Illini Basketball 2018-2019

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#726      

Deleted member 29907

D
Guest
Deleted member 29907
Yes, Ebo is a BU recruit - but wasn't he somewhat of a hail mary towards the end of his his first round? Sure, another player leaving can be cause for concern, but I don't think Ebo was thought to be a diamond in the rough soon to be all big 10... rather, we're so desperate for a big that we'll take this project and see what we can do. I did like is progress though...



Could be that he saw Kane and thought that he could not compete.
 
#727      

skyIdub

skyIdub
Winged Warrior
skyIdub
All is well!

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#728      

WizardBill

WizardBill
WizardBill
So...

It seems our two remains bigs WILL get the experience they need. Have faith. Things are NOT as bad as most think. We will be ok. Even this year. We WILL win more games than last year.
 
#730      

EJ33

E
San Francisco
EJ33
Obelix said:
Correct, and more importantly, we were an NIT team, an NCAA bubble team, for pretty much the entire Groce career. So IF we miss the tournament again, and don't even make NIT, we will be below that for 2 straight years.

For many fans, it seems at this current stage, reaching NCAA bubble level would be a huge success and overachievement, which speaks volume of where we stand as a program.

We need a very strong Fall recruiting class (2019), and also try to compete for a tournament birth (even if just fall short). Without both of those, future is in jeopardy.
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Barring an impact transfer, which looks very unlikely, this team has no chance at the tourney next year. No chance.

The nightmare scenario is a bad season, a weak recruiting class, and then Ayo transfers. At that point we've burned our relationship with MIF and Simeon, and we're left praying we can be as good as Kansas State someday.

Unfortunately, I think the chances of the nightmare scenario are 50/50.
 
#731      

TheGMan

TheGMan
TheGMan
PtownIllini8 said:
I have to say I'm shocked that people are having such severe reaction to a guy leaving who was a big project from the get go and might never have panned out. Plus all of this stuff about Coach U being hard to play for and people are saying Ebo leaving is proof of that...really? If this related to Coach U's style of coaching why would Ebo wait until June?
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Yes, he may have been a project, but he should pretty good improvement early on. Furthermore, we have essentially no front court depth. No way around that. Finally, even though he was a project, we gotta keep projects around longer than a year in order to see if any of them pan out.

That being said, the timing really just seems that this was something other than him not wanting to play for BU. But it still definitely hurts, and we desperately needed to see some improvement soon.

It is very possible that we suck this year, but we still get Whitney and Kane turns out to be great and we are fine in the long run, but Ebo leaving makes our margin of success much smaller in the short term, and possibly the long run.
 
#732      

rcjord1

R
rcjord1
Guys.....We will be alright. The sky is NOT falling. Have faith in the Orange and Blue, Coach U, and the System.
 
#733      

Ratskin

R
Ratskin
You guys are just freaking out over every little thing that comes along, but I see this an indication of Ebo realizing that he isn’t going to be the man up front with Kane coming in. Possibly a transfer, as well. I keep hearing how Kane was underrated and assume Ebo is being pushed back in the rotation. And that’s a good thing, if I can quote Martha Stewart. I wish Ebo well.
 
#735      

Ga65

G
Ga65
Easier to turn around a program if you are not starting over every year. Losing two for two recruited bigs plus two for two existing bigs is :eek:.
 
#736      

PtownIllini8

P
PtownIllini8
EJ33 said:
Barring an impact transfer, which looks very unlikely, this team has no chance at the tourney next year. No chance.

The nightmare scenario is a bad season, a weak recruiting class, and then Ayo transfers. At that point we've burned our relationship with MIF and Simeon, and we're left praying we can be as good as Kansas State someday.

Unfortunately, I think the chances of the nightmare scenario are 50/50.
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Ayo wants to make a quick move to the pros, but he's going to transfer and sit out a year? Oh boy. I give your scenario about a .001% chance of happening.
 
#737      

Ratskin

R
Ratskin
Nice to hear from you again, RC! I’m looking forward to Aaron’s Sr year. I expect him to have a very good year.
 
#743      

BP3

B
BP3
This is positionless basketball y’all. Calm down.
 
#744      

Ratskin

R
Ratskin
Between negativity and positivity, I choose positivity. I sleep better at night.
 
#745      

Peoria Illini

P
Peoria, IL
Peoria Illini
PtownIllini8 said:
OK, so enlighten us, why did Ebo transfer over summer break, and not even at the beginning of summer break, but a month later?
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He may have been taking a short semester summer course. Hard to say.

I do find it funny that many posters who thought that Kane would quickly surpass Ebo (I was not one of them) and that Kane would even start the season ahead of him, are now at their wits end that Ebo has left.

I wish Ebo was staying, because I think he would have done well for us. But he has other plans. Best of luck to Ebo.

We will be fine.
 
#746      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
Fighter of the Nightman said:
What’s your suggested course of action for Whitman?
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Nothing you can do right now other than offer your full support and a shoulder to cry on.

But of course you want to be made fully aware of why this is happening and then monitor from there.

It's putting the cart before the horse to start talking about total doomsday scenarios right now. We could easily just have a similar record to last year playing somewhat more developed offense and middle school interior defense, sign a couple of nice-looking bigs in the fall, see plenty of potential in Trent and Ayo and keep limping on forward. Very possible.

But if we're a slapstick 7-25 and the roster carousel continues, there can be circumstances which don't give you much of a choice.
 
#747      

Dren1

Dren1
Glenview, IL
Dren1
ChiefIllini said:
I didn't say he was a bad coach, in fact i still have confidence in BU.

However exhibit A is hard to call anything other than lucky. I dont recall the other win, so I'll give that to him, though I'm sure Walkup helped a bit. Of course, every team has some luck especially to get that far, but that was one of the most purely luck based wins. Ever.

OSU had a good compliment of talented upperclassmen and an NBA PG. They had talent, though again I'll concede BU got the best out of them.

So to say he was lucky at SFA and had talent at OSU is, in fact, even remotely true ;)
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Second and Chalmers said:
BU was 53-1 in conference at SFA. Forget about the NCAA wins, his teams were totally dominant against comparable talent with a very system-oriented coaching-heavy style of play, in each of the three years he was there.

He did have an NBA PG to work with at OSU, but after early struggles re-arranged on the fly and ended up with the #1 offense in the country.

The track record was short, but 24 carat gold.

We haven't seen so much as a whiff of what he brought to those other schools.
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I'll take a moment to thank S&C for his thoughts on the above, you summed it up rather nicely. I don't particularly care for the situation we are now in, but the insinuation was that BU was a questionable hire. The results so far have not been pretty, but the hire was viewed in a very positive light at the time.
 
#748      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
PtownIllini8 said:
OK, so enlighten us, why did Ebo transfer over summer break, and not even at the beginning of summer break, but a month later?
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No idea, it's extremely mysterious. There aren't very many possibilities that a reasonable person could rule out.

But the hilarious Pollyanna balderdash that a lack of playing time was the issue is one of those possibilities.

Seriously, do not ever change Loyalty, stay golden.
 
#750      

220Illini

2
220Illini
The belief that this transfer occurred because Ebo, a guy who worked his way from the bottom of the depth chart to playing time last year and had a starting spot basically locked up to start the season, thought he couldn’t compete with a guy who he really has never seen on the court is bananas
 
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