Way too much offensive talent on Illinois to continue having this much trouble scoring. Coach them!

ILL has poor court spacing constantly. Why have a guy run through 3 screens on one side of the court?

Indiana just going right after Illinois and drawing a foul on almost every possession, called or not. Indiana is very good when their spacing on offense is good. Has been good the last 7-8 minutes.

do the fans for each team get a certain section of the UC or is there just that much crimson in the crowd?

People group together from my experience. Because really there isnt that many people there yet.

Under 8minute make up call!

 

If that was a foul on hulls, indiana should have 100 fouls already lol

ILL has poor court spacing constantly. Why have a guy run through 3 screens on one side of the court?

 

Because we don't run an offense. My pickup basketball games have an offense that is more schemed than Illinois's.

But the Football program has done well; what impediments are there for basketball that aren't for football?

 

A couple other people already commented, but it's easier for them to recruit/compete in football due to a few factors:

 

1) It's a lot easier to develop studs in football than basketball. Guys like Corey Wootton and Sherrick McManis were 2-star recruits but eventually developed physically and became NFL players. In basketball, no matter how much someone like Kevin Coble develops, he's never going to be Carmelo Anthony.

 

2) The recruiting pool is distributed differently. In football, the elite teams/programs are typically in suburban areas with money and the guys are more likely to qualify at NU. In basketball, a much larger percentage of the good recruits are in the Chicago public league, where academics become a huge issue.

 

3) It's a little easier to hide an athletic deficiency in football. Football you can go with the spread and try to do a cover 2/cover 3 to try to limit big plays. It doesn't totally work, but it keeps things closer. In basketball, it's extremely difficult to defend/rebound with unathletic 6'7" white guys.

 

4) Pat Fitzgerald seems to be taking the program to another level right now (they're occasionally beating real programs for recruits), but he's also working with a history of some recent success. Gary Barnett greatly improved the program's visibility in 95/96, and they were fairly consistently competitive under Walker.

 

In basketball, the program was crap. They went 5-25 in Kevin O'Neill's last year and multiple players left the program in the transition. Carmody has the only two 20-win seasons in program history and has more NIT appearances than the rest of their history combined.

Edited March 15, 201313 yr by ZoomSlowik

Suntimes busy retracting its "Groce just wins in march" article.

Well Illinois should have known they weren't going to call fouls on IU, that's a given in this situation.

Take the Orange sunglasses off there for a minute. Been some bad/missed calls both ways. Let the game play out.

Pocket picked by a center? For shame.

Take the Orange sunglasses off there for a minute. Been some bad/missed calls both ways. Let the game play out.

This syle of play usually doesnt favor IU, fortunately for them UI is even weaker on the ball.

 

I'd be more than happy to have a physical game.

I should retract my "Abrams = drunk" comment, that title clearly belongs to Joe Bertrand.

It's unfortunate no one on Indiana has improved but Oladipo or we'd be up 30. Hahhhhhhh

That was a hell of a block.

 

I have no idea where the travel was though.

lol

 

Only Indiana fans could say to take off the glasses. Zeller literally was walking around in the paint and no travel call.

Egwu swatting Zeller is easily my favorite non-game winning moment this year.

Now the refs are just making terrible calls to make up other terrible calls

It's unfortunate no one on Indiana has improved but Oladipo or we'd be up 30. Hahhhhhhh

Yes, bringing up an old argument based on the first half of the conference tourney against the #8 seed. Impressive.

The Illini need to slow it down, for once the announcers are right.

How crazy is it that Zeller and DeShaun Thomas were not unanimous 1st Team All-Big Ten?

 

That may have been the craziest sequence I've ever seen when nothing happens! Did Zeller really travel there? I'm not sure he did.

Realistically, who better are you going to get to take that job? That is probably one of the most impossible jobs in the entire country.

 

I think this is a big part of the issue. Any proven coach is probably going to laugh at them when they call. A couple of stories related to this...

 

1) Jim Calhoun was considering taking the job before he went to UConn. Unfortunately, he talked to Bob Knight first, who basically told him he'd be crazy to consider it. I believe the money quote was "coaching graveyard". Obviously the rest is history.

 

2) At one point, they were talking to Tommy Amaker, back when everyone wanted Duke assistants. He gave the administration two transcripts and asked if they would be able to get in. Administration told him no, and Amaker moved on. Those two transcripts were Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley.

 

They've had some coaches with pretty decent resumes in the past and the typical winning percentage is like .300. Carmody has been the most successful they've had since one stretch in like the 50's.

Take the Orange sunglasses off there for a minute. Been some bad/missed calls both ways. Let the game play out.

It wouldn't be an Illinois basketball game without several posts about unfair officiating. That's been going on since Lou Henson was practicing his traveling call every opposition possession.

Sam McLaurin is easily the worst player I've ever seen at putting back offensive rebounds.

Looks like it's time for Paul to go off for 40 for the win

I dont know if I agree with that. Bball teams have such limited schollies there should be enough talent even in this area to go around. I think Carmody's system has hurt his recruiting efforts.

 

The problem is even Illinois doesn't get the superstar type recruits (ie Parker, Rose, et all) and the top-75 type recruits will get offers from every other Big Ten school. They're pretty much never going to beat OSU, Illinois, Wisconsin, hell even Purdue for recruits without some major changes.

 

I really don't think the system is the issue either. Georgetown and Michigan both use it and the swing at Wisconsin has a lot of the same principles.