Recent content by RollChief

To all the folks abandoning the Illini football threads, welcome to basketball season! We've been keeping the board warm for you.

Yes from the Illinois Media Day interview this past Friday, everything sounds pretty positive. He talked more about the injury, said he's ahead of schedule with recovery and says he's close to 100%. Said he's in really good shape.

Tomi is the absolute man. Great interview. That said, could have done without the first few minutes, probably time for the big J’s to give it a rest with asking the starting 5 who helped lead us to a final four about injuries and limitations from early last year…

It seems like we have a pretty lucky draw this year in terms of strength of schedule home/road, especially compared to MSU. If you reference current Torvik rankings, we have 5 current top 25 opponents at home and only 2 on the road. Conversely, if you look at MSU's home/road schedule, they have...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say we're going to get some Tier 1 sound bites from Mirk from this haha

You don't necessarily need a high TO% or Steal% in advanced metrics to have a great defense. Michigan was ranked 272 and 317 in KP respectively in these two stats. Michigan actually provided the blueprint (albeit very hard to replicate) for how to have an elite defense with a low turnover...

Agreed, I think the traveling contingent of fans you get at neutral-site cities (Chicago, Nashville, Braggin' Rights, etc.) are particularly rowdy because of the novelty of being able to see a game in person. I would imagine a lot of the fans that show up for those games are probably showing up...

I just want to be able to use this meme before the game against MSU on February 5th for God's sake

Yes sorry semantics but point I was trying to make is that the B1G is likely going to be a 1/2 race between us and MSU, it would be nice to get a win against them this year. Call it what you want to call it but a 4-game losing streak is a 4-game losing streak.

Yeah all good points. Maybe there's a better phrase I could've used. But in terms of being at the top of the B1G, I suppose MSU feels like a symbolic over-the-hump win since we've lost 4 straight to them. It would be nice to end all of our current 3+ losing streaks this year, including MSU...

The key is applying these philosophies and beating UConn and MSU this year. Both have had our lunch the past few years so for our defense and team overall to be solidified in the title conversation caliber, we’ve got to win MSU at home and UConn on neutral site. Beating Duke at Cameron is...

"Computer, enhance!"

The metrics-based ranking systems will be high on Kansas but I'm not sure how their roster makeup translates from a qualitative perspective. The locker room dynamic seems like it will be strange. They've got 2 5-star freshmen and 3 4-star freshmen surrounded by a cast of journeyman seniors, all...

Proof that the staff likes shooters is in TSJ's tattoo (for all you old GTA fans out there):

From there article subhead: "The goal is simple: evaluate more athletes, discover more talent and create more opportunities." Translated to: