Illini Basketball 2017-2018

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#101      

FeelYourPaign

FeelYourPaign
So Cal
FeelYourPaign
mattcoldagelli said:
I don't know about you guys, but the last year of the Groce Era and the last two years of the Weber Era, I thought we were definitely going to suck.
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I find that I have not been very good at judging our coaches. I was so pumped about Bruce when the '05 team was on campus. Beautiful basketball and I thought he could sustain that. Horribly wrong and it took me a long time to admit it. Much longer than it took for younger people to acknowledge. Groce appealed to me in the "he's not Bruce" way that he had, but after 3 years or so, I could judge that he had no system whatsoever. So, the end was painful.

Now, I'm in it all over again, hearing wonderful things about BU. Actually believing them all over again. Seems like there are real facts, not just feel good stories. But I've been burnt badly the last two times out and I'm not ready to trust without evidence. So, I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'm going to need to see some evidence. An offensive system, some flexibility on the part of the coach. I'll give them time and I'll cheer like mad all the while. But for me, its about the coach and his staff and its too early to know.
 
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#103      

Joel Goodson

Joel Goodson
respect my decision™
Joel Goodson
Captain Bubbles said:
The player that has made big gains: Spicy G. Has added 23 pounds of muscle since arriving on campus.
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Caught a glimpse of Greg in that short clip that Illini MBB posted a few days ago. Massive physique gains in an astoundingly short time. I think we might have caught lightning in a bottle w/Spicy (tempered by the fact that he has yet to play a single game for us). But still, everything we've heard leads me to believe he will significantly outplay his ranking.
 
#105      

dweebs19

dweebs19
dweebs19
Captain Bubbles said:
The player that has made big gains: Spicy G. Has added 23 pounds of muscle since arriving on campus.
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He might have gained 23 pounds, but I doubt it's 23 pounds of muscle. If he has gained 23 pounds of muscle without "help:, I need to hire Fletch as a personal trainer.
 
#106      

battle

battle
battle
BananaShampoo said:
As much as I'd like that to be true, it's just not physiologically possible. ;)
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say its been 18 weeks since beginning of June. I can gain 5 lbs (maybe not muscle) Thanksgiving week or Christmas week (cookies and more cookies): 5x18 = 90! Those weeks kill my target running weight but worth it.

I could see 0.5-1 lb a week with Fletch and high protein high calorie diet
 
#108      

Ol Dirty Gamer

O
Ol Dirty Gamer
mattcoldagelli said:
I don't know about you guys, but the last year of the Groce Era and the last two years of the Weber Era, I thought we were definitely going to suck.
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I did. Both were coaches that were completely unwilling to change or adapt.
Groce has the worst overall group of assistants in the B1G, and basically brought in the same group of players as the year before.
The experts knew, and we should have known better as well.
 
#109      

TheGMan

TheGMan
TheGMan
No matter the percentage of muscle in that amount, it's still a really good thing that he is adding weight, and likely most of it being muscle.

EDIT: As long as he doesn't lose too much of his already almost legendary amount of athleticism.
 
#110      

whovous

W
Washington, DC
whovous
foby said:
My biggest hope is that I have more fun watching this team than any other team over the last 10 years. If that happens, then anything else is just gravy.
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My first thought was simply to say "This."

But then I remembered that the first year of the Groce Era included winning the Maui Tournament, a win at Gonzaga, and a layup at the buzzer against a certain candy-pants team from the East.

I will be extremely happy if this team proves more fun to watch than that one.
 
#111      

Greensboro

Greensboro
Greensboro
BananaShampoo said:
As much as I'd like that to be true, it's just not physiologically possible. ;)
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dweebs19 said:
He might have gained 23 pounds, but I doubt it's 23 pounds of muscle. If he has gained 23 pounds of muscle without "help:, I need to hire Fletch as a personal trainer.
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I 'm sure there is some hyperbole here, but Fletch posted +15 pounds on Aug.3

https://twitter.com/Adam_Fletcher41/status/893209206786064384

so going to +23 lbs (+8 lb more) in another 2 months seems pretty minor and with the look of the Aug 3 picture of Greg I'm not too worried about body fat number. So file it when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor or with/without shoes.
 
#112      

IlliniKat91

IlliniKat91
Chicago, IL
IlliniKat91
icengineer said:
Ummm, well, I started a diet in mid-August at 269. I now tip the scales at 243. If I can lose that much weight in two months, why can't someone gain it in an even longer period of time?
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You can, but it likely won't be muscle if you aren't eating the right food. Needs to not only be high calorie, but also high protein to encourage muscle growth instead of just added fat, since that should (in theory) let him keep his athleticism.

Btw, congrats on the weight loss!

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
 
#113      

BananaShampoo

B
Captain 'Paign
Phoenix, AZ
BananaShampoo
icengineer said:
Ummm, well, I started a diet in mid-August at 269. I now tip the scales at 243. If I can lose that much weight in two months, why can't someone gain it in an even longer period of time?
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Because losing fat and gaining muscle are two entirely different things.
 
#114      

jrichisamazing

J
jrichisamazing
I'm just excited to hopefully see some fun basketball ALA Groce's first season. We destroyed Maui that year. Even when we've gone on winning streaks these past couple years, it's been grind it out and survive basketball. I'm ready to see some fast breaks and aggressive D. Plus more dunks/oops.

Any predictions on which 2 players connect on the first alley oop of the season? I'm guessing Lucas to Kipper.
 
#115      

Illini B-Ball Fan

Illini B-Ball Fan
Illini B-Ball Fan
jrichisamazing said:
I'm just excited to hopefully see some fun basketball ALA Groce's first season. We destroyed Maui that year. Even when we've gone on winning streaks these past couple years, it's been grind it out and survive basketball. I'm ready to see some fast breaks and aggressive D. Plus more dunks/oops.

Any predictions on which 2 players connect on the first alley oop of the season? I'm guessing Lucas to Kipper.
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Mark to Mark (Alstork to Smith). :)
 
#116      

foby

foby
Bonnaroo Land
foby
whovous said:
My first thought was simply to say "This."

But then I remembered that the first year of the Groce Era included winning the Maui Tournament, a win at Gonzaga, and a layup at the buzzer against a certain candy-pants team from the East.

I will be extremely happy if this team proves more fun to watch than that one.
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........and then there was the conference season....... Hopefully this team is fun in the beginning, middle and end!
 
#118      

Deleted member 29907

D
Guest
Deleted member 29907
jrichisamazing said:
I'm just excited to hopefully see some fun basketball ALA Groce's first season. We destroyed Maui that year. Even when we've gone on winning streaks these past couple years, it's been grind it out and survive basketball. I'm ready to see some fast breaks and aggressive D. Plus more dunks/oops.

Any predictions on which 2 players connect on the first alley oop of the season? I'm guessing Lucas to Kipper.
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I am going with TL to LB.
 
#120      

PlayAZ

P
PlayAZ
If they play the way we will need them to, the opponents may call them them the "Marked Men"...all day ha ha
 
#122      

Kathy

K
Kathy
This site is hilarious. We parse each other's words more than reporters at a Trump press conference.:)
 
#123      

Calvin

C
Calvin
WizardBill said:
I find it very interesting. I am very optimistic about our chances to be good this year. However, isn’t that the same as every year?
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We're biased, no question.

It's been shown that the wisdom of the herd is a real, so if all the pundits pick us as bottom half, that should tell you something. That said, there are exceptions. My 2 cents, I'm counting a number of factors:

Overall, the big should be solid, with MSU leading the way. Might not have many great teams, but a lot of good, tournament teams. That should play to our advantage.
I don't think our talent level is below average.
We graduated a lot of seniors.
We are suspect in the front court.
Our backcourt looks solid, if young.
We know that Groce couldn't coach.
We know that Underwood can. Underwood has gone to the tournament every year as HC (last 4) whereas Groce has been 0-fer the last 4.
Buy-in is great. The roster turnover should be an advantage in changing the culture.

So for me, it really comes down to coaching. Even with Groce, we were typically a bubble team, maybe 1 or 2 wins away. You really don't need to improve much in the W/L column to get back to the dance, and rankings shouldn't be far behind (not going to predict that though).

On the downside, young teams don't travel well in the BIG, we lost a lot, and our front court isn't deep or intimidating. I'm still solidly believing we're somewhere in the upper half of the conference and back in the dance. Too many unknowns to project more than that though. If we climb into the rankings, I'll be thrilled --that's way ahead of schedule IMO.
 
#124      

foby

foby
Bonnaroo Land
foby
@Calvin agree

If we outperform the preseason predictions, it will be because a lot of ifs and intangibles went our way.
 
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