Westy's Web(er)

So my reply to Westy's comment for my Caught in a Web(er) post was too long, so I'm turning it into a follow-up post.

I'm not making any claims that Matta would have taken the job. I'm just saying that we should have gone after him hard, and that he would have been a great choice (and one that I would have very much been for). As I recall, I was in the minority then - Illini Nation wasn't big on Matta, and preferred Bruce and the guy from Creighton (Dana Altman, maybe?) who we definitely sent feelers out to, but explicitly turned us down. I was concerned about the Gene Keady pedigree, but was open to the idea that he could do well (he had done a really nice job building that SIU program). But I dug Matta, as the job that he did at Xavier was solid.

In any case, I'd argue that the best bet for making valid points would be to illustrate things that Bruce has done well and to explain why things are looking up for the Illini, and not to try to point out things that Matta hasn't done (particularly with the hypothetical question of how Matta would do with less elite players). Because at that point, you're sort of making stretches, I'd venture.

With regard to the claim that Matta would not be able to do well w/out talent, there are two issues there. One, he gets talent, so the point is moot. Also, getting talent is part of the job description. It's not like there's a salary cap and a forced draft like in the pros. And, two, his first season at OSU, he took a team that was slightly sub-.500 the year before, and won 20 games, despite being on probation (no post-season). And even when he missed the dance the year after Oden/Conley left, they went off and won the NIT. And in one fewer season (and 2 fewer post-season opportunities), Matta has 3 trips to the Sweet 16 and beyond, compared to only 2 for Bruce.

What I'm particularly impressed by is that Matta took Ohio St. to a high ranking last year with Evan Turner (a wing) as the lead player. And has turned around and done it again with Sullinger (a big), with a team that runs different points of emphases on offense. Last year, it was letting Turner be the man from the wing and top of the key, taking advantage of his size over smaller guards. This year it's running things through the low block, with Sullinger and Diebler on the same side of the offense.

As for Craft/Diebler, I just picked two white dudes who got run with Ohio St., and who seem to have been placed into good situations by Matta. We may have different definitions of "top recruits." When I use that term, I'm thinking national top 40 sorts of players. Guys that project out to eventually being lead players on NCAA teams. In any case, I had no idea what sort of hype they had in HS, but...

...according to Rivals, Craft was the #111 rated HS player from 2010. Diebler was the #60 player from 2007. Certainly both legit major-level D-I sort of guys. Part of my point was that even the white kids that Matta gets are legit players, whereas we give a lot of run to guys like Meachem, who were a cut below the the sort of players that legit contenders run out there. But we can use those guys as case studies.

Neither was the caliber of recruit of, say, Rich McBride (#31 in 2003), which would probably the most obvious point of comparison that I would make with Diebler. There's probably not much argument to the claim that Matta got more out of Diebler than Bruce did out of Richie (who I wanted to like, and who I think took more flack from Illini Nation than he deserved).

In terms of recruiting ratings, Diebler was in the same ballpark as Brian Randle (#56 in 2003) or Dimitri MacCamey (#72 in 2007)or Brian Carlwell (#77 in 2006) or Shaun Pruitt (#78 in 2004). I'd venture a guess that most folks would prefer Diebler's college career over the Illini guys (save possibly MacCamey). Craft is in the ballpark of Mike Tisdale (#125 in 2007), Joseph Bertrand (#128 in 2009) and Tyler Griffey (#120 in 2009). We'll see how these guys pan out. I'm very pleased with how Tisdale developed, actually (despite the howls from Illini Nation).

Don't get me wrong, I think that these recruiting ratings (once you get past the top 5 sort of can't miss kids) are generally nice for ballpark ideas of where players are, but are largely junk when you dissect them. But it's not like Bruce hasn't gotten some kids that were recruited by other schools, and has been working with a bunch of walk-ons. And I'm sure that Matta has whiffed with some "top recruits" as well (though nothing comes to mind quickly). And he's had a lot of guys leave early for the NBA (obviously, Oden, Conley, Turner, but also Koufos and Mullen), while we've had guys leave for other, less awesome reasons.

But once you start comparing Weber to guys like Coach K and Roy Williams, who have a bunch of Final 4's and multiple titles on their resume, you're stretching a lot. Coach K took some time to build up the Duke program, but from his 4th year, forward, has never missed the dance (even in '94-'95, he was 9-3, before he took his leave of absence), and has made the Sweet 16 in 17 of 25 years. Roy Williams has been head coach 23 years, and after his first season when Kansas was ineligible for the postseason, has made 21 dances, with the Sweet 16 or better in 14 out of 21 tries. Those guys are absolutely untouchable in terms out their performances. They just don't have stretches like Bruce has had, and if they had, there would be all sorts of rumblings. In fact, about halfway through the season, before North Carolina got hot (right around when Drew quit on the team, coincidentally), there were rumblings about Roy perhaps having lost touch, despite having all these McD's All-American sorts of players. I never bought into it because of the track record, but still, it's realistic to say that rumblings emerge when the expected success doesn't show up.

Your better comparison would be, say, Billy Donovan. Your argument would be better suited to say that if you get a guy that builds a program, you have to be patient with him, and just wait for that right mix of players to show up (like Horford, Noah, Brewer, and Co.). I'd counter with the argument that there still needs to be flexibility to allow people to grow and develop their skill sets and that the systems should allow for these different skills. And we'd argue about the philosophy of having a firm system in place, versus having flexibility. You can talk about how Bobby Knight ran that motion offense for years and years and won a bunch of titles. I'd talk about how his protege, Coach K, has updated the look of Duke basketball, taking what he's picked up with Team USA. You'd talk about how John Wooden did things a certain way for years. I'd argue about how Gene Keady did things the same way for as many years, but underachieved. And the argument would continue.

But at least, we'd be focusing on Bruce and the Illini program, and not Matta (which really, was my intent, and if you look at the entirety of my original post, most of the middle of that post was all thoughts about the Illini program - really, I was just using Matta/Self as the comparison points because they are natural comparisons in my mind and because they're the top 2 teams in basketball this year).

Incidentally, I'm not so sure that Matt Painter has really surpassed Bruce.. VCU? A play-in 11-seed? Yikes. I think that the Boiler Faithful may be about to boil over :-)

-Chairman

Caught in a Web(er)

I've been having a little e-mail discussion with Westy, C-Lauff, and Greg over our favorite basketball coach, Bruce Weber. Westy is a Bruce Weber apologist, who's basic position is that Weber isn't that bad. He'll get better players soon, and when he does, he'll magically be seen as a better coach. C-Lauff contends that Bruce is an unimaginative, inflexible coach who has had mediocre results, save for one almost-magical season in 2004-05. Even as I was declaring that we were the best team in basketball back in the winter of 2004, there were some signs:

"We're a little slow to adjust when teams change defenses, and will give away possessions at times when we decide not to move on offense."

