already won at Illinois. They got two real potential losses left, @OSU and @IU. That said they will probably split those and might drop one to another team, but there is no way you guys run the table. It is between Wiscy and OSU.

The recent failure of the farm system can be blamed on John Stocksill. Hendry hasn't been a very good GM, but he built one of the best farm systems in the game, and was clearly a terrific scouting director. There's plenty of blame to go around either way. GMs are responsible for the big league club and the farm system. If they hire the wrong people at either level, they have to take some of the blame. Hendry didn't overwork Prior and Wood himself, but he hired the man that did. Also, Hendry only took over as GM in 2002 but the best farm system in the game he had built ended up producing good pitchers and nobody worth a dip anywhere else. It's a mixed bag. The pitching talent in the system has been very good, and is still OK as we have some legit prospects in Veal, Gallagher and several B-prospects like Marshall, Mateo, Marmol, Guzman, Ryu. The position player talent has been average at best and is terrible at the moment. In hindsight, it seems what Hendry looks for in pitchers works pretty well, but what he looks for in hitters is betraying him, and it's not really changed since he was scouting director. I'll give him credit for taking a god-awful minor league system in the mid-90's and making it respectable, but let's step back and realize that very few Cub non-pitchers have actually stuck in the bigs since then. It's hard to blame Hendry for the farm system's fall after he became GM. When you hire a scouting director, you need to give him at least 3-4 years before you can make a determination as to whether his drafts/signings have been successful. Stocksill got about 4 years, and it turned out he sucked. Didn't Stocksill draft Prior and Willis? With some more talented pitchers on the way?? To give him all of the blame is silly. This list is foolish. Lets say that Albert Pujols doesn't end up being the most overachieving player of all time. The Cardinals would have been downright Cub bad the last few yers and not nearly as many would have been as high on Jocketty.