champaignchris

They’re just not consistent enough to string together four wins against good teams. Unfortunately, I don’t see them getting to the second weekend. As fantastic as Underwood has been in turning this program around, he’s eventually going to have to go on a tournament run. He’s 0-5 in getting to the second weekend of the tournament for his career. If he doesn’t alter that trajectory, discontent is going to start creeping in.

Ugh. Just cannot catch a break. Looking forward to next year… Frazier, Williams and Plummer are the only guys out of eligibility. Grandison and Hutcherson both have their COVID year left. I’d assume Grandison will be back if he wants to be. Hutcherson has played a grand total of 4 games in the last three seasons, and I’d assume his basketball career is over. I hope he proves me wrong. Kofi actually has two years of eligibility left - his senior year and COVID year. The consensus opinion is that he’s gone after this year. But given the lack of draft buzz for him, I’d never say never. I doubt anyone relevant transfers, but there could always be a surprise. Miller last year and Griffin the year before were both guys that the coaching staff wanted back. They’re bringing in Dainja, a big man transfer from Baylor who was highly recruited out of high school and three freshman for a nice top-25-ish recruiting class. A late transfer in is never out of the question in this day and age - see Plummer. Assuming Kofi isn’t back, you probably have Curbelo starting at point, with Pods backing him up, Goode at the 2, Melendez and Grandison splitting time at the 3, Hawkins as a stretch 4 or small-ball 5, and Dainja and Payne splitting time at the 5. Verdonk provides front court depth and the freshmen are your backcourt backups. That’s an inexperienced, really athletic team that will get up and down the court quickly. They’ll likely play much more like Underwood’s S.F. Austin teams. They’ll probably be very fun to watch but not very good unless Hawkins, Melendez and Curbelo all make quantum leaps in their play. (Which could totally happen.) If Kofi comes back, the calculation would completely change, and they’d be a pre-season top 10.

With the new NIL rules and Kofi still not showing up high on the draft boards, it might make financial sense for him to come back to Illinois for his senior year. But with the officiating the way it is, I don’t see that making any sense from a basketball perspective. “Come back to school and get beat on by three guys every time you touch the ball.” It’s just not basketball. You’d think that would be something the Big 10 would want to address in terms of keeping big names in the League. And side note, as a child of the 70s, it’s so weird to me that so many NBA scouts seem to think there’s no place in the League for a guy with Kofi’s size and athleticism. 30 years ago he would have been a top 5 pick. I know, the game’s changed, etc. It’s still weird.

I think that’s AD Whitman’s area, and I am absolutely sure he’s doing everything he can to advocate for his program. Check out this thread: Kofi has only fouled out 3 times in his career. Brian Dorsey was the official for all three of those games. He called 9 of the 15 fouls Kofi incurred in those games and 11 of the 19 fouls Kofi’s incurred in the 5 games he’s officiated Kofi overall.

This has been a frustrating season for me as an Illini fan. All the injuries and lost games, it just seems like they can’t quite get all the pieces together. Not to mention the incredibly inconsistent officiating on Kofi. (More so what opponents are allowed to do to him than what the officials allow Kofi to do.) Despite what looks like a 2nd place finish in the Big 10, a likely #3-ish seed, and all the metrics pointing to this being a top 15 team in the county, I can’t help but feeling this team inconsistency is going to limit them from going on a nice NCAA run. Go on one of those 10-minute lulls they always seem to go through and they won’t make it out of the round of 32 again.

Illinois’ loss to them keeps looking worse. Every team team that beats Illinois doesn’t immediately go into a slide after their win. It just seems that way.

My barber has daughters at Murray St. She says Morant is still very active at the school, including occasionally taking a bus full of kids down to Grizzlies games. He is, of course, absolutely revered there.

It's been like 3 different coaches, completely different teams, but like clockwork they lose all February long which always include a couple blown 2nd half leads, a Wisconsin loss, and somehow always a loss to a bad Northwestern, Rutgers or Nebraska team. Rutgers is a good squad and honestly I'm pretty nervous with them facing Illinois. No argument on the other two, but Northwestern does seem to at least keep it close the majority of the time. Pikiell doesn’t get enough credit for the job he’s done at Rutgers.

The notion that companies formed to play baseball would make more money not playing baseball is completely ludicrous.

Bears owners are incompetent. But I don’t think they’re slime and I don’t question their desire to win. (Just their ability.) I’d be shocked if something came out about them like this.

