whitesoxfan99

I'm not sure Illinois and OSU will break 100 combined today. This is just awful basketball.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 04:52 PM) My honeymoon with Groce & Co. is just about over. He's not a miracle worker. And there's no guarantee that he'll (a) land the game changing players or (b) coach em up. After the NW and Purdue games i'm questioning just how good of an X's and O's guy he is. Yes, he's relying on a combo guard as a PG, and a incredibly low rated true freshman PG, but still. The fact that we're 4 months into the season and they still can't execute on offense really annoys me. I would actually like to borrow Weber for a game and have him scream "MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!" all game. Maybe that would make a difference. Right now their offense sucks because no one but Egwu moves on offense. And once teams figured out they could clog the lane and Illinois would run no plan B offense, well, we started to lose. Their offensive rankings nationally are atrocious. Given how the season has been going, do they even have what can be considered a quality win? The offense sucks because they have no shooters and no post threat. There is no effective offense to run when you have a center who can't make shots, can't catch the ball and finish on the pick and roll and can't post up and you have no wings that are good 3 pt shooters to space the floor. If I was to complain about Groce's coaching it would be on the other end of the floor where the defense has been really bad during the 4 game losing streak.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jan 22, 2014 -> 10:44 AM) Hey...I never said this is a title team. I just tried to temper everyone's tanking expectations by pointing out how much better this team is then the worse teams in the East. The East is freaking awful. Worst conference in NBA history this year. I still maintain they would have been able to tank had they gone with the Teague/James duo for the PG position because not even their defense would be able to overcome that. Once they signed Augustin and didn't trade Hinrich (although they still should trade him if they can get literally anything for him) I lost all hope for a true tank.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 21, 2014 -> 11:39 AM) Driver and Brakeman are the real skill folks here. In the fourman, the pushers are the athletes. Herschel Walker did this. Yeah, and the girl who was next in line behind Williams and Jones only took up the sport after the 2010 Olympics. They basically try to recruit athletes from other sports for the push athletes.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 20, 2014 -> 09:07 PM) We will lose by 20. It's been years since an OSU team has been this s***ty. That will be a battle of two teams with basically no scoring talent whatsoever. So it will probably be like a 75-60 OSU win.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jan 20, 2014 -> 01:05 PM) These Winters Olympics are going to be fun... Yeah, even if I had the chance to go I would have absolutely no interest in going to Sochi with all this stuff going on. In Olympic sports news Lauryn Williams and Lolo Jones both made the USA bobsled team so they will be only the 9th and 10th Americans to compete in the Summer and Winter Olympics.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jan 19, 2014 -> 06:22 PM) After going 2-4 in the Finals? Really? He'll probably get there someday, but not right now. Duncan and Kobe over him for sure. LeBron is indisputably a better player than Kobe ever was.

I really hope Denver demolishes this Seattle team. So f***ing unlikeable.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 19, 2014 -> 09:32 PM) Kaepernick has a hell of an arm, but he's not that good of a throwing QB yet. (Unless he's in Green Bay) Very inconsistent. He makes absolutely incredible throws that very few other QBs can make but then does things like that.

Justice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is remarkable how much the refs have favored the Seahawks in this game.

How the f*** is this not reviewable? f***ing absurd, this makes no f***ing sense at all. 49ers get completely f***ed if that is true. So stupid.

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jan 19, 2014 -> 08:58 PM) Someone update me please. Score? San Francisco is up 17-13 after 3. Seahawks in San Francisco territory.

Dear god Kaepernick has a missile launcher for an arm.

So happy to see the Patriots go down. It is so much fun watching Peyton Manning play football.

This is just a complete ass kicking.

That drive was just massive for the Broncos. Go up 3 scores and use up half a quarter worth of time. Patriots are in huge trouble.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jan 19, 2014 -> 04:07 PM) This is a big 4 minutes, Im not sure Patriots can afford to get down more before half. If the Broncos go down and get a TD the Patriots are in huge trouble since the Broncos also get the ball first in the 2nd half.

This Illinois season is just depressing. They are slightly underachieving (mainly just the NW loss) and that is mostly on the defensive end lately but this roster is just really bad. That is what happens when you have no 2010 class, a 2011 class with only one good Big 10 player and no 2012 class. How nice would Fred Van Vleet look on this team? Weber took f***ing Michael Orris who averaged about 6 pts a game in high school over that guy. Thankfully they have 3 good players sitting out this year and Hill and Nunn look like players so next year's team will be good. Groce really needs to start giving Hill more minutes as he is probably the third best offensive player on the team already and the defense needs to get cleaned up. This team has almost no offensive talent but the defense shouldn't be as bad as its been the last couple weeks. Part of that is having a starting frontcourt that can't rebound at all but the rotations haven't been good and the pick and roll defense has been atrocious.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 17, 2014 -> 12:59 AM) His value is in something you don't really measure and has been one of if not the best defensive player in the country his entire career. That's the sum of his value. Great complimentary piece. With a team that can't score his value is quickly diminished since offensively he is below average. That's nice that he is great defensively but he isn't a top 10 or even top 20-30 player in the country like much of the media builds him up to be. I mean Dan Dakich says he would take Craft over every other player in the country which is so laughably stupid it makes me question everything else Dakich says about basketball. I also find it funny that for all the talk about what a hard worker Craft is (and he does play exceptionally hard) that his offensive game hasn't really improved at all from his freshman year to his senior year.

I'm having a really hard time thinking if there has ever been a more overrated college basketball player than Aaron Craft. I realize that isn't his fault but I always just laugh when he is listed as a top 10 player in the country or when Dakich says he would take Craft over every other player in the country.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 16, 2014 -> 04:59 PM) True but they've made some great hires there too. I think it's somewhat like Nebraska football. You have to recruit out of state. You cant even recruit the surrounding states much. So don't hire the wrong guy because the program will struggle to sell itself. luckily for them they haven't done that. They've had good coaches and have been consistently dirty in recruiting. Good combination for maintaining a winning program.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 15, 2014 -> 11:05 PM) The next 5 games will not be fun, but with an upset it could be a signature win. Silver lining? This season is over and the non-conference was fool's gold. Our bench is all freshmen and while they are pretty talented none are impact players. Our starting lineup contains an awful center, 3 guards/wings that can't shoot and a PF who is an ok stand still shooter and brings nothing else to the table. The only thing I care about for the rest of the year is the freshmen (and really only Hill and Nunn). If those two show they can be good Big 10 players Illinois will be well positioned to be a solid team going forward with the transfers being eligible next year and hopefully a really good 2015 recruiting class. If Groce doesn't hit that class out of the park I think we probably have the wrong guy unfortunately.

I posted this earlier this year but it is still remarkable to me just how bad Illinois' 2011 recruiting class turned out. Djimde, Langford and Shaw weren't anywhere close to being high major players (and at a minimum Djimde should never have even been recruited), Henry was completely unproductive for two years and then transferred and Egwu is a terrible offensive player who is also a bad defensive rebounder. Abrams is a solid player but he can't shoot and isn't a good distributor. This class was supposed to be a foundation type class for Illinois and instead it produced one legitimate Big 10 player. Yikes. As to the game tonight, Groce should have definitely played Hill and Nunn more but this team just has so little scoring punch it is ridiculous (especially with Rice banged up). No shooters except for Ekey and no one who can score in the post. Just a really bad roster. I hope Groce starts giving Hill and Nunn a lot more time because they seem to be coming along and both have a lot of potential. I thought we would be bad coming into the season but then they got my hopes up by playing better than expected in the non-conference. Other than the NW game none of this has been shocking to me.

Nnanna Egwu is horrendous.