bigruss

Officially on the fire Beckman train now, this is pathetic.

Evans to OK St, no shocker there. Pretty sure he got worried about PT since we now have a ton of guards in 2015-2016, and can't blame him at all about that. Hopefully he doesn't bring Thomas with him.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 1, 2014 -> 09:47 AM) Being an Illini fan, unless there's a total surprise commitment, I just assume it's not going to happen. He's not yet been able to get a commit at the end of a recruitment. It's either on the visit or shortly thereafter. You're going to hear no a lot more than you're going to hear yes, especially when it comes to these top 30 type players. We currently have a top 30, 50, and 80 player committed in this class, we're not barren and we're definitely not in bad shape. We need Thomas/Bragg more than Evans at this point, either are real possibilities right now but you're going up against the big boys or "ahem" variables.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 06:58 PM) Sucks losing Evans. And Thomas is no guarantee. Would suck to lose out on both when they were supposed locks. Neither have ever been locks.

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 09:29 AM) I'm sure he'd be batter than Tate Then a junior Tate? Not sure. And at this point we don't desperately need a PG, JCL gives us a lot of flexibility (and with Abrams playing in 2016 now). I don't take a problem player who is a fringe top 100 guy.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 30, 2014 -> 08:27 AM) Hopefully Groce doesn't offer him Yup, that's a team chemistry killer right there. Great handles, but really don't think he's a good fit for this program.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Sep 29, 2014 -> 09:59 AM) It seems like Ok St. has the momentum on this one but Groce had an in-home with Evans just last week and the Illinois staff has known he was going to be announcing this week for quite some time so I wouldn't read to much into the decision date. Just statistically it's not good for us as most top 100 prospects commit to the last school they visited. It's not 100%, but it's definitely heavily correlated.

QUOTE (SoxPride18 @ Sep 28, 2014 -> 04:55 PM) Evans has announced that he is making his decision on Wednesday. Cancelled his in-home visits as well. He knows where he is going, but man that doesn't bode well for Illinois imo.

I mean we'd be hearing about a press conference for Thomas right? Seems completely out of place for him to commit without one. Heck, he's scheduled on ESPN for November for an announcement, it would seem that at least an online announcement would be needed.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 24, 2014 -> 05:34 PM) So Apple prematurely rolled out iOS 8.0.1 today and it killed carrier connect/TouchID. If you installed it OTA, the only thing you can do is a restore via iTunes on a Mac/PC to revert to 8.0. Jackasses. IMO, fragile hardware is one thing, take better care of your s***, but releasing software that was obviously untested should get people fired over there. And I'm not talking about a few minor bugs...it literally prevented TouchID from working AND prevented your phone from connecting to it's carrier. Yea wayyy to many bugs in this release, never should've made it to market at this state.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Sep 24, 2014 -> 08:59 AM) He's an idiot. Yea he is. The fact that he even tries to run that board alone makes him a giant, egotistical idiot.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Sep 23, 2014 -> 08:01 PM) I'm going to pretend you didn't say this. Well I fully expect to him to be at Illinois for a long long time, and if he leaves it'll be because he didn't succeed or Illinois didn't pony up. Either way, I just like the guy.

I honestly can't believe we landed Coleman, a 5 star player from Indiana just doesn't go to Illinois. So now on to Evans and Thomas/Bragg, though I feel so much better having Coleman in because he can learn PG behind Tracy (I know not a great mentor there but he'll have time) and Evans is less of a "must have" recruit. He's still priority #1 imo because I think he's that good, but if we "only" add a big like Thomas or Bragg I will be just stoked for the future.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Sep 23, 2014 -> 06:56 PM) I know I shouldn't be but I am genuinely happy you guys landed one of these guys. I genuinely like Groce, barring some unforeseen terrible act by him I will root for him no matter where he goes. He's got a real bright future and I'm glad Thomas recognized it.

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 23, 2014 -> 07:08 PM) I, um, eh, huh? He's saying that the statement that people like to throw around that Illinois can't get back to the top without the top Chicago players is being tossed aside by Groce as he's clearly getting top 50 out of state players in consistently now and he's still getting great talent from the Chicago area. It's really good because we aren't as reliant on those Chicago guys now, and it seems our perception is much better outside of the city. Get top out of staters interested and committed and suddenly Illinois looks much better to the in-state kids.

