thedoctor

scott suggs may announce monday not a lot of encouraging smoke around this one for illinois fans. big surprise.

what a day for tiger.

tribune blog entry, nothing earth-shattering

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 9, 2007 -> 09:25 PM) I'd agree with this if we were talking about professional sports because a single free agent pick up could alter the course of a season. But in sports where recruiting is the key to putting good talent on the court/field, there is no mid-season replacement that could save a program. Ron Turner is a perfect example. He has a big year in football, getting the Illini to a BCS bowl. He's the darling of Champaign. Two years later we're back in the basement of the big ten and not just losing games, but recruiting high school junior varsity players to lose those games. Turner f*cked over the Illini program for 6 years because of his lack of recruiting skills. With Weber I'm torn. I like the guy a lot and think he's a great X's and O's coach. You don't take a team, regardless of the level of talent, to a 37-2 run, one of the greatest teams ever, and not be good at what you do. Nor do I fault the guy for a lot of the recruiting woes. The first year or two expectations were too high. You can't sign a player like julian wright or sherron collins when you pick up and dial the phone and talk to the recruits for the first time 3-4 months before the signing period begins. He jumped up to a different level of recruiting from SIU and had to establish relationships. Heck, coaches now are getting verbals from freshman in high school (weber included). That's insane. It shows you how early you have to start on these relationships. Nor can you fault the guy for not bringing in a guy like Scheyer who has been in love and recruited by dook since he was little. And last year he gets arguably the number one player in the nation (and probably the second best in rose) if the unnamed douche hadn't reneged on his verbal COMMITMENT (no hard feelings there right?). Without that guy taking back his word these discussions don't happen. All that said, I am concerned about the 08 class. Bring in Suggs, Miller, etc and I think we're fine, but if he can't close the deal this year and next then I'll be right there with the rest of you waiving my hand as he strolls out of Assembly Hall for the last time. i think all of those points are valid and well thought out. with that said, in every recruitment there are plenty of reasons a coach will not succeed, yet many coaches are able to overcome those. taken separately, you can accept the explanation in each of those circumstances because as i said there is validity to each of those examples. but taken as a group, it's a bit hard to swallow a continuous line of excuses. there are many more reasons for a recruit to choose illinois than not, yet this message is somehow not making its way to recruits in an effective manner. that is on weber, because he is ultimately accountable for everything happening within the program. but i do agree that i don't see weber's job as remotely on the line yet. it will take a precipitous drop-off in wins for that to occur, and honestly i don't see that happening this year. it is typical message-board generated nonsense with no basis in reality. every board eventually falls into factions of people who line up to support their particular view of what a team needs to do to succeed. for bears fans it's the grossman debate, for sox fans it's the yearly debate over the moves management is making (among others), for bulls fans it's the debate over whether to let the core mature or trade guys for a big-name player who could put the organization over the top. it happens on every single board i've ever seen. oftentimes it gives those posting on boards an unrealistic perception of what is actually happening. the joe average illini fan probably doesn't spend tons of time on message boards following every little recruiting development. thus, he may be vaguely aware that weber is having recruiting issues, but is he thinking the coach should be fired? unlikely. same with guenther. i can just about guarantee he pays little or not attention to what is posted on the internet. hell, he didn't even know who greg doyel was, when the great majority of illinois fan board posters thought the guy was the devil incarnate.

QUOTE(Jimbo's Drinker @ Aug 9, 2007 -> 06:45 PM) Jeebus what a messy post. Just say this: WEBER CANT RECRUIT i'd take you seriously if you ever posted anything remotely intelligible.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Aug 9, 2007 -> 06:18 PM) Well, people gripe if all he brings in is lower rated guys that might be fringe top-100 types, and people gripe if he tries to get the top recruits and misses. Personally I don't really care as long as he succeeds, and last year was the first time it had an impact on their record. I'm not ready to throw him under the bus quite yet, so far he's had one "bad" year, though it was marked by quite a few off the court incidents as well. The team isn't totally devoid of talent, so there is a chance to rebound. If he strings together a few more like last year though, you have to start wondering. agreed. anyone talking about an imminent firing isn't clear with the way ron guenther operates. if anything, the off court issues probably would push him closer to a firing than recruiting misses would. only time will tell whether those issues were isolated or evidence of a prgram that's out of control. at this point i'd tend to think the latter, although as an alumni i'm embarrassed by what's transpired off the court in the last year. in terms of the recruiting, it is no surprise that shumpert eliminated illinois. i've been fairly critical of weber's recruiting, but on this one i am not sure that he is totally to blame. from what i have heard, shumpert had a personality conflict with one or more members of the existing roster. this played into the decision. either way, i expect he'll choose unc, because it's clear that he's a big fan of the acc. as for illinois, whoever is to blame it's increasingly frustrating to see our top targets go elsewhere. now we are down to two targets who we are reportedly in good shape with right now. that said, we've been in good shape with plenty of recruits, it's closing that's been the issue and that is on weber. now, i don't think not landing these two kids would be disastrous in terms of the program because the 2008 class is weak and there really aren't any program changers out there. that said, this team badly needs a nice recruiting victory for perception's sake. that stuff matters to kids and future recruits and if kids see recruit after recruit spurning the program they're going to think something is amiss whether or not it really is. edit: apologies for the poorly written run-on sentences.

