BruceDouglas

BTN/Fox calling the shots here, they want "content" for Fri/Sun instead of Saturday. The price you pay for raking in that big TV $$.

Frazier, Williams, Grandison, Plummer, Hutcherson.

Finally something I can agree with!

Just for old times sake, I guess. I used to hang out on a bunch of Big Ten boards back when there were a lot of good independent sites, i.e. Illiniboard, Peegs, BadgerManic and tRCMB. Unfortunately many of them went over to Rivals/Scout/247 and mostly behind paywalls. And most of these boards have terrible interfaces so not easy to have any kind of real discussion. I do miss those days. And believe it or not, I do appreciate the different perspective from other B1G fans.

Just saying hi to my buddy Seeking6!

Oh I agree he needs it and think he will have it. I saw a number of his HS games where he made multiple 3s. He's capable.

I don't know that the shooting is such a "big IF", he is a pretty good FT shooter which means he has the form. Turnovers should be better just be being a soph but he's always going to have some just because it's part of his game.

Yes, getting all those kids to the pros has IU in fine shape, right? 🤣 Kofi knows how to defend screens, he's simply too large of a human to be able to move quickly enough. It's why he's staying in college. And honestly, why Illinois was able to land him. And he's probably going to make more money with NIL than he would going overseas, so maybe he comes back and plays a 4th season? I'm sure you'll trot this crap out again then. 🤣 Yeah, Illinois is on solid footing. Preseason top 15 team and again a B1G title contender, a nice freshman class and 2 top 100 guards committed for 2022. After losing a first team All America and soon to be first round NBA draft pick, 3 assistant coaches and another starting guard. BTW, this kind of turnover is going to become more common, so get used to it. You're awfully defensive about it. Heh. Looking forward to extending that winning streak against IU....

Illinois has a guy, Austin Hutcherson. Transferred in from D3, sat out a season and then had back issues (from a car accident in HS) and missed another season. Yet there are people who insist he is a likely starter. Not sure I buy it but would be a pretty amazing story if it happened. Your pick of Curbelo is more sensible, though I also think Trent Frazier will increase his offense quite a bit with Ayo no longer around.

Off season I'm out on the golf course or eating some good bar-b-que, not hanging with the fools here. 🤣 Not sure why you continue to post the draft stuff that makes you look rather foolish. Not sure on the "roster turnover" either, bringing back 9 guys is pretty good these days.

Man, what a crazy off season this has been! Not sure I like this new era but Illinois seems to have come out of it in pretty good shape.

Giorgi is heading home to turn pro. Hasn't seen his family in 2 years so can't blame him. Kofi will enter the draft, good chance he stays in but is a 2nd round pick at best. Small chance he returns but probably also headed overseas somewhere. Some other end of bench guys likely to transfer out. So most like we'll have Curbelo, Hawkins, Granderson back along with Hutcherson who sat out with back issues. Have added the big from Florida who is basically a Giorgi replacement. Need to get another SG, combo to back up Curbelo. Also trying to get the Mitchell kid from UMass. Just seems like a lot of these transfers end up shuffling the deck with similar players ending up replacing another guy much like themselves at a new school. Good times.

Had heard rumors of this during the season but didn't think much of them, assumed they were from the Peoria crowd. Since Adam grew up there but moved to Chicago during his HS career, there were always some negative griping about him during his recruitment, assumed it was from folks bitter that he left their town. Basically he's another kid who wants the ball in his hands, of course he's too small to be a 2G in the pros so wants a PG role and he knows that's not happening at Illinois with Curbello around. So he and his mom are looking elsewhere. Disappointing since he really seemed to be "bought in", turned into a pretty good defender and seemed to accept his role while waiting for Ayo to move on. Tweeted lots of stuff about how the program was "back" after the season, then....*poof*. That's the new normal with the portal and free agency I guess. He's a good player but not irreplaceable. Illini will look a lot different next year! 😬

Last time I checked it looked like this site was dead and gone, some message about needing a sysadmin. Glad to see you are all OK!

Well, they lost to the 13th place team by 18 points. They just lost to the 9th place team. So could they lose 1 game out of 3 to #10, #11, #12? Yes. Probabilities would be around 50/50 I'd guess. The other thing is they only rescheduled home games. Illinois has won more road games than Michigan has played. Our AD may be saying plenty but he's a lawyer and smart enough to do those things out of the public eye. Plus Brad has probably said enough about it as is. And as I said above, if it was agreed upon, it was also likely understood that teams would try to ensure as many games get rescheduled as possible. That didn't happen.

It's not just Illini fans though, other fan bases and media talking about it. Heck, there's an Iowa fan over on the Rivals board who may be madder than any Illini. And those fans hate us as much as you guys. 🤣

Yeah, if the rule was in place and everyone knew about it, then all this discussion now is really quite surprising. But I think the exacerbating factor is - if everyone "agreed" to that, they probably also agreed that programs would be making best efforts to reschedule missed games. Or at least the conference would try to ensure as many games were rescheduled as possible. That clearly didn't happen. And once again, silence as to how/why that happened. We all know "why" though, didn't want a highly seeded, national title contender to play a bunch of games. Oh, unless it's Illinois I guess? If that's the case, then just say so. But nope....crickets. And that's why you're not seeing much mention by the Big Ten as to how Michigan won the conference. All they've said is, "Michigan clinched first place". Nothing at all about using winning %. Because they don't want to go down that path. Leave that door closed.

I'm saying it's not a great source. And you'd think it would be easy to find something directly from the conference, but I've never seen it. Nothing in the listing of official news releases. Even the announcements of rescheduled games, where it would seem to make sense to note this...nada. Anyway, it's pretty clear which side you come down on.

Yeah, I've seen those. Look at the date - March 2nd. A little late in the process to be making such an announcement.

Thanks, but SI is not exactly reliable these days. And still nothing I can find from the conference itself.

Wanted to get your opinions here, does Illinois have a case for co-champs? Or is it just "too bad, them's the rules"? I don't really have much of a beef with Michigan, yes they gamed things a bit when returning from their "pause" but probably most schools would do that. Except for Nebraska I guess? More angry with the Big Ten for allowing it and also just having terrible (really non-existent) communications about the process. And they still never really even came out and said that winning % would be used, just kind of ignored it and then said, "oh hey, look....Michigan won it." We might get a 3rd game Friday if ya'll can knock off Rutgers, just what we all need.

Laughable to actually throw shade at Illinois about player development with All Americans Ayo and Kofi when Archie has done absolutely nothing with TJD and in fact he's gotten worse! Has developed ZERO offense outside of 2' from the hoop. But hey, maybe Archie will have "very lucky" times and he'll come back for another season. BTW, all the continued references to SFA, OSU and KSU just reveal your complete cluelessness. This coming from fans of the program that hired Sampson and Crean! And even the Purdue toady agrees...love it!

We are either going to the Final Four or losing first round. Not sure which.