Is the food critic looking for hits? Most newspapers are these days.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (November-December 2018)
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*Always feel like I have to put this disclaimer: not picking on you specifically as I know your opinion is a common one on this board and throughout the fanbase
Can we give our coaching staff a little longer than 18 months to figure this thing out? You don't think the coaches are grinding every day trying to improve the program? I have absolutely no inside information and I can assure you I'm as frustrated as anyone. I just can't tolerate the so-called fans who take the side of these carnival barker coaches and the "media" members who publish their hurt feelings as fact. It doesn't take a recruiting guru or a professional historian to see that Brad Underwood of all people is not going to solve the Chicago -> Champaign puzzle. There's probably a good reason, beyond the facts that the high school season is all of 4 weeks old and our team has been on 4 different roadtrips in that time, that BU has stayed away from that circus.
Simeon is 1-6 by the way. Maybe their coach ought to spend a little more time coaching em' up.
Deleted member 746094
D
Guest
This is spot on. I am not pretending to understand the politics and history of the CPL and UofI basketball. I just know that unless the quotes in that article are completely made up, this is on BU and staff to fix. Not the CPL coaches. We apparently need them more than they need us. Our record over the past 10 years proves this. It’s BU’s job to figure out the puzzle that is the CPL. Self cracked it while Bruce and Groce couldn’t. Look at the difference in outcomes.
I don't believe his opinion is 'common throughout the fan base'. This board does not represent the fan base. I also think it is pretty ignorant to not think that the Illinois coaching staff will not work as hard as possible to recruit the prospects from Chicago they want. They want to keep their jobs. They got those jobs by a much more difficult standard than the h.s. coaches did. Same stupid article, different year.
Courier
C
Guest
Simeon is 1-6 with a couple freshman that will almost certainly be McDAA's, including a 6-8 PG that could be the best player to come out of Chicago in years. Robert Smith is of the most reserved, articulate and calculated high school coach's you'll ever see. Ty Slaughter coach's at one of the finest academic high schools in Illinois, which produces a ton of high D1 talent. I certainly wouldn't dismiss either man's opinion when it comes to winning basketball games and recruiting.
IllFanInMi
I
Guest
You recruit to build relationships, not to tell a kid about your school. And if you believe recruiting your state, especially a state like Illinois is overrated, well I just can’t help you there.
Pretty sure we played a game in Chicago this year in front of like 5,000 people at the UC. Maybe BU or an assistant could have come up a night early or stay an extra day to get some facetime with coaches/ recruits. I remember when we actually had some recruits come to the Illini game at the UC. AJ was a kid I saw there back when he was in HS. Maybe we don't want recruits to see a third full UC
Slovenia? Togo?
another huge reason why we haven’t been to Chicago much is that we are so far behind in 2019 that we aren’t focusing on 20,21 and 22. Chicago doesn’t have our needs for “19”
I must be forgetting all the CPS players that Self brought to CU in his tenure there.
Nowhere, because UI needs to recruit players, not the other way around. Players and parents owe nothing to UI. Truth is that we need them, they do not need us, if we can't successfully recruit them, they will simply go elsewhere.
sacraig
- The desert
What denial? I've seen no actual evidence that there's a problem. We haven't had another recruiting cycle for there to be an evident problem, for that matter. Most of the popular "broken relationship" narrative also come from certain assumptions about how that whole situation went down that also are speculative.
I'm simply asking if anyone with actual knowledge of the situation knows what is and isn't true.
IllFanInMi
I
Guest
Izzo finds time to not only recruit targets, but will also attend games of kids he’s already signed. Over the years he’s signed many kids from where I reside, Grand Rapids, Deontae Davis was from a smaller community 30 miles from here. He commonly attends not only a tournament with his signees, or targets, but single games, often times in the midst of MSU traveling as much or more as Illinois has. The local news gets him face time, the community talks about how cool it is to see Izzo, kids love it, and it makes a huge positive impression.
This is not the hot bead of basketball talent like Chicago, but Izzo understands how it gives him a leg up over all other schools when the next B10 caliber, or better kid comes through. Xavier Tillman and Marcus Bingham JR are the most recent guys if you’re wondering. I can maybe recall Belien here once. If Izzo feels it’s crucial to try and lock down an area of this size (of course along with Detroit), I would think BU would do all he can to do the same in Chicago, and other talent producing smaller metro areas. I’m sure BU knows this, but you’ll never find an article like this with Izzo in it. Perception can be more impactful than reality. Just my point o 2.
