Illinois 73, East Tennessee State 55 POSTGAME

[Deleted member 746094]

The fact that Ayo and Griff both posted to twitter acknowledging their mistake and apologized to their teammate tells me they understand what BU expects and know they let their teammates down.

Once again, most of these kids will have to work in the real world someday and there are consequences for tardiness, poor attitude and not following company policy. Some people on here forget that these coaches, at least the good ones, also take pride in helping these young men and women grow as people so that they will be successful once their athletic career is over. Can’t always be about W/L column.

 

[Calvin]

I don't know what his suspension is, but I believe DIA policy says you miss 25% of your season if you fail 2 drug tests. I'm quite sure that information is publicly available. Again, I do not know what the cause of length of tevian's suspension is.

I can certainly understand them testing for PEDs. 8 games is pretty serious regardless of the issue. Hope he thinks this one through and comes out stronger.

Great win. Really positive game in so many ways.

 

[CoalCity]

I can certainly understand them testing for PEDs. 8 games is pretty serious regardless of the issue. Hope he thinks this one through and comes out stronger.

Great win. Really positive game in so many ways.

 

[sinmyp]

Has anyone seen the date and time of rebroadcast?

 

[Deleted member 29907]

Has anyone seen the date and time of rebroadcast?

Looks to be 9:30am Central time today on BTN.

 

[ugottabjoshinme]

I wish we could have had good Kipper from the beginning of the season. Probably could have picked up a couple decent wins.

 

[foby]

It's amazing how many fewer pages there are when we win a game in the fashion we should. Very telling about the overall neg of this board.

 

[blackdog]

It's amazing how many fewer pages there are when we win a game in the fashion we should. Very telling about the overall neg of this board.

Well already about the same number of posts for the Missouri pregame thread so it's really more telling about which game matters more.

 

[Deleted member 29907]

It's amazing how many fewer pages there are when we win a game in the fashion we should. Very telling about the overall neg of this board.

While I agree in general the negatives come out in much stronger force after a loss, its also true that 1) It was on BTN+ so not as good of a viewing crowd, and 2) while I did watch the game, i kept wondering how much of the success was us playing better vs them playing tired from the start.

 

[Obelix]

It's amazing how many fewer pages there are when we win a game in the fashion we should. Very telling about the overall neg of this board.

LOL... amazing that you did not make a single "positive" comment on the this thread either, yet you complain about the negativity of others not making positive posts? Where were your "positive" thoughts on the game?

Personally, I did not find anything on this game to comment on, and I imagine neither did others. I would also guess that quite many fans did not even bother to watch and definitely many did not pay an extra month of BTN plus just to watch those heated rivalries against East Tennessee State and Florida Atlantic.

You are also off on your comment. Even a loss against Nebraska, a B1G game against a good team team on BTN (not have to pay extra) barely reached 5 pages, let alone complain about a meaningless game against East Tennessee State on BTN plus (have to pay extra) that has 3 pages in comparison.

You must be new on Illini boards, but in the good ol' days a loss against Nebraska or Notre Dame would have generated tens of pages almost instantaneously. So no, there is no new found "negativity" on this board, more a predominant "apathy" about Illini basketball in general.

 

[skyIdub]

Fan (person)


A fan, or fanatic, sometimes also termed aficionado or supporter, is a person who is enthusiastically devoted to something or somebody, such as a singer or band, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a movie or an entertainer. Collectively, the fans of a particular object or person constitute its fanbase or fandom. They may show their enthusiasm in a variety of ways, such as by promoting the object of their interest, being members of a fan club, holding or participating in fan conventions, or writing fan mail. They may also engage in creative activities ("fan labor") such as creating fanzines, writing fan fiction, making memes or drawing fan art.

 

[PlayAZ]

It's amazing how many fewer pages there are when we win a game in the fashion we should. Very telling about the overall neg of this board.

Very telling about the level of the talent on the team that we beat in the manner that we should.

