That doesn't seem accurate. Z was already committed.
Morez was slated to make ~1M and Mirk was coming from a league (AdmiralBet ABA League) where the average salary was $200k a season with no other teams noted as pursuing him.
Illini in the Pros (Basketball)
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Morez was slated to make ~1M and Mirk was coming from a league (AdmiralBet ABA League) where the average salary was $200k a season with no other teams noted as pursuing him.
my point remains the same with later season games. the only reason he had somewhat of a minutes uptick is that Tomi was hurt. he was never seen as one of our 5 best players.
I think we did a much better job of managing our freshman this past season. david wasn't playing behind Ben at the 4.
No input on Mirk, but Z had nothing to do with Morez. He came here because of his brother. Nothing more, nothing less.
Our insiders were on it weeks/months before the season concluded.
Everyone knew where he was heading when he entered. Was probably the most obvious recruitment we've had.
Quick Google search says Rez entered March 28 and says Big Z committed April 5th
So Z was coming here no matter what and if Morez stayed that meant Z was the third string center?
lstewart53x3
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Z would’ve been the backup center and Morez would’ve been the starting 4. Likely no Mirk.
Morez would've been the starting PF. Ivisic twins at Center.
Mirk would've been the backup PF along with Ben, though I think it's likelier he would've never came.
....
As a frosh Morez's role was primarily backup 5 man, with Ben and Tre White getting most of the minutes at the 4 (let's not forget Tre played the 4 alot on that team, particularly late in the year when Riley came on).
As a soph, his role would've expanded, with our starting frontcourt likely being Morez / Tomi.
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Morez started at the 4, next to Tomi, end of Jan until he fractured his wrist to end the regular season.
He re-signed with IL. He then went to UM team with a similarly loaded frontcourt where he got a whopping 5% more usg and 7.5 mpg.
Isn't it more believable that my dude saw a chance to double his money and didn't feel loyal to a staff that no longer had Tim on it?
By all accounts the staff had him in the bag much longer than that.
I asked the folks in the know, "googling it" does not make that you..
This is a bit of a stretch... an absolute rebounding machine sure, but I wouldn't classify anyone in our 2024-2025 frontcourt as one the better players in the B1G after seeing them matched up against Derick Queen and Julian Reese...
Quick edit because I see some folks mentioning Z's recruitment, but how cool is it that we have another year with both the twins? With Z's athletic ability and the demand in the NBA for guys who can shoot and provide rim protection (against Wemby, etc.), it's awesome that we get another year of the twins. It seems like Z could so easily go pretty much anywhere else and get way more usage (and a starting position) but is sticking around for another season. Really excited to watch the Ivisic boys again.
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If you want to compare him to Gordon, I can see that.
Pearl's actions were evil. No comparison.
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Makes me smile to see Ayo getting 20-large.
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Moving the goal posts now.
It wasn’t a 100% guarantee if Rez stayed. There were insiders that said it wasn’t going to happen. I think Rez was jealous of T’s usage and the staff didn’t know how he’d respond to that.
Not sure what you are talking about - he said he didn’t want to play center so the staff went out and got Big Z to be the backup center. He would have played exactly 0 minutes at center here. He played a lot of center at Michigan when Mara was out. Tyler’s offense would have allowed Morez a lot of freedom, his jump from freshman to sophomore year was very predictable- he was really coming on last year before he broke his wrist
He was happy enough to sign to come back and when someone offered more money he left. His family was upset Tomi got more money than him, but Tomi had a better year and every team would have offered Tomi more. It was then a lot of BS excuses for why they left that wasn’t necessary- Brad never complained about him leaving, he went out and got Mirk
In hindsight - I don’t think Michigan wins a title if he stays at Illinois and he would have improved our chances but that is just hypothetical. He was part of our program for three years and I’m glad to see him fulfill his dream but to think he wouldn’t have been as successful at Illinois is crazy
I'm not aware of Gordon ever negative recruiting against us, and not aware of Pearl doing so publicly in many years. Morez is an NBA player using his platform to publicly trash our coaching and program to prospective recruits.
I feel like the anti-BU crowd loves Morez because they can't criticize him for not making the second weekend anymore so they need Morez leaving to be his fault. It's all that's left.
He was totally prepared to come back to the Illini... until Michigan "recruited " him with big bucks to go there. Any other explanation is make-believe codswallop and rewriting history.
Morez Johnson's comments won't have 0.1% of the negative impact that Pearl had on our program and won't have 0.01% of a negative impact on any individual as compared to what Pearl did to Deon.
As I understand you, some BU detractors take Morez's side so now in a twisted way Morez is worse than the man who did more to set back our program than anyone in history.
Get help.
May be the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen on here. Think about what those guys did.
The Morez interviewer asked why he left. He said that he thought he would be able to develop better elsewhere. They asked why, he answered. He hasn't developed the political skill of answering a different question than the one that was asked and then leaving. He didn't write a press release criticizing the Illini.
If a big can't shoot from distance when he gets here and is good under the basket, Underwood doesn't exactly encourage them to develop those skills. They need the skills to go to the NBA. If I thought that I could shoot and Underwood took me out of the game when I did, I would leave. Morez did and it was the smart move.
"Moving the goal posts" by asking a question that you acknowledged wasn't to you and mocking you for just googling the commitment announcement? Got it.
Rez was so jealous of Ts usage that he signed a contract to stay and then moved on from a starting role to a team that was significantly worse offensively and the next year used him the same way. Cool.
Its ok to say he wanted an extra million dollars. We all do.
It may be a stretch, but I don't think it's as much as people would think.
According to his per 40 stats... if Morez played 25 minutes per game, he would've averaged 9.9pts and 9.5rebs. That's basically averaging a double double.
.....
Mirkovic this year played 29.5 minutes/game. Morez played 17.6.
Perhaps 29.5 is a bit too high for Morez, because of his fouling, but 25 seems reasonable to me. Especially since those are his numbers proportioned to his minutes.
And if fouls are a problem, you always have the right to play him until he gets dismissed.
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You're (I believe, just willfully) assuming he is really dumb... he doesn't need to be a professional politician to be aware he's being asked a very straightforward question and also giving an equally straightforward response. There's no crazy wordsmithing here.
Pretty sure you just made this up. What evidence do we have that Brad doesn't encourage players to develop skills (I mean, seriously now...
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