brokensaphire
- Arizona
Hot damn! Great news.
Love my Illini
Love my Illini
Mike Thorne granted 6th year
Nichols will be a redshirt freshman.
homesickalien
- Springfield
Wow didn't see this coming at all.
Massive good news for Mike and for Illini faithful
Has LB ever done anything that says he should start ahead of Finke who has?
Rebounding. Defense.
Has LB ever done anything that says he should start ahead of Finke who has?
This, plus the redshirt freshman year for Finke is a sign that Black was farther along at that point.
At that point, but neither had played a minute back then, so expectations were pretty much in Leron's favor as the higher ranked player. Finke was also hampered by the fact that he had to play out of position most of the time due to injuries and lack of 5 options.
But in either case, both will play much and should man the rotation at the 4. But it would not surprise me if Finke starts ahead of Black, after his suspension.
LOL, you were one of the guys (black dog too) that said there was no way Thorne would be back. and took me to task for saying he could be.
I agree that Leron is a better rebounder, but fouling is not good defense.
And Finke can trump that with an offensive game, passing, ball handling and court awareness.
I guess to me it seemed like Finke had about 10 good games and then sort of tapered off. Perhaps LB's upside is much greater. But, he does foul like crazy.
Finke had trouble with fouls, too. Black is stronger and more athletic and can guard other bigs, Finke has a long way to go.
You wanted reasons Black would start, so there they are.
Deleted member 4333
D
Guest
Black did play last season. Wouldn't he need a medical redshirt to get an extra year?
Huge. Not sure there's a single thing that could've made this offseason better for
Groce. Stay healthy big fella, keep the weight off, and practice those free throws.
Groce. Stay healthy big fella, keep the weight off, and practice those free throws.
The out of position wasn't an issue in his redshirt year, because Finke didn't play. If Finke was clearly better when they came in he wouldn't have redshirted & I doubt that decision had much to do with rankings, maybe partly to do with giving Finke the opportunity to grow into a 5, IMO most likely because Finke was behind Black, but that was 2 seasons ago & things change.
Yes, he'll get one.
Finke had 61 fouls in 33 games played.
That's true, he was often beaten so badly on D he couldn't even commit the foul.
Your question was what has Black done to show he deserves to start over Finke, but I would propose there is really no evidence to show Finke is better now. What we have to compare is a Freshman Black to a redshirt freshman Finke, Finke improved, Black likely did as well, but with the injury we didn't really get the chance to see how much better Black was, maybe a hint from the Euro trip. Biggest problem Black had was staying in the game, Egwu/Leonard had the same problems as freshman and both worked out fine.
Lol... the playing out of position was a comment with respect to his play last year, nothing to do with his RS year. The decision to RS was taken right before their freshman season started, before they played a single game, so Leron had the benefit of coming in as the highest ranked player, expectations were in his favor, none had played an actual game at the time. As I said in my post, at that point the decision was a correct one, but that may not necessarily be true right now (Black better than Finke), or even at times last year.
The comment/fact that Finke was hampered by playing out of position at C was in response to comments that Finke's performance tapered off. That was highly influenced by running out of options once Thorne and Black went down so Groce played Finke at C. I think I'd sound as a broken record again repeating how I did not think that Finke was a C, and his game suffered by playing out of position. Before Black went down, they were actually a few games that Groce played Black and Finke in the same lineup, with Black playing the inside more than Finke. Neither Finke nor Black are traditional post players, but Black's game is still closer to the basket than Finke's.
The NCAA makes no public announcements on players, medical RS, 5th or 6th year petitions, etc. It is up to the players/schools to make such announcements, IF they wish. They control the timing, and sometimes an announcement is not made, or it is not necessary. For example, there was no formal announcement on Tracy getting his medical RS last year approved by the NCAA. So it is more than likely that UI has filed all necessary paperwork and quite possible that Black may already have received his medical RS.
I believe they just flip a coin
Yes, he'll get one.
That's true, he was often beaten so badly on D he couldn't even commit the foul.
Haha, sad but true.