Illini Basketball 2019-2020

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#377      
Does 11-21 qualify?

Nope. However, without rehashing the optimism, things are looking brighter despite the recent development. The good news (and old news) is that freshman Kofi is much better than sophomore Kane. The front court will be better this year regardless. In terms of depth- it does sting. But I really think Kuoma’s floor is about there with Kane’s. The timing really just tickles me with the release of the article. I think we all just want the program to be a place where transfers of non-elite players don’t sting.
 
#378      
In the recent video, he was dressed in Illini gear at all times. Makes me think it was not his decision, but either academics or poor evaluation/Crean’d
 
#380      
Also if true, I’m very disappointed. Pushing guys out after one year is a very bad look to me.
I think there are different looks to this and all issues are not the same...If you are recruiting like Crean did where everyone knows the last 2 -3 guys are near zero chance of being back that is one thing. If a guy isn't putting in the work, making the effort on the court or classroom, or generally a problem child it is a different situation, with all sorts of gray in the middle of these 2 ends. By most accounts J. Richmond was pushed out after one year...that would totally be on him & I doubt many would have a problem with that. Seems a high probability Higgs was pushed off the team, that was unfortunate, but at some point you have to be realistic on if he has a chance to play or not and move on.. No idea on Samba, but there were rumblings he had some issues last year. Talent wise, I have a hard time believing that if he was putting in the work we wouldn't try to push him out, so if we pushed him out I'm not going to get too excited either way.
 
#382      

Illwinsagain

Cary, IL
I didn't believe that Samba would have ever been the best player on the team, but I thought he had a good chance to be a fan favorite. I, for one, was rooting for him to be a solid bench player, that added energy and shut down the lane on the defensive end. I wish him well!
 
#383      

Foggy Notion

San Francisco
We’re just creating room for Donnie to transfer

Donny_b96001_365771.png
 
#385      
Well...all the Samba optimism is out the door now. Not quite as late in the summer as the Eboigbodin news last year though, is it?
 
#387      

Deleted member 643761

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If we just Creaned Samba, I'd like to puke on our staff. He was very young still and oozed potential. I didn't like Ebo leaving, and I like this less. I wonder if Egwu would have made it to his sophomore year in this environment. Post players more than any other need time to develop, and you will never end up with post depth by getting rid of all your players who have slow freshman years.
Are you upset about creaning because Kane has potential? Or because you don't like creaning? Because it sounds like it's about his potential in which case you'd need to wait to see who gets the scholarship before you puke.
 
#388      
This may seem out of the blue but I highly doubt it is out of the blue for those inside the program. The number of transfers in college basketball is insane and I feel a symptom of much larger issues within the institution of college basketball. Us having one transfer this year is more the norm nationwide than the exception. I wish the young man the best regardless of his reasons for transferring.
 
#389      

Deleted member 29907

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Open scholly only if he actually leaves I assume... what if he is just testing the waters?
 
#390      
I wonder how people will feel if the last 2 ships go to Tillman and Patterson. Rumor has it that Tillman is announcing on July 15th.
 
#393      
The problem, as I see it, is the portal. Creaning existed, so that is not new. However, schools did not practice creaning, I think, because it was not easy to crean. The portal provided that plausible deniability that did not exist before. Now a staff can provide enough info to nudge a kid. The URL for the portal, that is the easy part.
 
#399      
Couple of interesting names on the portal in DJ Williams and Tim Finke.
 
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