whitesoxfan99

Oh, and I'm not a believer that you need a great PG to win but it would be nice to at least have a good one which our last 2 coaches were unable to recruit other than McCamey (Abrams isn't terrible and he'd be a massive upgrade over Tate and Lewis but he isn't particularly good either). And it really isn't that difficult to find a competent PG so I have no idea who Weber and Groce have struggled so much with this (seriously Chester Frazier is the best you can do in the first 3 years when you have Deron and Dee to sell, Michael Orris? (choosing Orris over Van Vleet), Jaylon Tate, not recruiting Ulis hard until Kentucky is on him?). This stuff just isn't the rocket science Weber and Groce make it seem like at times.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 21, 2015 -> 10:28 PM) Chatanooga just hit 5 threes to close out the game. My f***ing god This team is just horrendous on D. Some of that is injury related but they are also poorly coached and I hate Groce's defensive scheming. We should have new football and basketball coaches again next year. Maybe one of the two will be our first good coach since Self left.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 21, 2015 -> 12:56 AM) This. I genuinely hate watching him play right now. His sole offensive move seems to be pump fake, jump into defender, hope the refs bail him out. So annoying.

Mirotic has been garbage this year. Stop with the constant flopping and flailing your arms and make an actual basketball move if you are capable of it please.

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 20, 2015 -> 08:30 PM) They changed some foul rules two years ago and it sucked to start the season but eventually dissolved back to normalcy. Hope it does the same this year. I don't. I want them to stick to actually cleaning up freedom of movement. If it makes for a s***ty season (where Illinois isn't great anyways) but makes college basketball a better product in the long run I'm all for it. The games right now all are brutal to watch though.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 19, 2015 -> 01:02 PM) . Why why why on earth did the ncaa this this was a good idea? Watching Minnesota vs Temple live now and Minnesota hit the bonus with 14 minutes left in the first half. They made so many awesome rules this year to improve the game greatly. But then inexplicably decided to give terrible refs way more power by saying they have to call every touch foul. The game is unwatchable right now. Why would they think this is a good idea? I'm ok if the refs actually stick with it and call the game like this all year and make the teams adjust. In the past they have tried to clean up the hand checking and grabbing for the first month of the season and then they revert back to calling the game really loosely later in the year. I can live with a year of bad basketball if it makes the players and coaches actually adjust long term.

What a brutal way to lose. Impossible to get two better looks to win it than Hill's layup and Finke's put back dunk attempt.

Jeff Fisher should be fired tomorrow. Awful football coach at this point.

It is remarkable how poorly coached the Rams are.

The Bears coaching staff is destroying the Rams' coaching staff today. The game has really passed Fisher by. He sucks and trying to involve Welker as much as they are today is just dumb.

Stanford eliminated from playoff contention.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 14, 2015 -> 02:46 PM) Haha this is one of the worst reffing crews I've ever seen. I'd love to have a conversation with that replay official and ask him what he saw and then call him a f***ing moron regardless of what his answer is.

And it isn't going to affect the result but Illinois gets f***ed by the refs again. Wow, that is in one of the most inexcusable blown calls I have ever seen.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 14, 2015 -> 10:34 AM) Mostly agree with this. They need to make a move before recruiting dries up and the next guy has to start from scratch. Sadly we all know he'll get a pass this year given the injuries. Maybe that's fair since that would be 4 years with his guys. I'm trying not to overreact after last night. Big programs lose to little guys every year in the first game or two and figure it out by the end of the year. I'm pretty sure UNC one year was upset by a nobody and eventually won the championship. Obviously not where Illinois is headed, but this doesn't have to be a precursor of things to come. Re: Thomas, i'd disagree on Beckman. I mean the guy wasn't a good coach (clearly) but the program is in a better spot now than it was at anytime post 2006-7. They have depth. They have a solid core. They have decent players with a few really nice players. They went to a bowl and have a good chance to go again this year. Illinois isn't getting a coach that will make them title contenders in 2 seasons. They needed a guy to come right the ship and that's what they got. I definitely overreacted a little bit last night but it is the general trend of us just even competing in Groce's last 3 games and the fact that far too often we have looked like there is no plan on defense (offensively the main issue is the lack of creators in an offense where creators are essential but you better recruit really well if that is the case). Eh, by far the best place the program was in was in 09 (post 2007). An AD with a pulse and a brain fires Zook following that season and the next coach takes over a team with 9 win talent that Zook being "propped up" by coordinators only got to 6 wins for 2 consecutive years. But that goes back to RG being a f***ing joke the last 7 or 8 years he was at Illinois. The talent level is adequate but it still isn't particularly good. I guess you could say that I view both programs as basically treading water with football probably in a slightly better position than it was before Zook was fired.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Nov 13, 2015 -> 10:22 PM) Maybe they'll get better when they get Nunn and Black back. It's hard to give up an entire season after one game... I think they will bet better and that this will be a decent team if healthy. The problem is that in year 4 simply being decent isn't good enough and the fact that before getting Lucas this year the best PG Groce had recruited was Tate is simply unacceptable. Tate wouldn't even be a decent mid major player. I've said since the end of last year that Groce needs to be gone for sure if he misses the tourney this year and that merely sneaking in to the tourney wouldn't be good enough for me. Groce had a good first year and nobody was winning in year 2 with the roster Weber left unless they brought in multiple 1 and done players but by year 3 and year 4 in basketball a good coach can have things turned around and I just don't see things really heading in the right direction. We are basically treading water and that just isn't good enough. Yes, we have injuries right now hurting us but I can't give him the benefit of the doubt on Abrams since Tracy wasn't supposed to be here anyways which would have left the best PG on the team as Jaylon Tate in year 4 which is a joke. Along with Jeff Jordan he is the worst guard that has actually played minutes for Illinois in my lifetime. The bottom line is Mike Thomas correctly fired two bad coaches who should have been fired years before they were but replaced them with coaches who haven't made things any better which is why he was correctly dismissed. The sad thing is I just have no confidence in Illinois getting the next AD hire right.