And in the winter of 2005, I wrote about some of the problems that we had, as well, while I was defending out #6 national ranking:

"Whether we end up being a top 32 team or a Final Four team will be in our offense. At times, it looks like we're still trying to figure out how to play with each other. We'll throw the ball away and look awkward in our motion. Some of the guys still don't look natural in the motion."

And in the winter of 2007, my prognosis got a little worse, as Bruce wasn't able to reload very quickly. The offense has gotten progressively worse, and we've been terrible at adjusting to zone defenses with the Weber system. I really believe that a lot of the reason was that Bruce was adamant against using the high-low back in 2004 and 2005, because he was intent on having the final Bill Self funeral.

Now, back when we were looking for a replacement for Bill Self, I was on the Thad Matta bandwagon early. I grew up in Cincy, and had friends that went to Xavier, which has been an amazingly successful program, since the mid to late 80's, where the school kept winning, as it kept sending it's coaches on to BCS schools. This started with Pete Gillen (Virginia), then the late Skip Prosser (Wake Forest), Thad Matta (Ohio St.), Sean Miller (Arizona), and will probably continue with Chris Mack. Add on that Matta was from Hoopeston, IL, and you had the right fit, in my mind, at least. But for some reason, the speculation about Matta was quickly ended by the Illinois athletic department, and we quickly hired Bruce Weber. There was some thought that Matta wasn't wanting to leave Xavier. However, a year later, he ended up taking his show up the road to The Ohio State University. So the comparisons between Matta and Weber are natural ones.

With the latest Illini disappointment this season, C-Lauff questioned whether we were still on the Weber bandwagon, and while Westy defended the loss, suggesting that losing to Michigan was just a random event against a hot team, I differed a bit. This was my e-mail reply:

Well, I was never on the Bruce bandwagon. We had a period of détente, as we finished off the Dee and Deron era. But if you recall, I was pretty adamant that Weber was a significant step down from Self (particularly after watching him actually coach the first 2 years), and that Matta would have been the better choice (mainly because my buddy Mick knows hoops and was a Xavier alum and season ticket holder). And actually my opinion is that he’s the same coach that he’s always been (adequate – probably right in the middle of the Big Ten, behind Izzo, Ryan, Tubby, Matta, and now Painter). We’re still holding out judgment on Crean.

The point that I'm making is that Weber is a solid coach. If you're in the middle of the Big Ten, that probably puts you in the top 30 coaches nationally. But not an elite coach. And in basketball, coach = program. When you have a solid coach, you'll have a solid program. Don't get me wrong, but schools like Iowa would be envious. My contention was that Weber was a step down from Bill Self. Honestly, what percentage of the folks in Champaign would have preferred Weber to Self in 2004? 0.001%? Maybe? But the more interesting comparison was with Thad Matta, who Westy has never cared much for.

Westy may be somewhat in denial over this, but the strongest evidence for my case is the rankings right now. Matta and Self just happen to coach the #1 and #2 teams. With regard to Matta vs. Weber, both come in from mid-majors, Southern Illinois and Buter/Xavier, where they had success. Bruce started with a full cupboard, coming after Self leaves for Kansas. Matta takes a team that was ineligible for the postseason, coming off of 17-15 and 14-16 seasons after which they fired their coach, and goes 20-12, and just happens to hand the Illini their first loss in that ’04-’05 season. In ’05-’06, Matta starts his run by winning the Big Ten outright (over the Illini), and loses in the 2^nd round of the NCAA’s. And let’s just say that after that, we’ve seen a clear divergence from these two coaches. And a quick side note - back in ‘03-‘04, after we lost that tough, but exciting game against Duke in the Sweet 16, it was Matta’s Xavier team that gave Duke an even tougher game in the Elite 8.

My take on it is that Weber did a nice job in 2005, when we had the perfect storm on the perimeter. But, he botched our shot in ’06 by forcing his motion offense into a team that was better suited for the high-low setup that Self ran for a number of years (Rich McBride and Chester Frazier come in for Luther and Deron, and you don’t change your offense, even a little?). That team, with Auggie and Pruitt should have been working inside-out, and having Randle work the high post area, rather than drifting on the wing. One major issue that I saw, which I didn’t hear much about elsewhere, in 2006 was Dee Brown’s inability (whether it was an individual thing, or a system thing) to make good entry passes into the post. So many times, Dee would get the ball on the wing, and Auggie/Pruitt would have won position, but the pass inside was never made. I’m of the opinion that it’s an issue with Bruce’s system, because we saw similar issues from Chester, Meachem, and McCamey. It’s as though the guards are just told to give a token look inside, before reversing the motion, and that taking an additional dribble toward the baseline (to give a better entry pass angle) would not be tolerated.

And unless you have elite dribble penetration skills, that high 3-man weave doesn’t consistently generate direct looks. You’d think that having two bigs shooting over 50% from the field (with Auggie shooting 62.4% that year), you’d consider maybe going to an inside-out offense in 2005-06? Side note 2 - I believe that this cost Dee a chance to be a first rounder in the NBA, as he ended up shooting way too many long 3’s with the shot clock winding down, which killed his FG%.

I suspect that we saw some of those issues come into play down the road, particularly when we couldn’t turn Pruitt into the NBA sort of player that he could have been. He was a bit of a head case, but he got no help at all from his guards, and was hurt the lack of flexibility in the system. But if you’re a low-post big, and you see how the Illini play, would you like your chances to get to the NBA? The result is that we end up with the skinny, pick-and-pop bigs that we’ve been seeing, and there’s no incentive to really work the low post game, because of the lack of entry passes from the guards. I mean, look at this. Pruitt gets about as many shots as the other 4 players, when he’s shooting 57.2% from the field? This is what you get with Bruce’s offense. This is great when you have an all-star ensemble. But when you have guys like Trent Meachem and Jeffrey Jordan? You get debacles like this:

SCORING GP FG-FGA FG% 3FG-FGA 3PT% FT-FTA FT% PTS PTS/G

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pruitt, Shaun....... 34 163-285 .572 0-0 .000 101-179 .564 427 12.6

