April 21, 200322 yr For the 2nd time in only 3 years , Illinois is held as a bridesmade again, only a stepping stone for anyone and everyone to get there " DREAM JOB". Lon Kruger said he would only leave for an NBA job, Now Self claims "Kansas is only job he would of left Illini for". They are both BS excuses Self would of left to replace Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State also. Illinois 2 best recruits 1 said he would stay , the other said he would now leave and that does not even count C.Villenueva who now will NEVER go to Illinois and I bet he will go to Kansas, Self hurt Illinois bad right now as May 10 is last signing day for seniors. I liked Self but Champaign can be just as big a hotbed for basketball as f***ING Lawrence Kansas. Self will never get out of Roy williams shadow at Kansas , at Illinois he could of made his own legacy.
April 21, 200322 yr I think if anybody gets Bruce Pearl out of this they will get themselves one hell of a coach.
April 21, 200322 yr Author What about Tom Crean from Marquette? Will Illinois get him now? The list of replacements including Crean is weak at best .
April 21, 200322 yr ok how can the recruits decide not to go here if they have already signed and where did you even come up with this stuff
April 21, 200322 yr Author ok how can the recruits decide not to go here if they have already signed and where did you even come up with this stuff Recruit can transfer and sit out a year, Stuff it all over the news maybe get of computer for 5 minutes.
April 21, 200322 yr Author I think if anybody gets Bruce Pearl out of this they will get themselves one hell of a coach. He has NO CHANCE over the Deon Thomas affair, you have as much of a chance for the job as Pearl.
April 21, 200322 yr Author are you possibly thinking of kyle wilson not one of our signees?? No the Mcbribe kid and 1 other were at a High school all-star game today and were both interviewed about Self leaving on WCIA channel 3 in champaign it was on at 10:20 pm tonight , not talking about worthless Wilson, this is players for next years class.
April 21, 200322 yr are you possibly thinking of kyle wilson not one of our signees?? No the Mcbribe kid and 1 other were at a High school all-star game today and were both interviewed about Self leaving on WCIA channel 3 in champaign it was on at 10:20 pm tonight , not talking about worthless Wilson, this is players for next years class. Ya i mean we are going to feel the effects of this immediately and down the road. I think we were about to become a powerhouse in bball, though we would probly need a title or two to solidify that, but with Villanueva i think we woulda had a good shot next year. Now, who the hell knows what will happen. Recruiting will definitely suffer and who knows what else will happen with this internally. I know Brown was real close to Self, i think it's the reason he excelled as a freshman more than anyone expected. It's unfortunate because next year would have been finally his team, Self's team...all his recruits. The list of coaches we might get is ya pretty much s***ty at best...i guess Crean has some ties to recruiting in Chicago (wade i believe for one) so maybe that will help, because recruiting within our own state is huge, there's a lot of talent here...way more than Kansas. I can't really blame self i guess...it is a "destination job" at an established university and it only happens once in a lifetime. But we here are sure disappointed as hell and it's going to take this program a lot of work to get back to where it would have been going into this next year.
April 21, 200322 yr Until the Illini can keep a coach both for a long period of time, and at the same time turns out assistants who become head coaches, there will always be a revolving door for successful Illini coaches. Looking at Self's pedigree being a Kansas assistant always kinda pointed him towards returning there. It is the same kind of thing at NC, with guys like Doughrety and Williams. If coach K every leaves Duke, you can bet one of his old assistants will step in there too. How many ex-illini assistants are there in bigger profile jobs?
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