Exile on Waveland

It's sort of what you get when you fire a perfectly good coach and hire a psycho wife beater who had never been above a defensive line coach in his career. The good news is Art Kehoe becomes available to hopefully take the Notre Dame o-line job. Yep. Our AD and Chancellor are complete idiots and have never done anything right. One of their greatest crimes was letting a coach who was 44-29 overall and 25-23 in the SEC. Never understood why they fired Cutcliffe.

Its amazing how many times I have read that LSU would blow out (you put the name of a team here) in a National Title game. I havent seen evidence of LSU being great since the Va Tech game early in the season. Va Tech was not playing well then either. LSU's hype is based mostly on some people insisting that the SEC is in a different league than other conferences. I think they may be the best overall conference, but not so much better that their teams deserve the huge breaks in the polls that their teams are getting. I've been wondering the same thing myself. I see no evidence -- save the Va Tech game forever ago -- that LSU would blow out any decent team. LSU is good, but there is no reason to believe they'd blow out any upper level bowl team.

This deal is comical in its stupidity. Wow.

Only a 13 point win? That seems like a pretty close game for them considering they were playing ISU. At this point in time, they don't play well without Bassett at all. If he misses tomorrow night I'm not sure they'll win. If they play like they did tonight I'm sure they'll lose.

I can't believe people didn't see this coming (I don't mean you, and I don't mean necessarily against George Mason). K-State isn't going to be a top-25 team this year. Maybe if they still had Huggins. Honestly, I was surprised when I saw them in the preseason Top 25. Of course, at that time I was still under the impression that Beasley was a 6-4 guard for some reason, but still. I think they sold their soul to keep that recruiting class, so to speak. I don't think Martin is up to the task of high-major college coach. I agree completely. Martin will turn out to be a big mistake. Keeping together one recruiting class is never a sufficient reason to hire a coach. It's myopic. You guys are nuts! Wait til Sutton gets here in 2 weeks and Hoskins is back.. Without Hoskins, we're missing a key piece of this team. He was 2nd team all Big 12 last year. He adds a whole new piece to this team. Sutton will be another HUGE freshman influence. Sutton, Hoskins, Beasley, and a decent night from Walker makes this a whole different team. What we started tonight was a bunch of inexperience. I don't disagree that Martin needs to be more vocal, but we're fine. I really am one that does think a loss for this young of a team this early in the year is good. Add in our missing pieces, and we're fine. I for one am thinking that keeping Martin to keep the recruiting class was a good move. You all may change your minds come January... We'll make freshmen mistakes and lose a few we shouldn't, but we'll also win some big games. Mark my word. That being said, I do miss Cartier Martin. Hell.. look at what Martin has already layed out for 2009.. I know they haven't "signed" yet, but these commits are great to have this early... From rivals.com Wally Judge PF 6-9 218 - Jacksonville, FL -4 Star Rodney McGruder SG 6-4 195 - Washington, DC - 4 Star Talent is only half the battle. I don't know much about Martin, perhaps he is a good coach. If not, you'll soon realize how little 4 stars means with no one to coach.

I can't believe people didn't see this coming (I don't mean you, and I don't mean necessarily against George Mason). K-State isn't going to be a top-25 team this year. Maybe if they still had Huggins. Honestly, I was surprised when I saw them in the preseason Top 25. Of course, at that time I was still under the impression that Beasley was a 6-4 guard for some reason, but still. I think they sold their soul to keep that recruiting class, so to speak. I don't think Martin is up to the task of high-major college coach. I agree completely. Martin will turn out to be a big mistake. Keeping together one recruiting class is never a sufficient reason to hire a coach. It's myopic. You guys are nuts! Wait til Sutton gets here in 2 weeks and Hoskins is back.. Without Hoskins, we're missing a key piece of this team. He was 2nd team all Big 12 last year. He adds a whole new piece to this team. Sutton will be another HUGE freshman influence. Sutton, Hoskins, Beasley, and a decent night from Walker makes this a whole different team. What we started tonight was a bunch of inexperience. I don't disagree that Martin needs to be more vocal, but we're fine. I really am one that does think a loss for this young of a team this early in the year is good. Add in our missing pieces, and we're fine. I for one am thinking that keeping Martin to keep the recruiting class was a good move. You all may change your minds come January... We'll make freshmen mistakes and lose a few we shouldn't, but we'll also win some big games. Mark my word. That being said, I do miss Cartier Martin. I don't doubt you'll win some big games. Too much talent not to, but that's not much of a goal. K-State won't be as good as you think they will. If I had to guess I'd say they'll be playing in an 8-9 game, but it wouldn't surprise me if they completely imploded. They are young, immature and have a coach that doesn't command respect. That's a terrible recipe. Keeping a coach for one recruiting class is a huge gamble and almost without fail a terrible mistake.

I can't believe people didn't see this coming (I don't mean you, and I don't mean necessarily against George Mason). K-State isn't going to be a top-25 team this year. Maybe if they still had Huggins. Honestly, I was surprised when I saw them in the preseason Top 25. Of course, at that time I was still under the impression that Beasley was a 6-4 guard for some reason, but still. I think they sold their soul to keep that recruiting class, so to speak. I don't think Martin is up to the task of high-major college coach. I agree completely. Martin will turn out to be a big mistake. Keeping together one recruiting class is never a sufficient reason to hire a coach. It's myopic.