Meacham, Trent...... 34 109-265 .411 74-185 .400 53-71 .746 345 10.1

Randle, Brian....... 33 117-254 .461 8-39 .205 67-112 .598 309 9.4

McCamey, Demetri.... 35 100-275 .364 50-147 .340 37-59 .627 287 8.2

Brock, Calvin....... 35 100-220 .455 17-46 .370 41-62 .661 258 7.4

Frazier, Chester.... 34 57-169 .337 25-91 .275 27-52 .519 166 4.9

Alexander, Rodney... 31 49-126 .389 11-57 .193 34-48 .708 143 4.6

Tisdale, Mike....... 35 53-110 .482 2-12 .167 19-30 .633 127 3.6

Davis, Mike......... 34 36-82 .439 0-0 .000 15-32 .469 87 2.6

Cole, Bill.......... 12 11-21 .524 3-10 .300 3-7 .429 28 2.3

Holdren, Steve...... 14 5-19 .263 3-15 .200 4-7 .571 17 1.2

Jordan, Jeff........ 26 7-24 .292 1-3 .333 11-18 .611 26 1.0

Hicks, Chris........ 10 2-9 .222 2-9 .222 1-2 .500 7 0.7

Carlwell, Brian..... 3 0-0 .000 0-0 .000 0-0 .000 0 0.0

Semrau, Richard..... 8 0-1 .000 0-0 .000 0-0 .000 0 0.0

Total............... 35 809-1860 .435 196-614 .319 413-679 .608 2227 63.6

Opponents........... 35 720-1806 .399 215-641 .335 484-672 .720 2139 61.1

A major issue that we've run into, as well, is the lack of ball handling on this team. The one season that we looked good over the past 5 was in 2008-09, when we had Dimitri McCamey and Chester Frazier together in the same backcourt. It was the only time when we had more than one ball handler in our 3-guard, motion offense. Even this year, as talented as we are, with Brandon Paul and DJ Richardson, we don't have any true ball handlers, other than D-Mac. And our lack of execution on offense has reared it's ugly head, yet again. For the 6th consecutive season.

Overall, I'm of the opinion that Illinois should consistently be one of the top 2 or 3 Big Ten basketball programs. We have a ton of talent in our backyard, and we've shown that Champaign can be a destination for kids from other parts of the country (like The Colony, TX, or Alexandria, VA, for example). We were on our way there with Lon Kruger, until the Atlanta Hawks came calling. Bill Self took us there with Kruger's guys, and was about to do it with his guys, until UNC called Roy Williams for the second time, and then Kansas came calling. Weber was able to maintain things for the next three years, but by the time he hit year 5 (the first season with all of the players being his), we had that horrific 16-19 season. There's been a bit of a bounce back since then, but right now, it feels like Illini Basketball is in the wind.

Since we lost Self and didn't get Matta, we've seen Ohio St. emerge as either the #1 or #1a team in the Big 10, with 4 league titles in the last 6 seasons. Meanwhile, Kansas has won 7 consecutive Big 12 titles. And in post-season play, Ohio St. has had a NCAA runner-up, a NIT championship, and a Sweet 16. Kansas has a NCAA championship and two Elite 8 appearances. The Illini started off well, with a Sweet 16 and a NCAA runner-up, but have struggled since then, going 1-2 in the NCAA tournament in the 5 previous seasons. Westy defended this result, suggesting that it was simply recruiting issues that had hindered the Illini, and that these issues were in the past now that Jerrance Howard was in the fold. He also wondered how Matta would do with Weber's players.

First of all, it's pretty funny to me, to realize that the Illini basketball empire hinges on Jerrance, who was the guy at the end of the bench that the fans loved. So, there's that. With regard to what Matta does in-game? That seems to be an irrelevant question - I’ve got no idea what Matta would do with our team, but I do know that there’s no way that Bruce would have gotten Sullinger, even if he didn’t have Ohio St. ties. And when Matta has to go to the well and get a great white hope, he doesn't end up with Trent Meachem, but instead Aaron Craft (who I've become a big fan of, since he was the kid that punked Bruce Pearl's barbecue) or Jon Diebler, who always kill us. Plus, Matta allows things like Mark Titus' celebrity, whereas Weber makes the players shut down their Twitter accounts once practice starts in October.

I've had my complaints about Weber, particularly regarding his lack of aggression/creativity with in-bounds plays and the team's inability to adjust to different defenses. I think that he does well on the defensive end (though this year's team is infuriating to watch on D). Do I think that the Illini should fire Weber? Not really. I'm willing to wait on the latest crop of recruits, mainly because I dig the players that we've got as sophomores right now. But we really need to either a) increase Weber's flexibility with his system, or b) start recruiting the right fits, not necessarily the "best player available." We've had issues with low-post play and ball handling for years now. I'd argue that those are the two most important elements of college basketball (you can get away with mediocre outside shooting - just look at Michigan St. all these years).

In any case, we'll see how the Illini bounce pack in the post-season. All I can say is that I'm glad that we're up to 68 teams in the dance, so we're not sweating it out... I think.

-Chairman

New Media, Same Idiots Reading

Yeah. So people are sort of dumb. We're enthralled with this new media, this Web 2.0, 3.0, etc. sort of stuff, where everyone has a voice. Well, I've decided that most people shouldn't have a voice. Not only do you have a bunch of mouth-breathers running around with blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, YouTube videos, myspace pages, or whatever else that people use to make themselves heard, but you have people actually lend credence to it. And oddly enough, this isn't a political posting. Because there are a lot of idiots running around out there with poorly structured ideas. But I'm talking about sports, particularly recruiting.

Gene Wojciechowski's little piece on Kevin Hart (who was the opener in my last posting) offered up some posts from the Cal sports message boards.

"1st DI player to come out of that high school? He must be a superstar at the school." … "I think this qualifies as a KABOOM." … "Yes, I have seen him play. He's pretty good. Has college size, good skills. Good addition for Cal." … "Sounds like a great young man with size and attitude!" … "I think Kevin Hart will be one hell of a sleeper recruit for Cal."

Some of them are OK, particularly the first two. The third one is where things get dumb. You've got people who have no idea how to evaluate talent evaluating talent. And then, you have people who read what they're saying on Rivals.com (or the like) believing it. So what does this say about the people who post on message boards? And more importantly, what does it say about people who build their expectations on those posts?

Here in the Board Room, we're not afraid to go out on a limb and make some predictions. Most of the time, the predictions are at least decent. And (this year aside), we've been awfully good at evaluating the Illini in basketball. But when it comes to evaluating the incoming freshmen, I like to wait until I've had a chance to see them first hand in college-level competition. All I know is that I hear people talk about how great these players are coming in. I hear all the hype from guys who someone saw once, or someone's little brother played against him in AAU ball, or whatever. And it's all essentially useless information.

Looking back at Rich McBride was a top 30 national recruit. I'm looking back at my postings about him. Essentially, he went from a terrible defender to a so-so one who reached too much over the 3 years that the Board Room and his Illini career overlapped. And my observations suggest that he's gone from a spot up shooter to, well, a spot up shooter that's added a mid-range pull-up to his game. Now, doesn't that sound a lot like Trent Meachem? Trent will never be confused with a national top 30 recruit. But if you go back and read the message boards about Richie, what will they say back when he was being recruited? Luther Head certainly was not a national top 25 recruit. But he ended up being a first round NBA pick. Deron Williams? He was a national top 8 to top 12 recruit. At point. Which made him about a top 40 recruit. He was the #3 overall pick in the NBA draft a few years later. And if you go back to the 2004 rankings, you see that at PF, Shaun Pruitt was #20, and some dude named Joakim Noah was ranked right ahead of him at #19. And Sean Williams was a little after at #28. These are rankings at PF, not overall. Williams was a first round NBA pick. Noah was an NBA lottery pick. Think that some guys doing talent evaluation didn't know what they were talking about? They certainly get some right. But boy, they sure do whiff on a lot. And all it takes is some idiot with an internet connection to get the hype rolling.

