gatnom

It's amusing how prominent she's become in the past few months. I feel like almost nobody outside of trading knew who ICE was like two months ago, but ever since they got her the vacant senate seat in Georgia recently she's been all over the place.

Higgs almost certainly seems gone. I've heard speculation on Kane's grades, but that's just speculation at this point. I've heard Kipper might not graduate this semester, so he might be sticking around.

QUOTE (Brian @ Feb 28, 2018 -> 09:22 AM) I hope the refs don't screw Illinois tonight. It would be a shame to miss out on the annual beatdown from Michigan in the BTT.

QUOTE (Da_Goob @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 09:44 PM) If none of the freshmen turn into legit players outside of Frazier then Underwood is awful at evaluating players. I think Smith and Damonte will be fine players when it's all said and done. They've both shown flashes this year. Smith has looked horrible most of the season. Not saying he won't ever work out, but I'm not counting on him until he starts playing better. Damonte has played well as a role player, though, you're right.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jan 11, 2018 -> 09:27 PM) My enthusiasm for Underwood is officially wavering. Kind of a broken record here, but I think it's talent more than anything. They've just got nothing. Dosunmu helps next year, but they need to find about 5 other legit players.

Illinois has zero talent outside of Black and Frazier right now.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Jan 5, 2018 -> 10:27 AM) I mean, their defense is very good (taking into consideration their complete lack of size) and their offense gets them plenty of open shots. I think the "system" is working out just fine. I'm shocked at how poorly this team shoots the ball, especially from 3. I would have bet a lot of money that Finke was going to thrive and average 15+ a game, but he can't hit the broad side of a barn. Their best players are Black, Frazier and Williams. So you're relying heavily on freshman. The positive is that they make a lot of great plays, plays with ahtleticism we haven't seen in a while. There's a lot of potential there. But they're freshman, so they also make awful, untimely mistakes. Mark Smith has been a little bit of a disappointment but he's making typical (and correctable) freshman mistakes. Alstork...I mean I don't know what I expected but he's not the Rayvonte Rice transfer I thought he was going to be. He made so many bone-headed plays in that Minnesota game. Who else is worth anything? Aaron Jordan was a nice story early but I knew that shooting was never going to last just looking at his form. Kipper Nichols is an absolute bust. He's Brian Randle (crazy good athleticism without the skills to match) 10 years later. Lucas didn't take a step in year 2. My glass half full side still says this is a team that should be 2-1 in the big ten if they could just inbound the ball two times. My glass half empty side says that they're 16 games in which is enough of a sample size to show they're not a good shooting team. The offense isn't going to get much better. It's been good so far, but I wonder how sustainable the defense will be into conference play. We're going to get exposed a bit without a rim protector, imo.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 5, 2018 -> 10:13 AM) Michigan is finally playing pretty well! (Looks at schedule next week and sees Purdue and MSU) Damnit! Just wait until Illinois rolls into Ann Arbor tomorrow. /green

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Nov 27, 2017 -> 09:13 AM) The talent they had this year was MAC level, and not high end MAC. The freshmen played because they were better than juniors and seniors, which is terrible. I also saw improvement from individuals but the team has a lot of work to do. But it’s hard to evaluate with so many freshmen playing. Next year should give us a better indication if this is going to work. If love can get us to 7 wins consistently then he was worth every penny. I think we are all seeing the true effect of Beckmann, scandal, Cubit. This wasn't true at every position.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 26, 2017 -> 04:11 PM) That is how you build a program. Barry Alvarez got about half of Wisconsins roster to leave just based off off season workouts. He sucked for a couple of years. Lovie and his coaches apparently don't want Beckman's players and it appears to be a smart decision. I'm fine with what they're doing, but people use the freshman start numbers as a crutch. It's their prerogative if they decide to leave a RB with 6 ypc for his career on the bench because they want to start their freshman with 3 ypc. There honestly aren't many Beckman players left. Something like 8 seniors this year.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 26, 2017 -> 12:33 PM) Unlike most coaches 2 years in, Louie has only had one of his own recruiting classes in uniform. They played more true freshmen than any other school. If they jack Lovie if they suck next year, which they will, they will never be good. I think the bigger concern for Illinois would be if Lovie decides he doesn't need this. The Beckman hire was one of the worst of all time. He gets 4 years regardless, but they purposefully inflated that freshmen number. They pretty much refused to play anybody they didn't recruit.