Western Illinois up 8 on Wisconsin with under 6 minutes left.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 13, 2015 -> 09:27 PM) Groce is such a brutal coach We are going to have an entire new athletic department for the 2nd time in 5 years after this year. Thankfully the new coach will have more than 1 year worth of talent when he takes over but this program has now sucked for a full 10 years. The last legitimately really good team Illinois had was Dee's SR year. Guenther ran the athletic department into the ground (well the sports that matter), Weber destroyed basketball and Thomas and Groce did nothing to improve things. This upcoming AD hire and getting Shad Khan involved in Illinois athletics determines whether Illinois is going to stay an also ran for a long time or not. They simply cannot f*** this set of hires. Edit: And I'll admit that there was a time I definitely though Groce was going to get it done at Illinois but I just don't see anyway that happens at this point. Coming off his strong first year when he landed Black and shortly thereafter got Snider I really though he was the guy for Illinois. But then obviously everything went completely off the rails on signing day and while the 2015 class is solid it wasn't the class he needed to turn things around when the 2016 class was never going to be a really strong one for Illinois.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 10, 2015 -> 01:39 PM) While I'm pissed we lost 2 of the games we did, I couldn't be more pleased with the direction of this franchise. The fact that Jay is making strides is also great because it buys the front office time to find a QB. I don't want to find myself in QB hell like some teams find themselves in. I'm not saying Jay is great and I think the great think with this front office is, they can keep Jay for a couple years while still aggressively targeting the next QB of the franchise. It is hard for me to be upset about the losses to Minnesota and Detroit because while those were winnable and would have put the Bears in the playoff hunt they clearly aren't a team capable of winning the Super Bowl or making noise in the playoffs. Plus, they just as easily could have lost all 3 games to the Raiders, Chiefs and Chargers so 3-5 is probably about right for this team. 5-3 was doable based on how they played but they could also easily be 0-8.

QUOTE (OmarComing25 @ Nov 10, 2015 -> 01:44 PM) I would have thought the ceiling would be much higher. Price alone would cause them to hit that ceiling, which makes me think they won't be pushing hard for him. Agreed. With their surplus of prospects and position players I think you see the Cubs target someone like Tyson Ross or Carlos Carrasco who are really good pitchers and still have a good amount of team control left rather than spend $25 mil+ on Greinke or Price.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 10, 2015 -> 01:34 PM) I still think all of these statements, other then their is talent on the team, are incredibly premature. They could very well be true, but coming to any of the conclusions you made based upon the current sample size is just extremely premature. Agreed. Especially since they have been winning with defense and their offense has been dreadful thus far. They could end up being really good on offense and I'm certainly not going to draw any conclusions based on 8 games but saying that Hoidberg is a good offensive mind when the Bulls have been one of the worst offensive teams in basketball thus far is pretty funny to me.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 10, 2015 -> 01:06 PM) Why would that make them incompetent? I'm sure he'd take that deal and UI isn't stuck with another buyout if they move on. Frankly I'd rather they stick with Cubit and see how much they can get better with some key guys back next year than rush and make a dumb hire. That sounds like a terrific way to torpedo recruiting.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 10, 2015 -> 12:47 PM) Isn't it a logical option given the circumstances within the AD's office and the available coaching spots around the country? I think it'd be weird if the interim-AD gets to make the hire, and then has to hire an AD afterwards. What coach wants to walk into that position? I could see them offering him a 1 year contract. Michigan hired Jim Harbaugh with an interim AD last year. This decision isn't going to be made by the interim AD and I bet that they move pretty quickly on getting a new AD in place and there are people who say Shad Khan is pushing a couple of candidates already (please this be true and let him be our T. Bonne Pickens).

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Nov 10, 2015 -> 11:57 AM) Seriously. Barring beating OSU this weekend he should not even be in the conversation. I feel like it is entirely the fear of hiring the next Beckman that is really the only reason people are pro-Cubit. While I don't have high expectations for Illinois football I certainly want to do better than a guy who was barely over .500 in the MAC and whose upside at Illinois is very limited. Give me Dino Babers who while he may have a lower floor than Cubit has a much higher ceiling (and his Bowling Green team is performing much better than any of Cubit's teams at Western Michigan), runs an exciting offense and also finally gives Illinois its first black head coach for football or men's basketball.

So I've seen some push for Illinois to hire Cubit as the head coach after this season. I just don't get it. You could certainly do worse (i.e. Tim Beckman) but you could do so much better than a 62 year old coach who got fired at Western Michigan.

So can any Missouri fans/students/graduates fill us in on why a number of their black athletes are saying they won't play until the university's president is fired?