We've got all sorts of hype about the kids coming in for '09 and '10, but you know what? Let's not listen to all of the idiots out there until we see things first hand. And then you can have this idiot tell you what to think.

-Chairman

Fictional Declarations

Now that the official signing period has started, The Board Room is happy to announce that we have signed Kevin Hart to a scholarship. It came down to a close race between us, Cal and Oregon, and there was some last minute consideration of 'Bama when Coach Saban called offering a scholarship. However, we are pleased to have added Kevin to our program.

Wait. What?

Really?

Oh.

Nevermind. We're actually not recruiting anyone named Kevin Hart. We just made that up. We apologize to our 7 readers for the confusion.

Returning to our normal programming...

Meanwhile, here in Illini land, behind the stellar play of our phenomenal freshman tandem of PG Dimitri McCamey and SG Eric Gordon, we improved to a Big Ten leading 10-1 and 21-3 overall. We took out hapless Indiana, whose D.J. White is stuck as the lone bright spot on a team that's unable to handle the ball or create shots from the guard position. Having McCamey as the calming influence on the offense and Gordon as the assassin from outside has really opened up Shaun Pruitt on the inside, and cleared the lanes for Brian Randle and Calvin Brock to slash at the hoop without defenders waiting. And having the two freshmen control the ball on offense, Chester Frazier has been freed up to play defense, rebound, and otherwise be the emotional heart of this team that's starting look a lot like our team from 2005.

And things look good for us down the road. Despite Gordon going one and done, we're looking to be able to keep things up, as Mike Tisdale is starting to look like he'll be a much tougher version of Nick Smith, and Alex Legion should be able to come and step right in next year. And getting Jamar back will help with any depth problems. It was crucial for Bruce to not only get Gordon, but also show that he could run his system with star players, not the scrappy, good, tough, but not great players like he did at Southern. Certainly, the motion offense isn't conducive to having any one play score over 18 a game, but being able to have someone come in and play well enough to show off NBA skills is crucial to future recruiting.

In any case, it's looking more and more like the 2008 Illini are a Final Four contender, and if we can overcome Bruce's recruiting shortcomings. Derrick Rose (the Chicago kid that Bruce wasn't able to keep in-state) and Memphis, Bill Self's Kansas squad (which includes more Chicago connections), Coach K's Dukies (whose 6th man, Jon Scheyer, was Bruce's brother's player in HS), and our 2005 nemesis, the UNC Tar Heels are all strong squads. But where we have a chance is that we got our guys in Gordon and McCamey.

One thing that's intriguing to me is the parallels between this team and the Syracuse championship team w/ Carmelo and Gerry MacNamara as freshmen a few years ago, and Hakim Warrick as the established rock on the inside. Carmelo was the one and done and the best player. G-Mac was the one who was going to stay for 4 years and build a program. Warrick was an NBA prospect who had shown potential, but needed to have one more good year to lock up his draft status. Throw in the Orange and Blue, and the similarities are eerie. We all remember the run they had.

This year's Illini have Gordon and D-Mac filling in the freshmen roles and Shaun Pruitt and Brian Randle doing the Hakim Warrick thing. So, we're actually a little ahead of the Orangemen. It's a little premature to say that we're going to win it all, but a deep run is certainly within reason.

Wait...

The Illini actually did not have Eric Gordon sign. We just made that up. We apologize to our 7 readers for the confusion.

Down the road, we may actually write a little more about Bruce's program. There are some folks who are high on what we've got coming in.

-Chairman

Bleeding Orange and White

So, we were at the Illini-Ohio St. basketball game. Our offense looked really good at times, but awful at times against the 2-3 zone, which Ohio St. ran, exclusively. We actually had a high number of assists, as we made a concerted effort to get the ball into the high post. We scored in a variety of ways, basically all of the way I described in my basketball overview posting. Randle finally played well, and Chester actually had a reasonable game on offense, going for 7 points, hitting a 3, and getting a drives in the halfcourt offense, and nailing a couple FT's. Both guys did a nice job getting the ball into the high post, whether it's with a pass or with the penetration. The players that absolutely killed us on both ends of the floor was Trent. Trent couldn't get open on offense, turned the ball over, and shot awfully. Additionally, he was a huge liability on defense, as our rotations couldn't get off of their men to help and recover. We had other issues, including Calvin's inability to handle the rock, and being sloppy with the ball, but the biggest problem in that game was Trent's inability to defend and hit shots on offense.

Now, Jamar Butler went off on us, particularly in the second half. Why did this happen? Partially, Chester's D wasn't shut-down, but to get there, Ohio St. switched tactics in the middle of the 2nd half, by going with high screens. Chester gets screened, we decided to have him try to fight through, and Butler gets open 3's or layups. So, we have to change things up. Instead of having Chester fight through, we start doubling with Pruitt in the 2nd half. At this point the game was still in question, but as soon as we change tactics, we got killed by two wide-open 3's by Matt Terwilliger. Big, goofy, unskilled Matt Terwilliger. So what happened? Butler comes in from the wing to get the high screen from Terwilliger. Pruitt doubles. No one else rotates. It probably should have been Randle off of the next rotation, and on the first shot, you saw Randle hesitate, since he saw that the next rotation (Trent) wasn't moving. So, instead of coming off of Hunter, who would've been open under the hoop, Randle stays, and Terwilliger nails a 3. We manage to get a couple nice buckets to keep it at 9, but two possessions later, they run the exact same set, and again, Randle has to stay low with Hunter because the rotation isn't there. Goofy Terwilliger nails another 3, effectively ending the game.

I don't delve into race much, other than to point out how dumb race is as an issue. But I actually had something sort of irk me quite a bit a the end of the game. Really, the notion is more of ignorance and implied racism, rather than overt racism. With a few seconds left to go, Bruce subs out Chester, and somehow, we have about half of the arena start booing him as he walks off the court. Of course, this is a winter break game, so we've got a bunch of the yokels in here. The profile is basically a bunch of white, jump shooters who worship the Hoosiers ideal, think that trash talk and dirty play is restricted to black folks, and believe that John Stockton and Larry Bird got to be as good as they were by being saints. Our home court decides to boo our hardest working player, our best defender, our best rebounder, and a guy who just had a decent game out there.

We don't boo Trent after a sorry ass game. That's because he can light up bad teams like Weber St., and play the role of the Great White Hope. We believe that Kyle Hudson would make a great slot receiver in the right system and how he has great hands, despite watching him drop pass after pass. We're in the heartland, where we love "scrappy" players. And by "scrappy" I mean, undersized, relatively unathletic, typically one-dimensional, and most importantly white looking. It drives me nuts. I think that a big part of it is that people overvalue the things that they are able to do. So, if you were a good jump shooter back in the day, who couldn't handle the rock and didn't play a lick of defense, then you empathize with Trent. I don't believe that it's overt racism, but I think that it's no coincidence that our fans have decided to start riding the blackest, corn-rowed, tattooed, toughest, scrappiest player out there. If Chester were a white kid with a crew cut, he'd be a regional celebrity, and maybe even get national attention like Lucas Johnson did if the Illini made a run. Instead, he gets booed at home.