 

[Obelix]

Fan (person)


A fan, or fanatic, sometimes also termed aficionado or supporter, is a person who is enthusiastically devoted to something or somebody, such as a singer or band, a sports team, a genre, a politician, a book, a movie or an entertainer. Collectively, the fans of a particular object or person constitute its fanbase or fandom. They may show their enthusiasm in a variety of ways, such as by promoting the object of their interest, being members of a fan club, holding or participating in fan conventions, or writing fan mail. They may also engage in creative activities ("fan labor") such as creating fanzines, writing fan fiction, making memes or drawing fan art.

Being a supporter and devoted to a team has absolutely nothing to do with hallucinating about the current state of the program or not showing great concern about the direction of the program. The argument that Illini fans are more negative than other fans of similar level of program is just a figment of some people's imagination. The truth is that Illinois has lost a great number of "fans" and many have transitioned to state of "apathy" and the reason is the lack of results caused coaching and administrative decisions, not by fans, or ex-fans.

 

[PtownIllini8]

The Illini need Kipper to keep playing like this.

Coach said rebounding would be key against a good rebounding team we win the battle, Kipper gets 9 and AJ with 10! Kipper is a big key to this team. He has to be aggressive.

 

[PtownIllini8]

Way to step up and take responsibility for being late, guys. Good to see we have kid with fiber in them. Loved Frazier's take on our coach. "I have the fire like coach does," he said in postgame. Good refrain for the coach yells too much folks to hear.

 

[Berg88]

It's amazing how many fewer pages there are when we win a game in the fashion we should. Very telling about the overall neg of this board.

The posts stream in after big games and when expectations have been defied one way or another. This was a game against nobody, that you had to pay extra to watch, in a season that is pretty much over, and it went exactly as you might expect. What should we say?

 

[PtownIllini8]

I'm optimistic too, but on the "more potent" point, AJ needs to shoot well consistently (yes, he's a glue guy who rebounds, but 2/13 and a drop off in production like last year ain't gonna cut it from a Sr. starter); same for Damonte. We need points from those guys to win the close games.

10 rebounds from AJ, which Coach U emphasized. That'll cut it from a senior starter. The game isn't all about scoring.

 

[PtownIllini8]

While I agree in general the negatives come out in much stronger force after a loss, its also true that 1) It was on BTN+ so not as good of a viewing crowd, and 2) while I did watch the game, i kept wondering how much of the success was us playing better vs them playing tired from the start.

Their coach said that the tough travel affected the coaches, but didn't really impact the players. In any case, if that was us, people would say that's an excuse. This was about us playing much better, imo.

 

[Deleted member 29907]

Their coach said that the tough travel affected the coaches, but didn't really impact the players. In any case, if that was us, people would say that's an excuse. This was about us playing much better, imo.

I did hear that and would expect no other response from the coach and as a coach I would have said the same (and expected the same) thing to my team - i.e. suck it up - you're young - no excuses.

But let's be reasonable (reasons don't have to be excuses btw) - playing 40 minutes on someone else's court with 3 hours of sleep is tough for most teams. In the first half, I did think we also played better - 2nd half they outscored us by 7 points which of course is not good. I would have felt much better at the close of the game if we had kept our 1st half lead and widened it rather than giving 7 points back. Thus, a bit of a bad taste at the end of the game. Still happy we won, but would have preferred to do so going away. We'll need that for tougher games coming up.

 

[BananaShampoo]

No I didn't. I just think criticism and praise are dependent on actions, I do not believe in unjustifiable praise.

Obelix: The Ultimate Realist. Could be a good name for a movie. I enjoy Obelix's detached take on things. Keep emotion out of it and look at things objectively and ultimately you get a much better picture of where things stand and where they are going, so I appreciate it.

Funny how this board devolved from commenting about what happened in the actual game to criticizing other fans (and let's face it, we're ALL fans on this board by virtue of the fact we still care enough about our team to even still post on here after the horrific product in the revenue sports we've had to endure for most of the past decade).

