whitesoxfan101

QUOTE(knightni @ Sep 14, 2007 -> 07:40 PM) Demetrius Jones misses bus to Ann Arbor. Pondering his future perhaps? I've been told he's been back here since Tuesday, and at football team academic meetings the past few days at NIU. If that's accurate, apparently he could be eligible to play next year even though we are 1-A. I can't confirm the eligibility stuff, but I can confirm with 99.99 percent certainty he is now an NIU Huskie, which is pretty exciting for us.

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 14, 2007 -> 03:09 PM) I've been hearing NIU as well. He had quite a bit of interest here originally, and he's a Morgan Park guy just like a couple of our really good players (Melvin Rice, Phil Brown) and is like best friends with them. Plus, he could play here right away. It makes the most sense, but I have to talk to some of my people before I believe it. The insider dude says Jones could be eligible next year too. I'm not a transfer expert, but I don't think that's possible. Then again, I could be confusing basketball and football transfer rules, as basketball occurs during 2 different academic semesters and football is only during 1.

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 14, 2007 -> 02:49 PM) Jones transferred? He just randomly quit the team and school apparently after Claussen was named starter for the Penn State game last week, what a wimp. Anyways, apparently he is considering Tennessee, Arizona State, Illinois, NIU, and Northwestern. I know he has a lot of friends here at NIU and this would be his best chance to get playing time. Thing that sucks for him is I am almost positive he couldn't even play 1-AA next year because you still have to sit out of athletics for 2 academic semesters to be eligible, and thus he wouldn't be eligible for 1-AA until 2nd semester 2008 as a result, when the season is over, due to playing in the opener. EDIT: I guess somebody on the ND insider board said he's coming to NIU. I'll ask around, but I'll believe that when I see it.

A risk that appeared to fail last year now will pay off after all. Illinois beat out Penn State for RB Deries Hodge of Harrisburg, PA last year, only to see him fail to qualify academically after signing the LOI. Well, a year later, Hodge is a 4 star RB at New Milford Military Prep in New York, and he's re-upped his verbal to the Illini. Hodge is 5'11, 206 and runs a 4.4 flat 40 yard dash. The Illini RB depth, despite the solid work of Mendenhall and Dufrene so far, is VERY thin so this is a big get along with Troy Pollard last year and perhaps Lamaar Thomas and/or Mike LeShoure this year. Wow.

Obviously I know this isn't EXACTLY how it works, but maybe we wouldn't be so intent on having a lot of help in Iran if we didn't have so many sources tied up in a war that should have never happened and has thusly caused terrorism to blossom like a petunia in spring in Iraq.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 04:54 PM) BTW, I recall the Bulls wishing they had gotten a big man but thought MJ would sell some tickets with his scoring. Actually, I believe then Bulls GM Rod Thorne actually put an apology in the Tribune for not getting a big man in the draft, which is even funnier. And wow, that yahoo article makes it REALLY sound like he's Sam Bowie 2.0.

TCU, with their great defense, somehow blows a 17-3 lead at Air Force and falls 20-17 in overtime, wow. And West Virginia....they pretty good. I thought Maryland did a decent job on defense, and they still lose by 3 possesions and give up 31 points and 300 rushing yards. And yeah, Noel Devine's HS tapes weren't some kind of joke, he reminds me so much of Barry Sanders the way he runs. Not saying he is that good, but the style is so similar.

Yeah, if they end up with a pick that leads to Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, Eric Gordon, Chase Budinger, etc....they won't be crying, especially if Oden is back healthy that following year. As for the microfracture, that is the injury Amare Stoudemire had. He had the surgery in October, tried to come back a little over 5 months later in March, and after 2 games still had stiffness and missed the rest of the year because of (admittedly) rushing back too fast. And also, as good as Amare was last year, his raw athletic ability obviously wasn't as good, although that did help him IMO develop his all around game further.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 02:20 PM) Well since its relatively non-invasive, is quick, and is said to have a full recovery time of 4 months, makes me believe its a small surgery. Its a case to case basis, but in the terms of knee surgeries for athletes, its a much shorter recovery time. Yeah, and I will say this: Anybody who watched the national title game and still rips Portland for taking Oden is crazy. He dominated while being guarded by a combo of 3 or 4 future NBA players.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 02:17 PM) The reason it will take awhile to get back completely is that you need to give it time to heal up and generate the healthy cartilage. He may have an arthritic knee in the future because of the cartilage problems, but he should have a quick (due to age) and full recovery. That doesn't make this a small knee surgery though, just means he should be set to roll in 2008-2009.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 02:10 PM) Injury prone? You mean like the broken wrist that he not only played through, but elevated him game with? Hes 20 years old and will have a small knee surgery. He will be back easily. Never heard of a small knee injury that knocks you out for an entire 82 game, 6 month season. But a multi month wrist injury and a multi month knee injury in back to back years is indeed no sign of being injury prone.