It's crap like this that makes me wonder if the anti-Chief folks had a more accurate perception of the reality in this area than I thought.

-Chairman

Wait 'til Later This Year

It was scary how good USC looked. First, on defense, they were incredibly fast to the outside. As I recall, we only had a single good outside option play, where we got a nice little chip block on the end, and Rashard Mendenhall took it about 25 yards. But other than that, they killed us to the outside. Really, the only complaint that I had about them was that they were passing too much early in the game. Booty didn't look good early on, and was not accurate with the ball. They were running the ball at will, but still throwing on 1st and 2nd down in the 2nd and 3rd quarter. That actually gave us a chance to come back in the 3rd quarter, but it wasn't enough.

In a game where we needed the bounces and calls to go our way, we had them go the other way in droves:

-The non-fumble to open up the game (as well as the non-challenge)
-The McKnight "Immaculate Reception" sort of play on their first scoring drive
-USC hitting a trick play to make it 14-0
-A missed chip shot figgie

Of course, our defense got some traction, and started competing legitimately (thanks largely to USC passing too much). You could've made the argument that it could've easily been something like USC 14, Illinois 10 at halftime, but instead, it was 21-0. But even in the 3rd quarter, we looked alright. We had 2 big plays go our way in a very nice Mendenhall 79-yard TD run to make it 21-10. Then we got our stop, and got another big Mendenhall play, a 55-yard play off of a short dump off pass. Our defense was starting to slow down the run, and we were getting some more pressure on Booty. Our offense had seemed to get things figured out. Then, we threw a completion deep into USC territory, which was followed immediately by:

-The Willis fumble going toward the endzone to keep it from going to 21-17

This was brutal. This was the reverse of the "hometown boy stars in underdog role" story. Along with the early Kyle Hudson dropped pass, this was the "hometown kids come up short" story, which isn't nearly as sexy. But, our defense was still competing, so if we could have gotten another stop, we were still in business. Instead:

-The lateral that McKnight picked up and ran 65 yards (as well as the bad challenge)

That made it 28-10 with a lot of time left to go, but to put the nail in the coffin, Juice overthrew Cumberland, and got picked, which led to USC scoring to make it 35-10, effectively ending the game. Looking at it honestly, we got 2 big plays, and had 6 go against us. If things balance out, we get the 2 big ones, and only have 4 go against us, we're looking at something like 28-20, with us starting a drive with about 4 minutes left in the 3rd. We're still behind, but we're competing. So, we ran into a superior team that got a couple more bounces than we did. That's a recipe for a blowout.

Now, some folks had issue with the play call on the last interception. I don't.

We got exactly what we wanted. Our biggest receiver (a Walter Young type guy) 1-on-1 to the outside. We actually got a shot with that same matchup in the 2nd quarter and took a shot. On the earlier play, we say that Harris (the CB) was actually outrunning Cumberland on the play, blanketing him. That play ended in an incompletion. Cumberland had about 6" on Harris, so the best throw there is a high, jump-ball sort of throw. Conversely, since Harris was playing ahead of Cumberland, a slight underthrow would been great, as well. So, on a play where Juice had to go with either the high jump-ball, or the underthrow, he zips a laser that's overthrown, and gets picked.

That said, I like Juice a lot. What I described above is something that you only see good QB's do. Right now, Juice is probably still under orders to throw the ball away at the first sign of trouble. I'm guessing that by design, he has 2 downfield routes that he's looking at, as well as a safety valve. He has improved his passing tremendously, but still needs to add to his repertoire. He has looked much better this year on the little swing passes, and some of the short passes across the middle. You still want to work receivers in front of him, rather than have him make reads across the entire field. He is still very much a work in progress.

You saw some issues with height. He's listed at 6'2", which, coincidentally, is the shortest that many NFL teams will allow their QB's to be. Rumor has it that he's a hair under 6'1". In the opening quarter, there were 2 throws tipped at the line, the 2nd of which was picked on the play immediately preceding the flea flicker that made it 14-0.

But here's the thing. He just finished his sophomore year. Right now, he's ahead of where Dennis Dixon, Troy Smith, and most college run/throw QB's not named McNabb, Vick, or Tebow were after their sophomore years. QB's take time to mature. You see quantum leaps from a lot of guys. Dixon looked shaky until this year. Andre Woodson was shaky until his junior season. Troy Smith really became an excellent QB after his junior year. Donovan McNabb was ahead of Juice, but even he was under 55% in his 2nd and 3rd years starting, before having a great senior season.

So, I think that things look rosy for the Illini, just not at this moment. Next year, we get more experience out of Benn/Cumberland as WR's, as well as Brian Gamble, who switched over from the defensive side of the ball. We'll have to replace some of the interior linemen, including our all-Amerian, Martin O'Donnell. On the defensive side, we'll lose a little more, notably J Leman, Antonio Steele, and Kevin Mitchell. We'll see how guys like Josh Brent and Martez Wilson fill in on the defensive line, and we'll see who steps up to fill the role that Leman played for us the last few years. Best guess is Britt Miller will do very well in the LB, and that Will Davis will have a good year on the line.

The biggest question is whether Mendenhall will be back next year. I think that Mendenhall showed the burst, as well as the toughness to go on the 1st day in the draft. I'm guessing that he'll work out for teams, and get evaluated. If he's a 1st rounder, he pretty much has to go pro. From what's out there, the consensus top 3 RB's are Darren McFadden, Ray Rice, and Felix Jones. Mendenhall may be able to creep in there, maybe even up to #2, which would put him in the mid/late 1st round. But if he projects out as a mid-2nd round pick, that's a big difference in guaranteed money than a mid-1st round. That likely means that he'll be back next year as a preseason Heisman and Doak Walker candidate, and in line to be a top 20 pick next year, and really cash in. Of course, even without Rashard Mendenhall, we still have Walter Mendenhall, who has shown a some toughness (though not the speed) to get a few carries. And Daniel "Shawshank" Dufrene has busted a few long ones, including the non-fumble early on against Ohio St.

In any case, early guess is that we'll be in the top 10-15 to start out the season. After that, it's up to how we perform on the field. I think that another bowl game will happen, but the question is what sort of bowl we'll be going to.

-Chairman

Illini Outlook

First of all, it's official. I just won my 2nd meaningless fantasy football league of the year. Somehow, I'm still bitter over winning these two leagues, and not the UPL league. I think that it's because I'm watching the players on my UPL league all put up big numbers this week, almost as if they were mocking me. Still, if I was a reasonable person, two wins and a runner-up would be a good season. But, I have some sort of mental disorder, so somehow I'm still annoyed. Oh well.

