hawkeyecub

Ugh and after playing 7 minutes Saturday, Cyrus Tate is out tonight against Wisconsin. Penn State could be looking at a serious tailspin. In about 20 minutes they'll be 6-6. They then have Minnesota at home, @ Illinois, @ Ohio State, IU at home, Illinois at home and @ Iowa. If they don't get Minnesota they're probably looking at 6 straight losses. They'll get IU but I see a split at best in the last two games. From 17-5, 6-3 to a very possible 19-12, 8-10 and an NIT bid.

Why is that?

they have very few passable players. that will change soon, though. My God I can't wait until all of those guys actually get there so we don't have to hear about the next 3 years and all of the studs you'll have every week. For like the last 2-3 years all Illinois fans talk about are guys who aren't even playing on the team. It was nothing but E.J. for how long, then last year and in the off season we heard about what a stud Legion was (that's turning out well) and how unstoppable you would be once you had him, young Derron Williams, Paul, Richardson, etc. I eagerly await the Illini reign of dominance just so you will actually discuss the present and not end every argument with "but we've got studs on the way." I feel like I'm in a warped discussion of the future of the Cubs with our farm system in 2002. i don't think i ever crowed about ej or legion, i was glad that we got them, but i'm much more excited about the next 2 years of recruits coming in. just relax, i in no way mentioned iowa or their perpetual lack of relevance. You honestly don't think you ever crowed about EJ? If you didn't, you were the only one. Last year and in the offseason I think I read at least 12,873 times "Thank God we won't have to watch Meachem and Frazier in the Big Ten next year. We've got Legion coming!" It's not a knock on your program or the recruits. I just can't wait until you go 38-0 for 3 straight years so your fans actually live in the present and every discussion doesn't end in "Wait til next year when we have all our studs". We've been hearing it in some form for 3 years.

they have very few passable players. that will change soon, though. My God I can't wait until all of those guys actually get there so we don't have to hear about the next 3 years and all of the studs you'll have every week. For like the last 2-3 years all Illinois fans talk about are guys who aren't even playing on the team. It was nothing but E.J. for how long, then last year and in the off season we heard about what a stud Legion was (that's turning out well) and how unstoppable you would be once you had him, young Derron Williams, Paul, Richardson, etc. I eagerly await the Illini reign of dominance just so you will actually discuss the present and not end every argument with "but we've got studs on the way." I feel like I'm in a warped discussion of the future of the Cubs with our farm system in 2002. You guys could be excited for the future as well. If you had any talent coming in. That and I love how a ranked team in the top 20 isn't at all relevant this year. Great point! Now show me where I said your team wasn't at all relevant this year. And wait, you actually have guys to be excited about? How is that possible? You ranted like a lunatic for 4 years that your coach was the worst recruiter in history and should be fired? Excellent prognostications indeed.

they have very few passable players. that will change soon, though. My God I can't wait until all of those guys actually get there so we don't have to hear about the next 3 years and all of the studs you'll have every week. For like the last 2-3 years all Illinois fans talk about are guys who aren't even playing on the team. It was nothing but E.J. for how long, then last year and in the off season we heard about what a stud Legion was (that's turning out well) and how unstoppable you would be once you had him, young Derron Williams, Paul, Richardson, etc. I eagerly await the Illini reign of dominance just so you will actually discuss the present and not end every argument with "but we've got studs on the way." I feel like I'm in a warped discussion of the future of the Cubs with our farm system in 2002.

When I woke up this morning I really did not expect someone to remind me of Neil Fingleton.

Dude your team just had a huge win over your biggest rival, will be going to the NCAA's for the first time in 5 years (as a good seed likely), will be ranked in the top 15 next week and you're worrying about making a case for why it's okay to rush the court. If I were in your position, I really wouldn't care. In fact I'd be telling them to charge that biatch.

I wish that had happened before the Iowa game. Eh, he only went for 27 points on 8-9 shooting, 5-5 from 3 and 6-8 from the free throw line with.