Art Shell is the paradigmatic example of the Black coaching experience in the NFL to me. In his first go with the Raiders he had winning seasons in 5 of his 6 years including his last two before being fired. Didn’t get another head coaching gig for 12 years after that. It was the Raiders again. He was given one season and then fired again. The Raiders had 5 or fewer wins in the three seasons before and after he was there. So it’s not like he ruined a successful run in his single season. Never had a head coaching gig again.

They didn’t just not score. The Illini got the rebound and tossed it all the way down the court for a dunk. Rough game. Kofi didn’t get a lot of help on the offensive side of the court. They need Curbelo to finally come back. Frazier looks gassed out there.

The guy who oversaw Carson Wentz's complete decline? Sign me up! It was the year after Groh was gone and Pedersen took over as OC that Wentz imploded. Not saying Groh is any good. Just looking for an obvious candidate that Eberflus has worked with before.

Mike Groh for OC?

With the new GM/HC coming in, this next season is essentially a make or break season for Fields. If he doesn’t firmly establish himself as a quality starter, the new regime will have no choice but to look at other options. We’ve all seen this movie. If Fields struggles in year 2, the Bears will bring in someone to “compete for the position” in year 3. The team will spend his year 3 going back and forth between Fields and Gardner Minshew or whomever, and the Bears will fully move on ahead of year four. They decline to pick up his 5th year option and draft the new regime’s choice to be the franchise QB. There will probably be some offensive coordinators fired in there, too. It really doesn’t have anything to do with Fields’ talent or potential. He’s been set up to fail from the start and the only thing he can do to prevent it is have something close to an All Pro year next season.

Almost certain they held out Curbelo so long because they felt like they brought Ayo back too quickly last year.

Crazy double OT game. Kofi’s quick 3rd and 4th fouls early in the second half and Stefanovic going off ended up being the difference. Still, I think for the Illini you take this as a positive, with Curbelo going for 20 points, 5 boards and 3 assists, and looking like the player we’d thought he’d be heading into the year. Illinois is not going to lose too many games the rest of the regular season as he gets integrated back into the lineup.

Curbelo suited up and cleared to play for Illinois this morning against Purdue.

Also Rick Smith.

If you’re going to make a Veterans Committee comparison, I’d make it to Tony Oliva. Fantastic, although a little short peak, with not much outside of that peak. Your prototypical BWAA Hall of Fame pick generally has an unimpeachable 8-10 year peak, and then another 8-10 years of solid performance split between either side of that peak. Lester does not have that. What Lester has going for him - personal story of cancer survivor, played in media heavy markets Boston and Chicago, 3 WS rings, especially 2016 - someone from that 2016 team is going to be in the HoF, a fantastic post season record, well-liked and respected by pretty much everyone who ever played with/against him.

Yeah. There were some comments about the turnover of the assistant coaches and lack of communication between coach and management. Add that to a 7 game losing streak and I can see the firing. Also a 7 game win streak and sweep of a pretty good Belichick led Patriots team. He'll have no shortage of opportunities, I'd hope. I also read a tweet that said Flores was a big reason Watson wanted to go to Miami. So that is pretty interesting as well. There’s still a non-zero chance that Watson never plays another NFL snap. I wouldn’t want my team making a coaching hire based on the possibility of Watson coming aboard.

*googles Brian Flores* *sees skin color* *realizes why Flores didn’t get more time* To be fair, the GM in Miami is black as well and there was reportedly some issues with them getting along. Yeah. There were some comments about the turnover of the assistant coaches and lack of communication between coach and management. Add that to a 7 game losing streak and I can see the firing.

I wish I had a more rational explanation for why I don’t want Harbaugh beyond, “He’s a goober.” His record speaks for itself. The fact that some view his 61-24 record at Michigan as something of a disappointment is more of an indictment of what lunatics college fans and media are than an actual judgment on Harbaugh’s ability. I think the only really valid criticism I can see of Harbaugh’s record is that he tends to wear out his welcome, but if the plan is for him to come to the Bears and win 40-something games in 4 years before moving on, I don’t know why I should object. And yet, I still can’t help feeling that he’d fail spectacularly as Bears HC.

I was at the game and it was very cool. I went back and checked to see if Derozan had played Illinois when he was at USC for his one and done year (he hadn’t) and had completely forgotten that he’d been on the same team with Vucevic and Taj Gibson and was coached by Tim Floyd. They somehow were only sitting at 16-12 before peeling off a few wins in a row and winning the Pac12 tournament before losing to Mich St in the 2nd round of the NCAAs.

I don’t think Nagy is a good coach or that he should be retained. But he’s winning 6 or 7 games this year with a 6 or 7 win roster. Firing him and retaining Pace is utterly senseless.