QUOTE(Sonik22 @ Aug 8, 2007 -> 03:41 PM) Being a Buckeye fan, I'm scared because he looks 10x the talent that Hart is! he's no beanie.

eight strikeouts for danks. he's dealing tonight.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2007 -> 05:17 PM) Even if Jose was good the rest of the way, I still don't think anyone would take a chance on him without us picking up a good portion of his contract. And if he was good enough for someone to be interested ,there's no way the Sox would deal him for the bottom-dollar price we'd have to accept back in terms of talent. Our only hope on Jose is that he figures things out before next season. End of story. well, then we're pretty much screwed aren't we?

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 7, 2007 -> 05:07 PM) Contreras is/was available for nothing except the balance of his contract. Nobody bit. The only way the Sox get rid of him is if they take on an equally unappealing contract or pick up most of whats left on Contreras' deal. If its the latter, they are much better off keeping him. to get anyone to take contreras he's going to need to show something the rest of the way. i'm not sure that's possible, but it's not like we haven't seen him go from real bad to real good in a short stretch of time before.

QUOTE(Steff @ Aug 7, 2007 -> 02:32 PM) Don't make me respond to you in broad lingo... to clarify, to you mean lingo that covers a wide variety of areas, or lingo that, you know, comes from a broad?

QUOTE(Maverick0984 @ Aug 7, 2007 -> 01:43 PM) Sorry, the page you requested could not be found. hmm. that's weird. sun-times site must be having issues because you can't link to the story off their main sports page. anyhow, the gist of the story is that when he was having discussions with kw around the time he re-signed, buehrle came away with the impression that the sox would be active in the free agent market and intended to load up in the offseason instead of trading guys away. edit: link is working now.

sun-times story

QUOTE(Shadows @ Aug 6, 2007 -> 09:51 PM) Yep, I know this. He needs to work on his route running big time. However, this year guys like Chris Chambers, Marty Booker, and Derek Hagan will be in front of him. All they will expect from Ginn on offense this season will be to run the occasional reverse and stretch the field while he gets the work he needs to become a solid WR in the league. well, it's more than his route-running. it's how he gets off the line, how he moves his hips, how he catches the ball, etc. etc. ginn was brought to ohio state to be a defensive back and up until a year ago he was still claiming that that's where his future was. frankly, i tend to think he'd have been a better and more natural db. either way, though, i know this seems like i'm bashing ginn but i'm not. i do think he'll be an impact player eventually, and this year he will no doubt give you a few of those "whoa" moments.

QUOTE(Shadows @ Aug 6, 2007 -> 07:03 PM) Smart GMs, a known three of them, were set to take Ginn 9,10, and 12-13 whichever St. Louis had. Ginn has game changing speed, he is a raw receiver who could become a pretty damn good player. having seen just about every snap of his college career, i think ginn has a long way to go to become an nfl caliber receiver. i'm not saying he won't eventually be there, but he is really raw in terms of receiving skills at this point.

good chicago tribune blog entry on lost

darius miller's recruitment heating up, lewis jackson narrows list

iman shumpert visits bradley

well, at least jose will fit right in with those guys.

QUOTE(Brian @ Jul 28, 2007 -> 01:48 AM) Joseph Bertrand from Sterling chooses SIU over Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and others. nice get for siu. bertrand is a promising player and i was hoping illinois would offer at some point. oh, well. any link for this?

QUOTE(IowaSoxFan @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 08:55 PM) I disagree, with teams that feel they are still in a pennant race, they may be inclined to give up more now than they will when starting from scratch in the offseason. I think there were too many teams that needed starting pitching not to get a deal done. how many significant starting pitchers moved before the deadline? how many significant starting pitchers were moved for impressive packages of good young players? the reality of this deadline would seem to be at odds with your perception.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 08:42 PM) This trade deadline was not going to make or break the Sox, and in fact Im glad none of our major players were traded *outside of Dye* because my guess is that Garland or Vaz would have been a package that would make most people throw up. agree completely. i'm not sure what deal that was going to be done today was going to dramatically alter the immediate or long-term health of the organization. iguchi and mack? these are throwaway salary deals. to me, getting worked up over either is a waste of time. as for dye, for whatever reason the market wasn't great. i'd much rather hold on to him than deal him for nothing, and at this point it appears he wasn't going to get much in return. i'd love to deal contreras, and it still wouldn't surprise me to see him slip through waivers (especially if pedro doesn't have it when he returns). that said, trading him now is trading him at as low of a value as he's had since he came here. what's the sense in that? if he sucks the rest of this year you probably can still deal him for the same crap package you'd get today. on the off-chance he improves (wouldn't surprise me, we've seen him go from real s***ty to real good in a short period of time before) then it was wise to not peddle him. as for dealing vaz or garland, i still think one is probably gone in the offseason. to me, trading either today versus in the offseason makes no difference.

wah.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 31, 2007 -> 07:52 PM) Yes. thanks. i think i killed the "refresh" button today.