In any case I want to have a little discussion about our Illini hoops squad this year. Right now we're 8-5 with a couple of nice wins over Arizona St. and Mizzou. We've had 2 tough losses to Maryland and Arizona, and two terrible home losses to Miami (OH) and Tennessee St. Really, any of those could have been W's. Our only legit loss was to a pretty good Duke team. Even being optimistic, we're looking at something like 19-10 in the regular season. If we can get a win in the Big Ten tourney, we'd be 20-11, and firmly on the bubble for another trip to the big dance. I have a suspicion that it would take 11-5, and 2 wins in the Big Ten tourney to lock up a trip, which will be a tough task.

There are some things that are good about this squad. First of all, we're good on defense. We're not dominating, but if you're a bad team that only has 1 or 2 legit ball handlers, we'll tear you up. We'll talk more about our defense later. And I love the effort that we play with on both sides of the ball. We work hard, scrapping away, getting loose balls, and fighting on the boards. Shaun Pruitt is an adequate rebounder for his size, and Chester Frazier is the best rebounder on our team, and one of the best I've ever seen, pound for pound. We're also athletic. In addition to Brian Randle, we also have Mike Davis and Rodney Alexander as 6'8", wing guys that can fly.
Of course, if you've watched any of our games, you also know that we're flawed on offense, perhaps fatally so. Obviously, there are problems with shooting. We don't have much as far as consistent shooting goes. Pruitt is a rock down low, but you see some flaws that will keep him from being drafted (barring improvement). He's sort of flipping the ball at the hoop, rather than elevating and shooting it. He won't get away with that at the next level. He's picked up a little hook shot to go with his drop stop and his step through, which makes him legitimate in the low block. However, his lack of explosiveness keeps him from being dominant. One thing that he's improved on this year is putting the ball on the floor for 1 or 2 dribbles, and creating a little more on his own. Also, he's had a number of assists from the high post to open cutters, primarily Randle. So, he's improved, but it's been an incremental improvement, rather than a quantum leap. He may get a look from some NBA folks just from his size, but will need a lot of work to get drafted at all. But he is still one of the better offensive options in the Big Ten.

The rest of the squad is less inspiring. Two players that have done alright are Trent and Randle. Trent needs to have someone else make a play so that he's open. He's absolutely deadly against bad defenses, but struggles getting open shots against good ones. Randle has improved his outside shooting, but it's still only adequate, and not a n offensive strength, as he has not been actively taking the ball to the hole. One thing that I would like to see is for us to trigger a screen and roll with Randle as the handler and another big as the screener. That would make for a much tougher switch for most teams that the big/little screen and roll that most teams use. This doesn't require excellent ball handling, and can get Randle a lot more looks going to the hoop. Remember, with a big/little pick and roll, teams either double or fight through. If we had good penetrators, that becomes advantageous, but we're not great off the bounce with our guards. However, with a big/big pick and roll, most teams will switch. You also don't see teams double the big/big, because it's easier for bigs to pass over the top from doubles, and teams hate it when their bigs get fouls 20' from the hoop. If you fight through, you end up with an easy roll to the hoop for Pruitt. Off of the switch, you get Randle against a 5, creating a mismatch against most lineups.

I'd say that Calvin Brock has improved a bit on offense. He's hitting some clutch shots, but misses a lot of easy shots over the course of the game. It would be better if he was creating, since he's like Trent in that he requires someone else to get him an open shot, but has a little more versatility in how he can score.

After that it gets ugly. Rodney is about the same as Randle, only he gets lost more on offense (and defense, too). Right now, he's a bit in Bruce's doghouse, and seems to only score off of hustle (though you can say the same thing for the entire team). I think that Chester looks better shooting than he did last year, but he's still a liability out there as a shooter. However, his form looks to be alright, and it wouldn't shock me if he were to improve quite a bit between now and when he graduates. As far as the newcomers go, there are some worth talking about.

Dimitri is a little streaky, and probably is still used to being the lead scorer, and has to adapt. However, he's getting to handle the rock more, so maybe his offense will pick up. I like his game, though. He's sort of a power guard, in the Deron Williams mold. He moves his feet quickly enough to be a solid defender (can't tell if he can be shut down defender, yet). His outside shooting is a bit streaky, but the fundamentals are there, though from what I recall, his shot is a bit long. He's also able to get to the middle of the court consistently for a mid-range J (which is what I loved about Deron, even when he was shooting poorly as a freshman). What I haven't seen is his court vision, but in our offense, that's one of the hardest things to pick up.

Early in the season, I commented that if this team was going to do well, Dimitri would have to emerge as the 2nd best guard on this team. So far that hasn't happened, but I still believe that the rotation at guard needs to have both Chester and Dimitri in there if we want to get effective movement on offense. Trent doesn't make mistakes, but doesn't make the people around him better. Calvin is pretty much a liability on offense until he gets the ball in his hands.

One player who I could see getting more run down the stretch is Bill Cole, as his outside shot looks to be legit. He also has a solid hoops IQ/court awareness. He seems to move in the motion offense naturally (while many of his teammates still look like they need a GPS out there), and consistently makes the solid pass. I have a suspicion that he's our best option in the high post against the zone. Of course, he's a bit slow to play against a lot of 3's, and not quite strong enough against 4's.

Mike Tisdale has been the first center off of the bench, and has been very solid defensively, despite not being strong enough to really play. You can also tell that he has some very good fundamental offensive skills (a hook shot and a drop step down low), but isn't strong enough to get them working, yet. He also has a reasonable outside shot, ala Nick "Chainsaw" Smith. In fact, I think that we heard some "Chainsaw" chants from Krush earlier in the season. In 3 years, I think that he'll be awfully good, but right now, he's just not there. That said, he competes on defense very well, moves well for a 7-footer, and seems to be a pretty good shot blocker. He draws fouls because he's not strong enough to keep his man from getting the initial contact on him, so he fouls as he's pushed back.

Oddly enough, I think that of all of our big men, Davis already has the most refined offensive game. He's a solid finisher, and has a mid-range jumper, and a little hook down low that is efficient. I actually like his upside quite a bit, with him reminding me a bit of Brian Cook on the offensive end. Cookie was bigger and could get some easier buckets because of his size. But Davis' offensive game is at least as developed as Cook's was during his freshman year, minus the cheap interior buckets. Cook also became a pretty good defender and rebounder as he developed. I think that with effort, Davis could do the same. He's hampered by having narrow shoulders, otherwise his ceiling would be as a legit NBA prospect. But, he can still get stronger and become a very good Big Ten player.

And, our free throw shooting has been atrocious. It all starts with Shaun Pruitt, because he gets fouled so often in the low block. He's shortened up his motion, which helps reduce the number of things that can go wrong, but there's still a bad hitch in there. I'm guessing that there will be a little improvement from last year, but 60% would be considered a success. Our other players all have problems on the line, but without the obvious mechanical problems. As a team, we're giving away about 5 points a game on the line, and I think that we'd only have 1 or 2 losses, at most, if we were an average or better free throw shooting team.

