Recent content by MDchicago

If he is walking away from a retention payment or bonus which has not yet vested, he should be looking to his new employer to make him whole.

Interesting that Amani and Booth were ranked within 1 spot of each other (58-59) coming our of HS. RSCI Still different pros/cons for each head to head, but if Amani's position was he was heading for the portal if a quality 5 was added that makes this decision at the 4 pretty easy.

What's up with this Alabama writer's ballot for the final AP poll?? LINK Has Illinois unranked, Purdue #8, Tennessee #18, while including 4 sub-.500 teams (including Rutgers and Maryland) in his final top 25. Assumed it must have been in error (e.g., too-early ranking for next year), but no...

My top 3 reasons to be optimistic about this game are: - Our age/experience edge: We are both older and more experienced. Our KP playing time weighted years of experience (3.11) is 11th in the country and 3rd out of the Sweet 16 teams (behind UNC and Creighton). ISU's is 124th in the country...

To be fair to FedEx, it was an Emery Worldwide envelope.... with cash and a game tape sent to HS AA recruit's father that came open at the shipping processing facility. Link Then Kentucky assistant (and future NBA coach) Dwayne Casey was listed as the sender, but apparently was out of town...

Using KenPom's ranking of conferences by the AdjEM of team that's expected to go .500 in conference play, - MVC is the 10th best conference (+3.40, more than 2.5 ahead of Gonzaga's WCC) and the MAC is the 25th best conference (-6.40). Not particularly close this season. Spread between the two...

No, we had a nice run in the 2000-2006 era (including 4 near top 10 misses), before Bruce's recruits took over. 2000 21 2001 4 2002 13 2003 11 2004 13 2005 1 2006 13

Another fun fact: We are now #1 in the Big 10 in the total number of appearances in the final AP poll (until UCLA suits up, so enjoy it). Tied for 8th of all programs. Link: Total appearances Final AP poll

Played around on KP looking for the NCAA tournament fate of teams with a similar profile to ours, and this is what I found. 32 teams since 1999 fit the profile of: (1) top 10 ranked KP offensive efficiency; (2) a KP adjusted defensive efficiency greater than 100.0 (all NCAA champions in KP...

Not your exact situation, but my cautionary tale: bought NCAA tickets directly from NCAA via Ticketmaster as part of the early purchase program (before the season) for the first time before last season (for the Greensboro regional). Thought my downside was limited and may have upside, given...

Based on KP data as of Feb. 27: Stellar Offense: 124.0 KP AdjO (#4 in nation; #1 out of the last 26 Illini teams 1999-2024) Illini's current AdjO is higher than 21 of the last 24 NCAA champions and well above the 1999-23 NCAA champ ave. of 120.47. 3 of the top 7 single game AdjO performances...

Quick scan of Ken Pom top 25 leaves only us and Duke as the only two without any double digit losses. Good factoid to help maintain some perspective in trying times.... but still need to fix the leaky defense!

Interesting. With Mit Shah's generosity to the program and his wife's well-publicized health issues, thought he might be viewing things differently then the typical coach ... Alternatively, maybe it just highlights the need for getting a big bag while it's there cause life happens.

Noticed Sencire putting up 3s in the background of this video starting at around 1:12. By my count, 2 out of 5 to start and then 10 out of the next 10. No big change in form I can see.

Purdue is an extreme statistical outlier compared to other teams that draw a lot of fouls, including Illinois with Kofi in 2021 and 2022. 49 of the top 50 teams in terms of KenPom free throw rate this season rank 95th or worse in terms of limiting their opponent's free throw rate (and the top...