NeifiIsMyHomeBoy

I like the commit for the Simeon connection, but it calls into question the wisdom of letting James go.

DJ would come into Illinois and be the centerpiece from day one. He's got NBA talent and Groce's offense relies upon the ball being in the PG's hand to create. Abrams is more of a combo, so Jackson would be the only true PG on the roster from day one. As for KBD, he's a kid Illinois cannot afford to lose. He's in our backyard, and we've historically gotten everything we've wanted out of downstate Illinois. When downstate Illinois is producing talent, we don't have to throw ourselves at the altar of the Chicago recruiting gods and beg for scraps.

One more day left of DJ watch. He's not tipping his hand at all, and it looks like a 50/50 tossup. Tomorrow could be a fantastic and classic Illini meltdown. Loyalty is already in pre-meltdown mode. ND sent three coaches including Brey to his open gym last night. I believe I read the Illini were in attendance too. If the kid is thinking about his future, he'll be an Illini. If he wants to stay home, he'll be a domer. Groce has done everything right thus far, and I'd love to grab DJ, but I believe that KBD is the can't miss recruit we are on right now.

Northwestern gets a joke of a win. Beneficiaries of a horrible call on their last drive.

So it looks like we're still in the Parker derby. Barely. http://espn.go.com/chicago/ncb/story/_/id/8307898/illinois-fighting-illini-recruiting-top-recruit-jabari-parker

Very excited for Rizzo to make his debut. This is sure to be one of the brighter spots of the season. My only hope is that the media gives him time to develop, but that's about as likely as me marrying a supermodel.

If only the NYP could have worked in a line about Pujols leaving it would have been the ultimate troll job.

Hamilton is just unreal right now. He's like a living breathing baseball cheat code.

The kid is awesome. He may be a douche, but I love him.

I hope he goes to Marquette out of spite now.

Repeat five times: "This is all part of Theo's plan"

I thought Brust was released from his letter of intent when Lickliter was fired and never made it to campus??? If so that's a totally different situation. It makes total sense that coaches, who don't have to honor their long term contracts and can pack up and leave at any point, are able to exploit athletes who simply don't want to be a part of their program anymore. :roll: It's such baloney.

Minnesota recently blocked 25 schools for someone's who name I can't think of, and Danny Manning at Tulsa is allowing his guard to talk to only 3 schools. Obviously, this is all a PR nightmare. Bo's only had 1 player transfer before (deep bench player, not an expected starter). He went a bit overboard with the list. However, Uthoff hasn't been a saint in all this either. He waited until Bo was on a recruiting trip to tell the program he was leaving, he hasn't talked with anyone about it, Bo offered to fly back to Madison to talk and Uthoff declined, and Uthoff had someone else give his appeal list to the athletic office (the wrong person at that). I'm not gonna defend that this is all going off the deep end, but noone will remember it in 6 months, and barely anyone knew who Uthoff was 6 days ago. Just because other schools have done similar things does not make it right. This is a system problem and right now Bo is the poster child of a broken system. Bo can walk away from a multiyear contract at Wisconsin at any point with almost no consequences, but if a kid on a yearly renewable scholarship wants to leave, he prevents him from going to places where he would have real opportunities to excel. If Bo had only restricted the Big Ten, Iowa St. and Marquette, he probably comes out of this unscathed, because he had a rational reason for blocking each of those schools. Instead, he's gone off the deep end with the ACC.

According to Rivals, Iowa St. recruited Uthoff. I'm unsure of the specifics, but recall it was Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and a couple other programs after him hard. I'm guessing with respect to Iowa St., Ryan feels he put resources into the recruitment where Iowa State was a player, and doesn't want Uthoff at a school he recruited against. I don't have a problem with restricting him from there if that is the case. Blackballing the entire ACC is unacceptable.

Stephens in front of Hill is interesting. Stephens wasn't really dominant in the Upstate 8, and doesn't face a lot of great competition in that league. I'm going to be watching him closely come AAU time. I suspect that a lot of this is carryover from last year which explains why Hamilton is rated so highly. More credible rankings will come after the summer AAU circuit. Either way, it's nice to see that OSU doesn't have 5 top 30 kids committed at this point for a change. Also noteable is the absence of Sterling Brown, the kid is going to be a big time player for someone.