Perhaps our biggest weakness that no one recognizes is our lack of ball-handling/passing. Really, we only have two legitimate ball handlers on our team, Chester and Dimitri. Trent is not a ball handler against legitimate defenses. Calvin is not a ball handler under any circumstance. So even when we're running a 3-guard offense, our ball handling is sub-par, unless we have Chester and Dimitri in the ball game. Our forwards don't help the cause. Brian Randle has been very limited, even considering he's a forward. Same goes for Rodney Alexander. And our centers, Shaun Pruitt and Mike Tisdale are average, at best. When we play against teams that like to pressure, we struggle getting into our offense.

The other thing is our execution on offense. We are bad at setting and running off of screens. Against Arizona, we had Chester and Randle throwing the ball around the perimeter, while Shaun, Calvin, and Trent were running around in circles. Calvin was setting terrible screens, and Shaun wasn't running off of them properly, and Trent just couldn't get open. It was bad. Rodney gets lost on offense, as do Calvin, Davis, and just about everyone else playing the 2/3/4 for us. Our centers have a pretty easy job, and our point guards do pretty well in the flow of our motion. It gets ugly after that.

So, with more problems than solutions, we're going to be flawed on offense. My best guess is that we need to get more minutes for Dimitri, and keep the minutes that Calvin and Trent are on the floor together at a minimum. When you have those two in there together as the 2nd and 3rd ball handlers, our team ball handling is pretty much terrible. Unfortunately, Calvin and Trent are our two best non-Pruitt scoring options right now. Trent kills bad defenses, and Calvin has been hitting clutch shots. Unfortunately, they kill the half-court offense. Perhaps playing Dimitri and Trent together is our best option, because Dimitri gets penetration the most consistently, which would open up Trent's shooting. Either that, or get our 3's the ball in the high post, and force doubles. One thing that we could do to get some more points is to get more aggressive off our in-bounds plays, particularly off of the baseline. We aren't just surrendering and lobbing high like we did a lot last year, but we're still not getting enough out of it. That's on the coach, both with X's and O's, as well as team execution on set plays.

Our offense has struggled against teams that switch up defenses. We still have problems with zones, and more recently, we've struggled against the press. Teams will mix up their press, disguising it will full-court man at times. Either one works against us, because we'll eat up 10 seconds getting it into the frontcourt, and spend another 5 seconds starting things up. We don't make teams pay for pressuring the ball in the backcourt. If I was coaching against us, I'd show press the entire game, and fall back to full-court man 75% of the time. This effectively dares us to create a shot in the half court in 20 seconds, which we struggle with mightily.

Defensively, you have some similar issues. Trent can't stop the ball against good ball handlers, and Calvin has this nasty habit of not playing defense until his guys gets the ball. Most of the time that's OK, but every once in a while it's way too late (see the easy layups that Arizona got by curling Chase Budinger into the free throw line, followed by a pass down low for a layup/dunk). And in any case, it keeps Calvin from becoming an advantage on defense. If he would make the effort to shut his guy down for the entire possession, he would be a scary defender. But given that he's sort of neutral to slightly positive on defense, it's really hard to make a case to keep him on the floor. So, it's tough to keep them together on the floor against teams with two ball handlers.

Chester is a phenomenal defender, as he's strong, works incredibly hard, and move his feet well. he also competes like crazy on the boards, so he's the lynchpin of our defense. He's our only legit stopper against opposing ball handlers. We'll see with Dimitri. He's got the footwork to play even, and competes well, but doesn't disrupt, yet. Randle can be dominant at times, but often, he's like Calvin, not playing D until his guy gets the ball. This results in some reaching fouls that could be avoided by improved footwork and positioning. But that said, he can guard guys on the wing, and down low, and can be an awesome presence. I think that one of the main reasons that we haven't seen more of Rodney is because he gets lost on D. Not Calvin-lost, but he'll lose guys after a switch or make a soft double that allows the ball to get kicked back out to his guy. Davis is also a little bit passive on D, though he does block shots from the weakside. He needs to get stronger, and keep working on getting low and moving his feet on D. In the interior, Pruitt has improved his D immensely. He works down low without picking up the cheap fouls that plagued him his first 2 seasons. He's not a great shot blocker, but makes shots tougher for the opposition. Ditto for his main sub, Tisdale.

Overall, our scheme on D has been reasonable. You'd like to see more effort from Calvin and Randle, but we're a solid defensive team overall, and can be excellent at times (when Calvin and Randle are dialed in). We can be attacked by teams with a 2nd ball handler if Trent is on the floor. And we can be attacked by players who can run off of screens if Calvin is on the floor. Our interior defense is solid, and we rebound pretty well. The problem is that we are so flawed on offense that we need our defense to create points. We can't do that. We can play teams even if we aren't scoring because our half-court defense is solid, but we don't create turnovers and cheap buckets on the other end. I would say that one way to pick up 2 fast-break buckets a game is to have Chester leak out, rather than go for the rebound, but the risk is that we don't have our best rebounder going after the ball. In any case, we need to find ways to create points off of our defense. One thing that we've been doing more in the last couple games is to double the high screens, particularly if it's Chester's man going into Pruitt. I think that this was the recipe from a few seasons ago, but becomes useless if Calvin and Randle aren't trying to get steals.

I still have apprehensions about Weber's in-game calls. I'm not sure why we're sticking with this safe, but solid, man-to-man. It wears us out, and we're not creating points off of this defense. It's one thing to try for turnovers off of a solid man, but if we're going to be passive, and try to play the other team even on defense, I would almost rather see us go 1-3-1, and have our big wings disrupt things, and keep our guys from being so gassed that they're off on their free throws. The motion offense is growing on me, but the set plays that we run when we come out of a time out are still shaky. I think that any team that struggles as much as we do adapting to defensive changes has coaching issues.

On the offensive end, we're not the most talented bunch, but our execution has some fundamental flaws. We have improved on taking an extra dribble toward the baseline to open up passes into the low block (the failure of which was the main reason Dee Brown wasn't a 1st round pick with guaranteed cash). However, we still forget that the high post is a very advantageous position for an offense. For someone like Randle catching the ball at the free throw line, it's almost too easy. You have options to drive, shoot an easy J, or pass into the low block either with a lob over a seal, or with a cutter coming from the wing against a doubler. Arizona won the game with 3 cheap lay-ups passing from the high-post down to a low-block screener. We've gotten some easy buckets with Pruitt serving the same role.

We need to force that option more, particularly against zones. The classic zone breaker is to go wing, high, and low, and force a double somewhere, and either shoot them out of the zone, or pound them out if you can get the ball into the high or low post with a 1-on-1 situation. This requires good timing from your post players, winning the spot a split second before the wing gets the ball. In turn, this requires solid screens from your bigs when they exchange high and low. Done correctly, this allows for the quick pass from the wing, since the double is likely going to hit the wing from a 2-3 zone. Unfortunately, our execution is flawed, so we are bad against the zone. This comes from the coaching, I believe.