QUOTE(knightni @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 02:07 PM) The Bulls took Jay Williams over Amare Stoudamire in 2002 because they needed a PG. I'd consider that hindsight being 20/20 as well as Bowie over Jordan being hindsight. That's silly. Amare was a slightly undersized 4 (6'8.5" at the camp IIRC) with a very minimal offensive skill set coming straight out of High School, whereas Jay Williams was a National POY at Duke who had a not bad rookie season before pretty much ending his career because he couldn't ride a motorcycle. In contrast, Bowie had shown to be britle and had injury problems/risks even at Kentucky, whereas that Jordan guy was pretty good in college. And if Portland wanted a front line player so bad to go with Drexler, maybe they could have taken that Barkley guy that went #5.

QUOTE(knightni @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 01:59 PM) http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bowiesa01.html http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/waltobi01.html Only 700 points apart. It's amazing how ESPN can bias a whole generation with their UCLA/Celtics bulls***. Well I knew Walton didn't live up to expectations overall, but he did win the 1977 Finals MVP, 1978 league MVP, and was 6th man of the year for the last Celtics title team in 1986, which is a lot more than Bowie ever did. But yeah, I had no idea Bowie played that long and had that many good seasons. Still a bit of an error to take him over MJ though.

QUOTE(knightni @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 01:57 PM) Walton had an injury plagued career, Bowie did as well. Bowie played 10 seasons. Walton played 8 seasons. I had no idea Bowie played that long, wow. I rescind my comments in that case.

QUOTE(knightni @ Sep 13, 2007 -> 01:53 PM) All three were centers with severe knee injuries drafted by Portland. Yeah I know, but Bowie played in the league like 3 years, and was taken in between Hakeem and MJ, while Walton did lead them to a Championship. Just not fair to group those two together IMO.

Between Juice, McGee, Haig, and now Charest....the QB situation looks good. And on another note, JUCO verbal Donsay Hardeman was rated as a high 4 star by rivals, and has the same such accolades from scout. The long term talent level on the Illini offense is pretty darn good, but the talent level accumulating on the defensive side of the ball in Champaign is astonishing.

Rivera is a douche and there is a reason he got fired and took a lesser job the year after being the DC of a Super Bowl team, but he's right about Rex.

Hopefully this works out better for Portland than the Sam Bowie thing. Obviously, Oden is a lot more talented, but big men who become injury prone usually stay that way, so for him to be hurt this much at age 20 or whatever is a major red flag. EDIT: Darn, beat me to it. Although Walton was the reason Portland won it all 30 years ago in 1977, so to throw him in that group isn't quite fair.

Ozzie and Kenny for several more years *sighs*....time to bunker down and prepare for the dark ages. At least it sounds like all 3 of the stooges (JR, Kenny, Ozzie) will be gone by 2012, so I guess that's not too long.

You know what? LSU is going undefeated, I just took a look at their schedule (admittedly for the first time) and I don't see a game on there I can even imagine losing. At Kentucky is a trap and by far their hardest road game (Woodson is an amazing QB), but besides that I can't see them losing because all their other tough games are at home, and I don't think any of them are against a team that is as good as Virginia Tech. And the BCS better hope Texas beats Oklahoma, because if they don't (I think Texas will lose to somebody else even if they win that game, especially with their schedule), I could see OU, Penn State, and LSU all going undefeated. And if that happens, uh oh.

Before everybody breaks an arm patting the D-Backs on the shoulder and giving them kudos, don't forget the one fact that proves they are full of garbage. Luis Gonzalez, he and his 57 home runs, THAT Luis Gonzalez, was the star offensive player of their World Title team and had the game winning hit in game 7. Without his juiced up feats that season, they never even get to the World Series. So let's just slow down here. I know a different group was running things then, but I refuse to give an organization who won a title 6 years ago with a juicer as BY FAR their best offensive player much credit.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Sep 6, 2007 -> 10:05 AM) surprising, considering how many people were willing to write this guy off the day he was drafted. We'll see how he does as he moves up in classes, but a lefty that throws hard, is big, and gets a lot of ground balls certainly isn't bad to have. I worry a lot about his health too though.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 10, 2007 -> 07:55 AM) I haven't been able to find anything about his velocity this year at Bristol. We all know he was touted as low 90's with ridiculous movement, then showed up in ST with low 80's. The question is, given his success at Bristol, did he find some velocity again? If anyone has any info on his speed during the season, that would be great to have. I emailed the Bristol beat writer twice (once I posted in here, and another time about 2 weeks ago), and both times, he said Lin was in the mid 80's.

I'd give Juice 2 more games, considering they are against Syracuse and Indiana. It's time to put up or shut up, either he gets it done and gets 2 wins in those games like the Illini SHOULD, or I put McGee in.

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Sep 9, 2007 -> 07:55 PM) The other is, maybe he might know a little bit more about what's going on than any of us. Come on 29th, your smarter than to think that. This IS the 10th anniversary of the White Flag after all, plus in that article he says "nobody with a brain has criticized the job Greg Walker has done". Sounds dumb and stubborn as ever to me.