Just huge news, giant barriers broken with this one: Indiana, top 30 player and out of state, 5 star (at least on 247). BIG BIG BIG news for Groce and the program. Can't wait to see him and Jordan light it up.

QUOTE (Boogua @ Sep 23, 2014 -> 11:36 AM) Sounds like something big is going to happen today. I think possibly a Coleman commitment. Yea the few real insiders on IL (actually legit ones) are saying to expect it today. Huge if that info holds, when's the last Indiana recruit we've gotten?

How the front office treats the BP will tell a lot on what they expect from the upcoming season. If they go out and spend money on it (aka a few good pitchers) then they feel they can start really competing (.500 and above/shot at the 2nd wildcard) or they will continue to go young and use a variety of our pitching prospects and maybe bring in a few vets to compete but not on decent size contracts.

Really wasn't trying to be sarcastic with my comment, I was seriously wondering if there was something else that would provide a buzz or if it was just to do something while others are as well. But since he didn't mention that part I figured he was still getting some buzz out of it and that confused me.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 03:11 PM) I didn't know where else to put this, and since there is technology in it, I'll just put it here. Just picked up a hookah pen. I've always enjoyed hookah, but never wanted to buy any of that giant stuff for it, or have to worry about setting my house on fire. But then I was at a buddies house this weekend and we were all passing around a hookah pen he had, and I decided to get one. It was only $17, and it's rechargable. The liquid I bought has no nicotine and no tobacco. It's essentially flavored water I am vaping. This watermelon flavor is tastey though. So what's the point of it then? Seriously, if it's just water does it actually effect you at all?

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 01:22 PM) Which way is it pointing now? I would say slightly up, but that's not saying much because the program is/was in the s***ter.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 01:00 PM) Heroic should be doable with at least one other high level guy. I did it with a 24 Hunter, should be easier if you get 2, especially if one is a defender titan. I think the problem is that one of my friends is terrible, there have seriously been games where I get 100 kills, another friend gets 80, and he'll be at like 40. I just don't get that. It also hurts that two of my friends are blade dancers which suck in co-op but are great in PvP.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 12:50 PM) Are you really forgetting where we were at in 2011? You don't remember the collapse? You may have been the only person who wanted to keep Zook around at that point. I guess back to back bowl appearances = Illinois contract for life? Unrealistic expectations? Come on. Yea, looking at only that stat is terribly blinding, it gives no insight into the state of the program.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Sep 22, 2014 -> 12:37 PM) Not really true. His teams won 2 bowl games in back to back years, which I don't think Illinois has ever done before. I think people need to be a little more realistic about Zook. He was far from good but he wasn't terrible, he did a lot of nice things, but ultimately his ceiling was too low for the Big Ten. He needed to be removed, earlier than he was, but he was better than a lot of other Illinois coaches, including Beckman. And why not Cubit? He did pretty good at Western Michigan and the offense turnaround was amazing last year. It's not as good this year, but he's got a lot of young transfer talent in key positions, on top of some injuries. He's not a home run hire, but people are dreaming if you think a great coach is coming to Illinois in down years (if ever). Zook's recruiting was terrible in his last few years, he still got some impact guys but he had zero balance in his classes and therefore we had HUGE holes all over the team. That's why he left this program in a terrible state, and a big reason why firing him in 2009 was so crucial (because the boat was sinking fast). With VK, I'm sure 2012 wouldn't have been as bad but the writing was on the wall, this program was ready to collapse. Unfortunately, TB is not showing anything really to show a solid turnaround (he's done a few good things: better class balance, stabilized player turnover, and he's got some good players in the 2015 class). And that may pay off, but we needed to see more by now (better recruiting/better coaching, he really should've gotten rid of Banks last year but who knows the quality of DC they could get). Cubit fell off at WMU as well, I wouldn't trust him as HC.

So anybody doing one of the cults? My friends and I decided to go for New Monarchy (I originally started Future War but they wanted to do NM). A bit frustrating that it takes so long to level up in those but probably a good thing to keep it interesting.