With regard to recruiting, I'm actually OK with the kids we've brought in. I see a lot of potential in both Tisdale and Davis as forwards. Carlwell still needs to be willing to get stronger and to own the low block, but has time. Semrau has been invisible this year, but showed a knack for getting his hands on the ball last year. I have no idea what's going on with those two, with regard to eligibility. Bill Cole needs to develop the strength, but his upside is very high, given this high basketball IQ and the shooting ability. I like Dimitri quite a bit. We still need a 2 guard, though I think that Eric Gordon will fit into that role eventually. In all seriousness, we'll see how this Alex Legion transfer pans out next year. Hopefully Jerrance will help with recruiting, and maybe we can get some legit offensive players in here.

As far as this year goes, always being always the optimist, I think that we get our rotation figured out, and get Dimitri more run. I think that we get things figured out and become a scary team in the dance, like we should have been last year (honestly, we gave that game away to VT, and would have drilled Southern Illinois). No one wants to play teams that will beat you up, and make your offense ugly. That's what we do. If we can just figure out how to score a few easy buckets, whether it's on the line or off of turnovers, we have a shot at the Sweet 16. If not, we may have a shot at the Sweet 16 of the NIT.

-Chairman

Strange Sensations

It sort of feels funny. It's like you've been there before, but it was so long ago that you forgot what it feels like. It's comforting, and strangely exciting. And you're openly happy about it. Though apt, I'm not talking about breastfeeding. I'm talking about Illini football.

Top 20.

No kidding.

The big thing is that we run the ball well, and we can play a little D. The Lou Tepper era was characterized by us running the ball for 2 yards, running the ball for a yard, and then throwing an incompletion, followed by punting. The D was pretty good, so we would lose a bunch of 17-3 games. The Ron Turner era was characterized by us running the ball for 7 yards on 1st down, and then throwing two incompletions and punting. The D wasn't as good, so we lost a bunch of 38-17 games. That's not to say that parts of the Ron Zook era didn't look bad early on. But oddly enough, the funky shotgun spread can be a power running formation. And this year, we're sticking with the run. A lot of that is because Juice Williams hasn't really improved as a passer (though in fairness, he's been banged up pretty good this year).

Some problems have always been game management. Ron Turner's teams looked like Mike Martz teams crossed with the old Oakland Raiders - sloppy with the time management and lots of penalties. We'd be giving away timeouts early in the 3rd quarters because we couldn't get plays in there. We'd take bad roughing the passer calls at the worst possible times. The Ron Zook teams have not been much better, though this last game was looking pretty good. We only had 3 penalties (plus an offsetting personal foul), and one of those was a shady roughing the passer call, where the ref's angle made a hit look worse than it was (from the side, a shoulder and a helmet lead are awfully similar). More interestingly, we didn't use any timeouts, which means that we were communicating well.

From here on out, you figure that we should beat Minnesota, Ball St., and Northwestern. We'll have a good shot at Iowa, but winning on the road is always tough. Ohio St. and Michigan are always problematic. If this trend of good game management continues, we're likely looking at a very nice 9-3 type of season and a bowl game in a nice city. Who knows? Alamo Bowl seems like a reasonable option. Being optimistic, maybe even a Florida game in January?

In any case, it'll be fun to see how this seasons unfolds.

-Chairman

The Diagnosis

Well, one thing that I finally figured out today at basketball was that I'm old. I need to get the knees loose before I can actually play. And once they're warmed up, they're okay. So, it was funny - I needed a few minutes on the exercise bike before we got going. I felt like TO out there. All I needed was a bicycle helmet and a Team Discovery jersey.

So, today's game was a lot like last week. Good play, overall. Very solid defense (against a pretty good player who played both inside and outside). Was able to move around. And I even hit a couple spot-up jumpers from the baseline, a couple long jumpers, and even one litle bank shot off the dribble. The downside - I've lost the pull-up. I need to get that back. The funny thing is that I was able to get open in the lane, from about 10 feet. And as I pulled up to shoot, I would get spooked by guys flying at me. Granted, they would fly into me some of the time, but that never used to really bother me. I think that I'm afraid that they're going to crash into my legs. I think that I can get over this in a couple weeks, though.

I was browsing through the Sports Guy's latest post. And I was reminded that Nick Curran was the name of the Michael Douglas character in Basic Instinct. That's hot. Also, Michael O'Donnell was the name of the alleged altar boy that was raped by a Catholic priest in Primal Fear. That's also hot. All I know is that if I ever write a movie, I'm writing all of your names in there as various seedy characters.

Actually, I've sort of done that already. In one of my journal submissions, we have a qualitative piece where we use interview transcripts from our research to tell a story (here, it's the retail shopping experience for low literate consumers). Now, we can't use the real names of our respondents. So, part of my job as the co-author is to clean up the interview transcripts, and to make up names. And that's where you fine folks come in. So people like George, Christian, and Michael have made it into my articles. And future articles will get more of you into the archives of academia. As functional illiterates. How awesome is that?

Now, I'm thinking that it's about time to jump ship on the ol' Reds. Now, a couple times earlier this season, they've swooned, but have bounced back. We'll see if they can do it one more time. They're on probation right now. Maybe things get better if Guardado comes back to close. If not, the Yanks are looking pretty darned good right now. If Mussina comes back healthy, and Unit keeps throwing like he has of late, this team should bring things home. They owned the Tigers, White Sox, and Twins in the second half. And they'll be too good for Oakland (though the A's are probably the 2nd best team in baseball right now).

To close - our Illini are 1-0, after owning... well, Eastern Illinois. I mean, they were ranked 16 in Division I-AA. But a W's a W. Only 5 more wins until bowl eligibility. Instinctively, I figured that we'd have 3 wins. But, if all the breaks fall our way, maybe we can sneak out a bowl bid. Hear me out. We got Eastern. Figure that we get Ohio, as well. We have Rutgers and Syracuse. If we can pull out both of these, we'll have 4 wins. I think that we can get Indiana for Homecoming. And if we don't get both of the Big East teams, maybe we can get a W when Purdue comes to town. Or maybe even at Michigan St. But the game that I figure that we can get Northwestern. Afterall, they've got a rookie coach, after Randy Walker died. I'd like to think that we have a shot against Northwestern, after their coach dies. Ideally, we beat them even with out their head coach dying (after all, it's friggin' Northwestern). But at this point, we take what we can get, right? So, if all the breaks go our way, we may be able to get that bowl game, after all.

Of ocurse, I'm calling the over-under at 3.5. I don't really like our schedule. We need to take a page out of Jim Boeheim's non-conference schedule. We need to get more of those directional MAC schools to come here. No more of these Big East teams that want home and homes. We need to bring in bad teams, pay them $500K, and send them home with a loss. If we set up our non-conference schedule right, we can get 4 W's before the Big Ten season starts, and then need to beat Indiana and Northwestern to get a bowl.

We'll see.

-Chairman