At least Bo is being classy about it. http://www.metrosportsreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6493&catid=184#.T4zultg-aZI.twitter :good: Seems a bit harsh, but rumors are that Iowa State possibly got in his ear. If he really "wanted to be closer to home", that's the only school that he should be upset about. B1G regulations would make it tough to transfer to Herk. He was Bo's top recruit last year, Bo invested time, scholarship, and practice/teachings. I try to consider it like a non-compete in business, or when businesses pay for someone's MBA but require them to stay with them for at least 2 years following. I understand the kid is only 19, but he made a decision and there are consequences. no, it's pretty lame of Bo. Sorry. seriously, give a break. it's NOTHING like a non-compete. your coach is a dick. I didn't have a problem with the no Iowa St., but where Bo went wrong was blacklisting the entire ACC. That's just an [expletive] move.

Dr. James Andrews has lost his touch.

Just blame the bullpen on Mike Thomas.

I want to know where it started to go wrong with Bruce, besides Self's guys leaving, how did he go from building SIU to just crapping the bed at Illinois? Was he really just that far in over his head? I think it had everything to do with the type of players he recruited and his style of communication. I think he'll always struggle with elite type athletes because they don't want to grind games out like his less skilled players in the past have been able to. I think he just fell into the perfect storm with Deron, Dee, and Luther where they were both very good athletes/basketball players and also had very high basketball IQs. I think his coaching style and a less intelligent brand of player was his undoing the last several years because when he had a less skilled, more basketball intelligent guy like Frazier running the point, they were relatively successful. Two words: Jamar Smith. I don't think Bruce or the program ever recovered after that incident.

Can't wait.

That's not really what he said. He said he did some things in his 9 years that had never been done at Illinois. I don't know what Bruce said here, but I've always kind of disagreed with the "he's such a nice guy" narrative we have had consistently shoved down our throats. Maybe he is a great guy privately, but a lot of the time he's come across as petty and insecure publicly. It was a pretty weird interview. He had to know that going on ESPN 1000 was going to be an Illinois-centric interview, but he wasn't really interested in talking about his time in Champaign. The line in question was more of a throwaway deal as he was saying he enjoyed his time there and will remember it fondly. He also mentioned his new purple tie collection more than once. Sure to go well with his awful taste in suits.

That's not really what he said. He said he did some things in his 9 years that had never been done at Illinois. I don't know what Bruce said here, but I've always kind of disagreed with the "he's such a nice guy" narrative we have had consistently shoved down our throats. Maybe he is a great guy privately, but a lot of the time he's come across as petty and insecure publicly. Klee wrote he was afraid to have a beer in public or tell jokes, I don't think he ever felt quite at home at Illinois.

That's not really what he said. He said he did some things in his 9 years that had never been done at Illinois. I'm going off of what I read off of two different message boards. Weber's tenure is real weird when trying to put it in the perspective of the program's history. I think I read something stating that the last five years cumulatively were five of the worst in Illinois history, but then when you add in the early years of his tenure his track record looks quite good. It'll be interesting to see if we look back at his tenure fondly in twenty years. I still love watching tape of 04-05, and my favorite Illini memory is watching Dee light up MSU in the Big Ten opener my freshman year, but the last five years have been brutal and hard to take.

Well there's no denying the first three were fun.

Count me amongst the fans who wants Brandon back. He has a lot of talent, and the opportunity to play in a system which places much more of an emphasis on taking defenders off the dribble, as opposed to creating open looks through off the ball motion, could prove beneficial. We are still going to shoot a lot of threes with Groce, but I am anticipating guys like Brandon and Bertrand will thrive in the system, while spot shooters like DJ will take a step back. Any word on possible transfers? Haven't heard much since the change was announced. Hopefully the new assistant will aid in locking up Hill, and I'm really happy that our position with Nunn has improved in case Malcolm decides to take his talents elsewhere.