QUOTE (Sox-35th @ Nov 26, 2017 -> 10:10 AM) What people forget when they talk about Illinois football is that this is a program that is post scandal. If it weren't for the horror at Baylor, Illinois would have been the in scandal. When Beckman took over from Zook, he had some good talent. Beckman made players play through injuries and destroyed the program. Lovie Smith may not be a great college coach, but he should get all the time he needs. No team has success with a O-Line of Freshmen in the B1G. Next year is a big year for Lovie. If he can't find a way to show some sort of progress on the field or a not bottom of the B1G recruiting class, he's pretty done for IMO. He probably already is, but I need to have some hope for something.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 21, 2017 -> 04:28 PM) He's not a third tier coach that would have hurt a player to stay with him. He's a coach that has relied on a slow pace too often. There's a difference. This is true.

For what little it's worth, I also don't think Cuonzo is a very good coach. Felt that way when Illinois fans wanted him more than anything and still feel that way now.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 20, 2017 -> 01:08 PM) You could have added "White Sox not given any". I don't think they're eligible, are they?

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Oct 23, 2017 -> 10:21 PM) What is the beef about? This is so childish. I swear this only happens to Illinois. This is unreal. If Ayo and THT are fine playing together, isn't that all that should matter? If the parents are the issue then have them sit in different sections or something. Ayo's credibility will take a big hit if this were to happen. I feel like you're answering your own question here.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Jun 12, 2017 -> 11:46 PM) I'll fully admit I don't like drafting for need, but our system desperately needs positional talent. I check our minor league box scores every day and there's not even one interesting guy in AA and basically only two guys in high A of note. Adding Robert, Burger, & Sheets will definitely help. Those guys should all start in high A next year along with Adolfo and perhaps Fisher or Basabe. We should also start seeing some of our recent Latin America sigings like Nunez hit low A next year. If we can add a few more positional prospects at the trade deadline or during the offseason, our 2018 rosters will look much better than our 2017 ones. On the drafting for need point, I would be pretty surprised if they didn't group prospects into tiers and if they didn't select somebody from the best available tier.

Is it weird that I wouldn't mind them drafting Jo Adell but would be disappointed if they drafted Jeren Kendall?

QUOTE (Sox-35th @ May 15, 2017 -> 11:14 AM) Nah, Tilmon is signed with Mizzou. It's done. Is it ever really over with Tilmon? Lol

It's pretty crazy to me that people's hatred of Obama causes them to blame our failed healthcare system entirely on him. Obamacare didn't do enough to fix the system (congress saw to that), but the system was broken long before he tried to help the disadvantaged get healthcare. Gotta make sure we remember who the bad guys are, though.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Apr 11, 2017 -> 11:37 AM) Sports desk told me some s*** with Mizzou should happen today, but take it with a grain of salt. Tilmon got his release this morning, so maybe that?

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 11:35 AM) Good for them. Go back and get Kirr and get Smith and they'll be fine. Doesn't sound like they'll be getting either, but you never know.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Apr 6, 2017 -> 11:03 AM) Sounds like both Tilmon and Illinois are going to mutually part ways. And by mutually, I mean Illinois doesn't think it'd be healthy for a lot of reasons to continue to recruit Tilmon and that he's sold on going elsewhere, so they aren't going to pursue him hard a 3rd time. As I said earlier in the thread, the Braggin' Rights game should be fun this year. Mizzou will definitely have more talent, but can Cuonzo win with it?