SouthSideRyan

One of the idiot broadcasters thinks there's a chance Dorrell stays with a loss.

Trent Meacham has 20 1st half points off the Illini bench.

With the BC loss earlier, we should be safely in the top 14, so it has no effect.

At least Dorrell's gone.

Something tells me Dick Vitale isn't breaking the news.

Fukodome+Matsui isn't too expensive but Tejada is. Hendry's a joke.

Hate to have to make your visits here into Q&As but is there the slightest bit of rumblings on Tejada. It's driving me nuts that we have this obsession going on with getting a lefty bat in the lineup, and coupled with our glaring hole at SS, yet Tejada's name is never brought up. And Baltimore seems like they're just dying to give him away as well.

We have 6 bench spots, we don't play Dusty ball with our pitching staff anymore. But this is pointless to talk about cause Shelton isn't a lefty with speed.

De Los Santos, Gio, and Sweeny might get it done. Gio can step in if they decide to trade a starter. They already need Gio to step in. Their current rotation has Gavin Floyd as their #5. And Jose Contreras as a starter period.

How far away were those guys? They looked pretty bad from what I think was only 10 yards out. The honchos that sponsor these contest always sound so awful when talking to the guys who do these contests. These things suck.

I haven't a clue what BC was thinking right there.

I don't want to sound cold, but it seems inappropriate to me to have a sign at a football game the ribbon about the tragedy along with the words we will prevail.

Paul Maguire's actually been tolerable in this game. So of course Nessler says without a hint of joking in his voice that it'd be funny if VA Tech threw to the corner of the end zone where Paul was and hit him. Oh, and look a team plays a cushion defense in the 2 minute drill and gets picked apart. Shocking.

It's a 3 point swing, Cotton. Terrible throw by Va Tech. Just a bunch of Big East flunkies. I do think it's funny, and I'm sure you're loving it, that the Big East is a better football conference than the ACC. Imagine if those 3 teams stayed? I don't mind losing the 2 non academic schools but losing BC really bugs me. I assume you mean academic with regards to their athletics programs? Cause as far as I knew Miami and VA Tech were damn good schools.

BC totally effs up downing the ball at around the 2 and knocks it into the end zone instead.

It's a 3 point swing, Cotton. Terrible throw by Va Tech. Just a bunch of Big East flunkies. I do think it's funny, and I'm sure you're loving it, that the Big East is a better football conference than the ACC.

It's a 3 point swing, Cotton. Terrible throw by Va Tech.

Interesting turn over events. He did say he is the head coach and will be the head coach and he has no interest in talking to anyone else. It wasnt a flat out im not going to Michigan but its as close as close gets. All I know is we're left looking like Alabama or ND after this. I don't recall who was Bama spurned by?

We play MSU and Wisconsin twice. We only have Michigan and Purdue once. I was just looking at the schedule too. IU should be favored in all but 2 of their remaining games (the 2 you mentioned). Huh, really messed up on my quick scan of the schedule. I'd put the SIU, OSU, and U of I road games as toss ups. OSU and U of I really depending on development of young guys(for OSU and you guys mainly) and how tight we play in what's going to be a crazy environment in Champaign. Adding in how difficult Big 10 roadies are, I'd probably put you guys as dogs vs. OSU and us. The one thing the top half Big 10 teams absolutely cannot do this year is choke away one of the easy wins. The top 6 have a great oppurtunity to load up with a gaudy win total, and they cannot whiff on that chance, while adding in a 100+ RPI loss to their resume.

Even Meph will think we'd win that one. sagarin has illinois #21 and ucla #22. im jes saying... I was right!!!(Yeah, that win over USC certainly wouldn't jump them one spot either)

For such a crappy conference schools sure do want their coaches. For such a good conference, coaches sure seem to be in a hurry to leave it (Nah, it's vastly improved, and I'd vote West Virginia #1 if I had a vote. It's the also-rans after WV taking the huge leap forward that has really improved things. Having Cincy, USF, and Rutgers get respectable in a hurry has been huge.(I ain't buying UConn) I don't agree with Meph that you're the #2 conference, but you're definitely not the weak sister anymore either.)

Iowa won't win 8 games this year. And that's with the bottom of the Big Ten being very very bad this year. Well, so's the middle of the Big 10. And the top. Big 10 seems to take crap every year for being down, and I think it's usually unfair. But we deserve all the hate we're gonna get this year. Penn St. might make the NIT just from beating up on the dregs. I'm starting to worry about Illinois's tourney chances, cause I could see a scenario where we only get 3 teams in the tourney. I do think it's possible for us to finish top 3, but there's a real mess of similar teams with us, Wisconsin, Ohio St., and Purdue, and if we're all fighting for 1 tourney spot, it's gonna be trouble. The one thing in our favor is some masterful OOC scheduling, not wasting a lot of time with bottom of the barrel teams, instead getting teams like Weber St., Hawaii, Northeastern, and Miami(OH)(along with BCS games against ASU, Duke, OK St., MD, Mizzou, and Arizona.) I thought by now the BCS schools would figure out thow to game the RPI like this. Especially after we heard so much griping when the Valley schools were rated so high in the RPI based on avoiding the Western Carolinas of the world and instead playing the top schools from the low majors. I understand wanting a few warm up games in there against some cupcakes you don't have to worry about, but to load up on these schools in non-con is going to kill you come tourney time, especially in a year when Iowa's looking at an RPI in the 200s, and Northwestern might be threatening to join them. UM and one of PSU or Minnesota could easily be 100+ RPI teams as well. For comparison's sake, U of I played 2 low major schools with (2007)200+ RPI(Tennessee St. and West Carolina) MSU: 5 (Jacksonville, Chicago St., Louisina-Monroe, IUPU-Fort Wayne, San Jose St.) IU: 7 (Chattanooga, Longwood, NC-Wilmington, Tennessee St., West Carolina, Coppin St., Chicago St.) Wisky: 5 (IUPU-FW, Savannah St., FL A&M, Wofford, UW-Milwaukee) OSU: 6 (Columbia, VMI, Coppin St., Presbyterian(1st year D1), Cleveland St., MD-Balt. County) Purdue: 5 (Bethune Cookman, Ball St., TX Southern, Wofford, FIU) Granted, these teams aren't guaranteed to finish with RPIs above 200, nor are some of the others guaranteed to be below it, but success is decently static when it comes to low-major schools. IU could wind up running roughshod over the Big 10(only playing MSU and Wisky once, though they're both roadies) and still wind up with a lower seed due to bad scheduling(and the awfulness of teams like Iowa/NU.) Missing MSU and Wisky at home will actually hurt them, taking away 2 likely wins over top 50 opponents.

Even Meph will think we'd win that one.

I want you all to leave Kirk alone. He's a dreamboat.

Defense. He's one of the best defensive catchers and baseball and can get on base at a decent rate. From 2004-07, Schneider had a total WARP3 of 17.6, while Barrett's was 13.4. Even if you take Barrett's disastrous 2007 out of the equation, Schneider had a better WARP3 each year from 2004 through 2006. Now one could certainly question why the Mets have taken on Brian Schneider and Johnny Estrada. That makes as little sense as Hendry's 2B infatuation. Estrada was just a means to dump Mota.