I can't believe people didn't see this coming (I don't mean you, and I don't mean necessarily against George Mason). K-State isn't going to be a top-25 team this year. Maybe if they still had Huggins.

Another pretty impressive performance for Illinois, as Okie State is going to win some games. Illinois is going to win quite a few games. However, they're going to struggle against teams with big time offensive firepower (at least ones that can somewhat matchup inside) -- the Illini will slow them down, no doubt, but will still struggle to keep up. I doubt this comes as much of a surprise though.

OJ Mayo > Eric Gordon and its not even close... That's absolutely laughable. Ignore the hype machine. Besides the fact Gordon is better at basketball, Mayo's antics easily push Gordon ahead. In addition to Gordon, Mayo is also an inferior college player to Rose, Love and Beasley. NBA, I don't really know or care about. Mayo's future is something akin to Stephon Marbury -- nice stats for bad teams.

I'm definitely ready for some real opposition for IU.

I hate Mike Davis. Don't care if it's a different one.

Kevin Love is actually good.

Duke is better than us, but the referees have really put the screws to us. Agree on both accounts. I really thought Duke would have major issues with Pruitt and Randle, but fouls neutralize them. They were. Then the referees got involved. True. Too bad, hopefully Illinois can hit a couple shots and pull within eight or so at halftime. Eight exactly. They're still in it. Wow, that 3 nearly went down.

Stomach virus. Love misses a bunny, then hits the side of the backboard, then misses everything, then turns the ball over. That's a productive first 90 seconds, I can't wait to hear Vitale continue to fawn over him. Ah, thanks. Just switched over from the Illinois game.

Duke is better than us, but the referees have really put the screws to us. Agree on both accounts. I really thought Duke would have major issues with Pruitt and Randle, but fouls neutralize them. They were. Then the referees got involved. True. Too bad, hopefully Illinois can hit a couple shots and pull within eight or so at halftime.

Am I missing something, why isn't Neitzel starting?

Duke is better than us, but the referees have really put the screws to us. Agree on both accounts. I really thought Duke would have major issues with Pruitt and Randle, but fouls neutralize them.

This is getting bad. Pruitt with two, Randle with three. Not good. I despise Duke.

All because he changed his mind on Illinois? How many times did you change your mind as an 18 year old? Meanwhile there are two individuals in Illinois' program who are lucky they are still able to walk. That "decison" was worse than Gordon ever made. i keep telling you, i don't know who that is. even if i did, right or wrong makes no difference to me on this issue. i don't care what the rules say, i don't care what the whole state of indiana says, i'm going to hold a huge grudge and you would, too--regardless of how old a kid is. IU knows the feeling of being deserted after supposedly landing major recruits. May did it, and then Josh Smith did it. So it's not like IU's fanbase is completely foreign to being left at the altar at the last minute. I happen to disagree that there needs to necessarily be a huge grudge towards the kids that do those sorts of things, but to each his own opinion. Good luck this year. The Illini should have the best defensive squad in the conference and that makes them dangerous. If anybody is going to shut down Gordon and White in the Big 10, it will be Illinois. josh smith went to the nba, that's way different. He also never made a campus visit. Anyone that naively felt deserted wasn't paying attention.

1. Ebanks will likely be very good, but Gordon is special. IU hasn't had someone like him since Isiah, and I hope we're fortunate enough that we get someone like that every 25 years. That would be a great rate, in my estimation. 2. IU looked good tonight (95-71 over UNC-Wilmington), but I still want to see them tested against a good team. I'll reserve judgment on exactly how good they are until then. They likely play Xavier Saturday night, then Georgia Tech Tuesday and then at Southern Illinois the following Saturday. We'll know a lot more after that. Southern is the non-conference game I'm most worried about. 3. Go Illinois, kick the crap out of Duke. I kind of think the Illini might win this game. I wish they played Marquette tonight and Duke tomorrow, though. That way, I think, they at least come out of Maui with one really good win. I think they'd beat Marquette tonight for sure, Duke is more questionable.

Really? Close and Late- Soriano: 277/335/439 (career) 318/356/578 (2007) Hunter: 259/325/433 (career) 287/357/460 (2007) I don't know where you got the idea that Hunter was a better "clutch" hitter (if those exist), but it appears that they are quite similar with Soriano being a bit better both last year and for their careers. If clutch exists, it certainly can't be found in "close and late" stats.

Illinois was impressive. Arizona State is much improved, at least talent wise.

Don't like them, but UCLA is #1 in my book. Fine, I don't like your school either. :) I want to expound on this, because the more I thought about it, the more annoyed it made me. Why in the world is/was UNC ranked ahead of UCLA? UCLA was better last year (higher RPI, less losses and advanced farther in the tournament), brought in a better recruiting class including exactly what they needed in Kevin Love, lost less talent, has more experience, is a better defensive team, and has at least an equal coach. There also shouldn't really be a "name program" bias; perhaps the West Coast problem. It doesn't make much sense to me.

Don't like them, but UCLA is #1 in my book. Fine, I don't like your school either. :) Ha ha, no worries. UCLA has a great team and I've always liked Ben Howland. And Mata (now Mata-Real, I guess?) was right that IU has the best warmup pants in the nation.