He'll have a nice, long career overseas. Who can he guard in the NBA? He's a 6'5 banger who isn't a particularly good ball handler or passer and rarely shoots from outside. In fact, he hasn't been a great rebounder in the Big Ten if you look at his rate stats.

Feels good to get a win again as ugly as it was. Northwestern forced us into a ton of turnovers like they do with everyone but we shot well enough and played enough defense to pull it out. Coble was non-existent tonight. Gatens shut him down. He decided in and after the IU game he needs to take on a leadership role and it's about time. He's the best player on the team and will be the guy for 3 more years. Tate gave it everything he could but he clearly cannot leap off his bad ankle. I'm clearly a homer but we have at least 2 more Big Ten wins if he had been healthy. Or Tucker.

In the '80's we were a top 20 program with a Final Four, Elite 8 (which we lost despite a 20 point halftime lead) and were ranked #1 in three different seasons. In the '90's we were a team that was consistently in the upper half of the Big Ten, in the NCAA's 2/3 years and won our first game every time. Then we hired the hot name guy as new coach. He signed a top 5 recruiting class his first year AND brought in Luke Recker. In '01 we were 17-4 and sitting 1st in the Big Ten in late January until Recker went down for the year. The next year we were preseason top 10 and failed to make the NCAA's. When we finally had a big year in '06 and got a 3 seed in the tournament we got bounced on a buzzer beater. Alford killed much of the fan base. We've made the NCAA's 3 times since 2000 and have won one game. We thought we hired the guy who would bring fans back and could win without having 5-star recruits. He still may be but some of the optimism is gone. That tells you what's going on. This sucks.

So what exactly is his deal? I noticed on the Iowa boards that he is getting killed right now. I thought he would be a better fit there. Last year was the honeymoon year and everyone understood that. This year expectations were a little higher but tempered. They looked pretty good against decent teams in the non-conference and went 10-4. They seemed to be improving and the expectation was that the team would get better even if the wins didn't come in big numbers. Many just think his system is boring and will go crazy after any loss. Many are scared by our recruiting. I think everyone thinks he's a hell of a guy who is clean and is trying to win the right way. But people like me who were in his corner are getting frustrated by the fact that at times we've looked just awful in the Big Ten and seem to be regressing. Some of his personnel usage is confusing and he's shown to be blindly stubborn by refusing to play any zone when we're getting killed off the dribble or adjusting the offense to the personnel. In fairness to him Tucker who was our leading scorer and supposed to be a great student got lazy and has missed almost all of the Big Ten season. Cyrus Tate who was our best post player and rebounder has missed 8 Big Ten games. With both of them we probably win 3 more Big Ten games already. One of them and we likely win at least 1-2 of them. His stubbornness could prove to be an asset in the future when this team fully grasps what they need to do.

Wow. Yeah I don't think Iowa is going to be the elite of the conference anytime soon. I'm honestly fearing a PSU or NW run of futility right now. We suck. Cheat to get Barnes. This is your best bet. I've been advocating it for months. His girlfriend is already going to Iowa to play basketball. Pay his mom $300,000 to be secretary. Make his dad head of basketball ops. Maybe even pay the girl to get knocked up. I'm only partly kidding.

I'm really losing faith in Lickliter and his blind stubbornness.

What a disgraceful loss. They didn't even play hard for the first 35 minutes.

Kramer gets a little too much attention from the announcers. That's a load of crap. It's understandable that fans of other teams can't stand the guy. It's another thing to let your hatred blind you to the fact that he's a very good defensive player. I can't really argue this. He does whine a lot, and he does flop on offense. Pretty much every one of his layups ends up with him on the ground. Well the fouling on every possession was hyperbole. Obviously he doesn't and he is a great defender. But he does play extremely physical defense and could probably get called for a foul more often than he does. I liked him as a freshman because of his defense and he seemed to play smart for his age and skill level. I just hate floppers and I especially can't stand floppers who think they never commit a foul on defense. See Ginobli.

