Recent content by altgeld88

  1. altgeld88

    NBA Draft

    We'll find out soon enough. For my part, I'll miss the vestigal gestures of his mentor, Jud Heathcote, particularly the grotesquely contorted visage as he whines to the refs. Gotta hand it to them: Sparty has had a solid 50-year run on the hardwood. No one else in the conference comes close...
  2. altgeld88

    NBA Draft

    I'm confused; is Fears the cat or the girl in this scenario? The case for "girl": flopping and not ready for prime time; appealing immediately to the unseen official for a quick whistle. The case for "cat": General first-class D-baggery. Though in the cat's defense, it didn't apply a sharp...
  3. altgeld88

    Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

    Taking his initial steps in the Josh Whitman path to power conference AD. Love that he's in M&A; I feared seeing "Compliance" under his "Capabilities" listing, the kiss of death for a young attorney. I'm fortunate to have seen what was probably the peak of his Illini career: his 20+ mins of...
  4. altgeld88

    Illini in the Pros (Football)

    Thanks. BB's approach to every aspect of our program that makes me so grateful he's our HC: long-term investment.
  5. altgeld88

    Illinois Football Uniforms

    I despised it for decades for that exact reason. I accept it now. Fans like it and I'm finally OK with it (the '89 version, not the Zook-era one.) Still want the arched Illini helmet to dominate and (speaking of Fritz Crisler's theft from Princeton), quite frankly, wouldn't mind seeing the...
  6. altgeld88

    Illinois Football Uniforms

    lol "at best." I hear you, brother. The math on that one is brutal for me, too. I console myself with fond memories of the '89-'90 seasons after those helmets debuted.
  7. altgeld88

    Illinois Football Uniforms

    More arched ILLINI helmet deployment. And I've finally made my peace with SLANT ILLINOIS after 37 seasons. In the same way I imagine that the Wolverine faithful who came of age during the Great Depression had made peace by the mid-'70s with Fritz Crisler taking Princeton's winged helmet design...
  8. altgeld88

    Favorite games of the Bret Bielema era

    Rejus Benn taking a kickoff to the house v Penn State for one. That was the opening statement of 2007 and it was massive.
  9. altgeld88

    Favorite games of the Bret Bielema era

    Great thread idea.(y) The Pat Bryant walk-off is by far my favorite because I was there, it was an absolute miracle, and I'll never witness anything like it the remainder of my life. Having noted that, it was an ugly game for us throughout. We had a lot of penalties and they dominated time of...
  10. altgeld88

    Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

    Boo-yah! I'm all about free trade with Europeans.
  11. altgeld88

    Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

    This probably belongs in the uniform thread: I can't emphasize sufficiently how great it is to see the Illini in those orange script unis featured repeatedly in the naitonal media.
  12. altgeld88

    College Sports (Basketball)

    The difference is that the marginal difference in quality between the top 50 or so colelge basketball teams and the next 25 in the seriatim is substantial. Look at the difference between the 48-68 seeds in the tourney compared with NIT teams, let alone CBI teams.
  13. altgeld88

    College Sports (Basketball)

    It's devolving into the NHL playoff slate c. 1980 when 16 of 21 teams would make the playoffs, rendering the regular season meaningless.
  14. altgeld88

    College Sports (Basketball)

    British historian Robert Conquest's third law of politics applies here: The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.
  15. altgeld88

    Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

    Cross-cultural marriages can be fraught. I speak, unfortunately, from experience, though the cultural discontinuity I had to bridge was a lot less substantial than an Iowa-Illinois gulf.
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