This is not the hot bead of basketball talent like Chicago, but Izzo understands how it gives him a leg up over all other schools when the next B10 caliber, or better kid comes through. Xavier Tillman and Marcus Bingham JR are the most recent guys if you’re wondering. I can maybe recall Belien here once. If Izzo feels it’s crucial to try and lock down an area of this size (of course along with Detroit), I would think BU would do all he can to do the same in Chicago, and other talent producing smaller metro areas. I’m sure BU knows this, but you’ll never find an article like this with Izzo in it. Perception can be more impactful than reality. Just my point o 2.
mattcoldagelli
- Script Illinois Enthusiast
Uh, it’s right there, in your very next sentence.
If the fact that O’Brien was able to assemble a Who’s Who of Chicago HS basketball all saying we’re absent from the recruiting scene is not “evidence that there’s a problem” I don’t really know what to tell you. There’s no CSI: Illinois Recruiting Whiffs where we’ll be able to get a report and collectively say “ahhhh, look at Adam Miller’s Wants-To-Be-Here numbers- they dipped in November 2018 and never really recovered. Finally, evidence that our head coach being a no-show on the recruiting trail is hurting us.”
So is this what happens when you run out of players that "want to be here"?
BMoreIllini
- Baltimore, MD
Can we think about this really quick? The article says they haven't been up there THIS season. Underwood and staff was up to see most of them last year and over the summer, Adam Miller many times. Morgan Park's season started 11/24. Chicago Simeon's started 12/1. Maui doesn't play into either of those since Maui ended 11/21, however, we've been pretty busy since then. The break between UNLV and ETSU was the first time we had more than 4 days between games. We had 1 day between MVSU and ND, 4 days between ND and NEB (both of which were away games, so with travel it was more like 2 between them), 2 days between NEB and OSU, and 2 days between OSU and UNLV. When do you want the staff to get up there? If an article came out that BU was up there spending time recruiting while we were losing these games you'd be complaining about him spending so much time up there and not coaching up the kids we have now. The fact is in today's game you can spend years building a relationship with a kid, only to lose it to a team that jumps in at the last minute. I'm not saying to neglect the kids up in Chicago, but to make a big deal out of not seeing the kids in the first 2-3 weeks of CPL's season is ridiculous.
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I agree with your post, but it is not just CPL, the article talks about "Chicago area" and many of the players and schools mentioned are not what people refer to as CPL. This is a Chicago newspaper and will obviously focus on "Chicago area" recruiting, but BU and staff need to fix whatever problems exist, build relationships, and successfully recruit the entire state. As I mentioned in a separate post, that is the reason Self always considered UI a great job opportunity. Without taking advantage of state recruiting, chances of Illinois ever recovering are slim to none. All this tough talk of doing it without Chicago, etc. (or any part of the state) is without substance.
Is there a larger narrative? In the past week, two very negative articles on Underwood. Tupper on his in game “personna” and this one. Underwood seems to handle the press very well but maybe something else is going on?
If we wait for THAT to happen there will be zero posts on this topic!
Actual knowledge? Isn't that right next to "Unobtainium" on the periodic chart?
Are the customers being forced to eat there for some reason? Nobody wants to eat there and the old customers say the food is bad. How is the food critic finding any customers?
"I have some really good players, and yet...crickets from coach Brad Underwood" said Jim Maloney, the coach of the Mound City high school girls team. "We are a short 3 1/2 hours away from Champaign, and Brad cannot get his butt down here to see Shirley Miller drop 9 pts vs. Metropolis in the Metropolis Invitational? To me, you have a feeder school like Mound City, and I almost have zero relationship with any of the coaches outside of once shaking Coach Walkers hand at a gas station in Leroy"
Dan
Admin
2020 Zed Key has been offered by Illinois after last night's win at the Barclay's Center
Brad Underwood watched him put up 16 & 8 at the Kyrie Invitational in Brooklyn yesterday
https://twitter.com/DPiper247/
Brad Underwood watched him put up 16 & 8 at the Kyrie Invitational in Brooklyn yesterday
https://twitter.com/DPiper247/
sacraig
- The desert
We aren't even talking about the same thing. You know that, right? Maybe you didn't read the string of posts first or something?
I was specifically referring to the Simeon/THT situation. I never said we don't have a recruiting problem in a broader sense in Chicago. Has that ever not been true except the 80s?
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