 

[Obelix]

Funny how this board devolved from commenting about what happened in the actual game to criticizing other fans (and let's face it, we're ALL fans on this board by virtue of the fact we still care enough about our team to even still post on here after the horrific product in the revenue sports we've had to endure for most of the past decade).

I agree, and I also find it interesting that some posters complaining about a predominant "criticism/negativity" also criticize lack of devotion and bandwagoners. If nothing else, if the majority of posters who still care enough to post and are devoted to the program are critical or negative that would mean that the majority of posters with positive thoughts do not care enough to post anymore, are not devoted, or they are bandwagoners.

And to make something clear, while I consider myself a die-hard Illini fan, I believe that the vast majority of dedicated remaining fans, independent of critical or positive nature of their posts, are unfortunately die-hards. I say unfortunately, because the program's success does not depend only on die-hards (which is a small market getting smaller) but on the more casual fans, the bandwagon fans, and creating "new" fans. Those are the ones who affect program visibility, PR, recruiting, financials, donations, merchandise sales, etc., etc. Without them, the rest of us will keep on watching more games on BTN+.

The more the merrier.

 

[OrangeSoda]

I agree, and I also find it interesting that some posters complaining about a predominant "criticism/negativity" also criticize lack of devotion and bandwagoners. If nothing else, if the majority of posters who still care enough to post and are devoted to the program are critical or negative that would mean that the majority of posters with positive thoughts do not care enough to post anymore, are not devoted, or they are bandwagoners.

And to make something clear, while I consider myself a die-hard Illini fan, I believe that the vast majority of dedicated remaining fans, independent of critical or positive nature of their posts, are unfortunately die-hards. I say unfortunately, because the program's success does not depend only on die-hards (which is a small market getting smaller) but on the more casual fans, the bandwagon fans, and creating "new" fans. Those are the ones who affect program visibility, PR, recruiting, financials, donations, merchandise sales, etc., etc. Without them, the rest of us will keep on watching more games on BTN+.

The more the merrier.

Have to side with Obelix here. The overall argument on the last two pages is pretty subjective. It's very difficult to stamp a definition on what it means to be a "fan". Might as well pull out the Socratic Method to discuss something so arbitrary. People can be fans without being die-hards. And die-hards are allowed to be negative and criticize. I would assume there are very few die-hards left anyways. We should all be able to empathize with the people who have left the circle. Those same people will come back when and if we are successful again and I welcome them with open arms.

 

[Hoppy2105]

Too much friendly fire going on for a post game thread that was a win.

 

[PtownIllini8]

I'll just put this here. Please let me know where you see eternal, or unending, or ceaseless, or immortal, or everlasting, or perpetual, or undying or any synonyms in that definition. I'll wait.

Almost all of my close friends and brothers (say 25 or so) picked teams when they were young and still today 40 or 50 years later follow the same teams. There were a couple that didn't really follow baseball when they were young, but came to be Cub fans as they grew up, so 30 or so years ago. Probably 90% or so have the very same teams. When talking about fandom, we're talking about while one is living, so not truly eternal, but yes, ceaseless and ending only in death. Illini, Bears, Red Sox fan since the late 60s and will be to my grave, irrespective of how they do. Fans that don't view it that way are casual fans, front runners or bandwagon jumpers.

 

[The Dave]

.... I would have felt much better at the close of the game if we had kept our 1st half lead and widened it rather than giving 7 points back. Thus, a bit of a bad taste at the end of the game...

I think the outcome was actually pretty reasonable. The main reason we had such a lead at halftime was that they score less than 10 points in the first 10 minutes. While some of that was due to defensive pressure, some of it was also due to them missing free throws and lots of wide-open 3's (and some 2's). That "bad luck" in the first half wasn't likely to carry over for the entire game.

Combine that with us being short so many players (5?) and the guys get gassed and lose a little focus. I think given the situation, the opponent, and the flow of the game it was a completely reasonable outcome in the 2nd half.