whitesoxfan99

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 8, 2016 -> 12:52 PM) Basketball schools shouldnt continuously miss the tournament I have literally no idea what point you are trying to make other than agreeing that we've hired two s***ty coaches in a row.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 8, 2016 -> 12:07 PM) I don't buy at all that this is a solid tournament team even at full health. Talent wise it would unquestionably be a solid tournament team but I've lost all confidence in Groce actually getting them there. Bottom line is that we have had two s***ty coaches in a row and until that changes I have no hope for the program. This athletic director hire is just remarkably important.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Jan 8, 2016 -> 11:10 AM) You guys really make the situation sound a lot worse than it is at Illinois. This was a tournament team at full strength, but last night they played with one starter on the road at MSU. Of course they were going to look like s***. In a vacuum, I still think Groce is a good enough coach to win at Illinois. However, it's not a vacuum, and three straight tournament misses is probably too much to overcome. We are about to miss the tourney for the 6th time in the last 9 years and we haven't been to the Sweet 16 since the Final 4 season. The last time we were competitive for a Big 10 title and on a national level was Dee Brown's senior year. Since Dee graduated we have won 2 NCAA tourney games and our seeds in that stretch were 12 (one of the last teams in the field and could have easily been left out), 5 seed (our best team post Dee and while that team was very solid they were also genuinely painful to watch play and failed to score 40 points twice that year), 9 seed and 7 seed. So basically one team in the last 10 years that was a top 25 type team and that team couldn't score. Illinois basketball is in pretty awful shape.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 11:32 PM) Why doesn't it matter? The team is a shell of itself. He's still landing four star recruits, also. I'm not typically the voice of reason, but let's call it like it is. This team isn't what it was supposed to be due to injury. And while we're add it, what self respecting coach is going to come to that train wreck of a school and athletic department? It's not about wins and losses. If we looked remotely competently coached he could get a pass on this year. 4 years in and I still have no idea what Groce wants to accomplish on defense. We suck at guard ball screens and his teams even going to back to Ohio have not been good at defending the 3 pt line which simply Watch them play, the players are constantly lost on defense and that was an issue last year as well. On offense we have a similar scheme to Michigan and run a lot of the same stuff. But watch Michigan play compared to Illinois. Yes, there has been some talent gap but Michigan's players move much more without the ball than guys on Illinois have for 4 years now. And for an offense that runs a ton of ball screens, how many times in 4 years do you recall the big rolling to the basket and getting a layup. They pop every single time. In order for the ball screen to really work you have to have your big man diving to the basket fairly regularly.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 11:23 PM) You think? The team's not healthy. Doesn't matter. A competent AD can see that this team isn't well coached and the program isn't moving in the right direction.

QUOTE (farmteam @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 10:05 PM) As an outsider, Guenther seems the most culpable. All four suck ass but while Guenther made a couple good basketball hires before f***ing up royally with Weber he may be most to blame for the state of the athletic department as a whole because while other schools actually were caring about sports, investing money in their programs and realizing that college sports were big business Guenther stuck his head in the sand and ran programs as they were stuck in the 70s. Illinois football was really solid throughout the 80s and early 90s and has been a trainwreck nearly every year since. Basketball has been crap for 10 years now (basically the moment Bill Self's top recruits were gone).

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 10:16 PM) Agreed. The reality is, Groce isn't going anywhere because 1) The whole team is hurt 2) Illinois still hasn't hired his boss Not before the season is over but any AD worth a damn that they hire will fire him after the season is over.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Jan 7, 2016 -> 09:53 PM) Please fire Groce at half-time. It is legitimately hard for me to remember Illinois being good at this point. 10 years of s***ty basketball. f*** Groce, Weber, Guenther and Thomas. Garbage all of them and the amount of money those 4 asshats made is remarkable.

QUOTE (AustinIllini @ Jan 6, 2016 -> 10:59 PM) If it were a real franchise, I would assume the front office knew something we didn't, but it doesn't appear obvious to me why you would drop Lovie. Lovie is a good coach on the level of a Jeff Fisher. I don't see the Bucs replacing him with someone better. Head scratcher... He's better than Fisher. The Bucs improved a ton this year and have some really good talent on offense and they looked explosive at times. I don't really get this move at all but its the Bucs so I'm sure it will be followed by a stupid hire.

For the life of me I can't figure out how Trevor Hoffman gets so much support in year 1 on the ballot and Mussina is still below 50%.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 4, 2016 -> 02:29 PM) Damn we are Gonna lose 9 early entries to the draft. So who hasn't decided yet? Bell, Marshall and Thomas?

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 3, 2016 -> 05:12 PM) Thought it was hamstring. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/14494154...sore-right-knee

Rose will be undergoing an MRI on his knee.

Ryan Fitzpatrick throws interceptions on the Jets last 3 possessions including one where the Jets were in FG range to go ahead to cost the Jets a playoff spot.

Ryan Coogler (Creed, Fruitvale Station) to direct Black Panther. Fantastic choice.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 2, 2016 -> 11:05 PM) That game was like watching a car accident. Yep, but at least it was the first entertaining game since Wednesday.

Oregon's backup center killed them in this game. Their starting center going out hurt them almost as much as Adams going out. That kid had several snaps that killed plays.

More boring games today. Basically it appears that the SEC was by far and away the best conference this year, the Pac 12 and Big 10 were both solid conferences (the Pac 12 has a really good bowl record but their teams were all playing up a slot over the other major conferences because they were the only one without a second team in the Big 6 games), the ACC sucked outside of Clemson and the Big 12 just flat out sucked.

Worst bowl season ever

What a boring couple of days of football. Not a single real competitive game.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 1, 2016 -> 01:40 PM) Yeah. Refs looked at it and still messed up call. Weak. Nope, that is clear targeting under the rules.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 1, 2016 -> 01:38 PM) A hit into the chest. Awful. Targeting and Initiating Contact With the Crown of the Helmet (Rule 9-1-3) No player shall target and initiate contact against an opponent with the crown (top) of his helmet. When in question, it is a foul.

I'm honestly not that surprised by this. I never thought MSU matched up well with Alabama.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 31, 2015 -> 07:31 PM) I guess we should have seen it coming when all of their big wins were against backup QBs and they got blown out by Texas. Yeah, but the ACC has looked awful this bowl season and one of the acc top teams that gave Clemson a tough game got absolutely annihilated by a Big 12 team playing its third string QB.

Officiating has been really biased toward Clemson in this one. Clemson had outplayed Clemson but every borderline call has gone Clemson's way.