I keep telling you people, it's Daniel Moore. I don't know that I'm willing to concede that. They both have annoying styles of play but Moore definitely gets the edge there. Announcers love to praise Moore for his little white guy scrappiness (still waiting for Lavin to do an IU game so we can hear him called a pepperpot 83 times) but Kramer gets all of the tough guy, leads the league in floor burn, scrappiness love. Kramer fouls on every possession, yet has never once been called for a foul without whining. Yet on offense he is a total flopper. If he played a game against himself, every possession would end with offensive Kramer falling down with theatrics and defensive Kramer whining about the call. On top of that we're forced to see his mom at least 15 times every game, often screaming like a lunatic. And you know she's going after the refs for not calling fouls committed against her baby. So you do you hate Curry's mom too? She is at least respectable looking and doesn't scream at the refs like a nutjob.

I keep telling you people, it's Daniel Moore. I don't know that I'm willing to concede that. They both have annoying styles of play but Moore definitely gets the edge there. Announcers love to praise Moore for his little white guy scrappiness (still waiting for Lavin to do an IU game so we can hear him called a pepperpot 83 times) but Kramer gets all of the tough guy, leads the league in floor burn, scrappiness love. Kramer fouls on every possession, yet has never once been called for a foul without whining. Yet on offense he is a total flopper. If he played a game against himself, every possession would end with offensive Kramer falling down with theatrics and defensive Kramer whining about the call. On top of that we're forced to see his mom at least 15 times every game, often screaming like a lunatic. And you know she's going after the refs for not calling fouls committed against her baby.

Come on. The other team self-destructs and gives you a chance ton win and the best you can do is throw it to Lewis Jackson with 6 seconds left and tell him to create? I used to think Chris Kramer was the most annoying person in the Big Ten. Now I can't decide if it's him or his mom. Either way, I wish she would stay and watch the next game in her trailer so I don't have to see her screaming like a lunatic every game.

A Michigan State fan has compiled player ratings for the top 50 players in the Big Ten based on the NBA.com Player Efficiency tool. It's based only on conference games, updated through Sunday. Not perfect, but interesting.

Iowa could make the NIT with a bit of a run (won't happen) but their shot at the NCAA's is the BTT. I'd say they need at least 18 wins(including a BTT win) for an NIT berth. I'm having a hard time finding 5 regular season wins out there. @IU, NU, and UM are reasonable. After that it looks like a few longshots. Wisky has been bad lately, but Kohl is still Kohl. OSU hasn't looked great without Lighty, but he has an outside chance of being back by March 3rd, and they'll likely be playing for their tourney lives. With Iowa's offense, an upset is never out of the picture if they get hot from 3, but the flipside is they can be beat by worse teams if the opposite happens. Well they'd have to win both this week, at Indiana and Northwestern at home. Then you've gotta get Michigan at home and two of the final three (At Northwestern, Ohio State at home, Penn State at home). If Tate is back that's all certainly possible, Pomeroy gives them a better than 50% chance in five. That would get them to 17-14, 7-11 and still probably short of the NIT, unless they had some kind of run in the BTT and losing in the final. In '07 Iowa went 17-14, 9-7 in the Big Ten with Haluska and Tyler Smith and didn't get an NIT invite. Blown leads late and 4 losses against probable Tournament teams by a combined 12 points will keep them out of the postseason. Well maybe they'll get an invite to that stupid CBI.

Illinois hit 9 of their first 10 shots in the second half and shot 65% for the half.

Dude you guys controlled the glass all day. We got some late but were dominated otherwise. Defense went to hell in the second half. Apparently we were unaware Tisdale can shoot. Cole getting his 4th foul was a killer, he was playing well. Although we didn't go to him for some reason in the second half when he was in there. You knew that was going to happen though. We always seem to have that kind of game at Illinois. Play well, lead in the second half and always give it up. We need Tate back so badly.

It's an accomplishment to keep it within 25 at the Breslin Center. We had that run of beating them 5 straight and 6 out of 7 away from the Izzone but get absolutely trounced up there every year. At Illinois we usually play fairly well and keep it close until they inevitably pull away. I predict more of the same tomorrow, resulting in a 12-16 point loss.

Tebow=Blake Griffin? Huh?