Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (October 2017)

[illinitiger]

Coaches withdraw offers all the time for all sorts of reasons. Should Tim Finke feel like a victim? I agree this sucks because of the timing on announcement day. But THT will be just fine and unfortunately for us probably with a big anti-Illini chip on his shoulder.

I think it will be awhile before we can recruit Simeon with confidence. I feel like BU just gave a whining kid (Irvin) a piece of candy to shut him up.

On the positive side, I think we can save some money on recruiting going forward....just ask MIF who they want us to get.

 

[illiniCA]

He's the first five star recruit from Chicago in how many years to commit here? Plus, he committed first. On top of that he's from probably the most elite pipeline of talent in America.



So.....it's big picture. Stinks, but those are the facts

Even if the staff made the correct decision, which they probably did, this drama was completely unnecessary and made the staff look bad and ayo look bad. It’s just a negative when they could have cancelled the visit and had the same end result. Hopefully we win and nobody cares


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[IlliniMed]

Even if the staff made the correct decision, which they probably did, this drama was completely unnecessary and made the staff look bad and ayo look bad. It’s just a negative when they could have cancelled the visit and had the same end result. Hopefully we win and nobody cares


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no one will remember this in a week

 

[PJD86]

Did we all go from lamenting not having coaches play the Chicago recruiting game, to lamenting actually playing the Chicago recruiting game?

Bingo

 

[illiniguy24]

Everyone is pretending they know exactly what happened. It drives me crazy.


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[IlliniJim20]

Yep. If you show two bridges and say one has to be blown up, which one are you going to blow up?

I'd first make sure nobody is on the bridge before I blew it u

 

[Deleted member 236589]

What we are doing is wrong. Just because the calculus may work out doesn't mean its the right choice. 17 year old kid gets hung out to dry. Its his life. He's not the one causing the problem. We should have taken his commit and called the bluff.

Nah......BU is doing the right thing. If you want to win in Chicago, you have to play by the rules. Weber and Groce both got canned, basically because they couldn't recruit the elite player from Chicago. They wouldn't or couldn't play the game. They either ended up taking plan B or C or had to go out of state. That's not a recipe for success.

 

[illiniCA]

no one will remember this in a week

Everyone will remember this if we lose


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[Ubermensch]

Everyone is pretending they know exactly what happened. It drives me crazy.

So far I have seen every single person involved blamed for... something.

The people who believe message boards and Twitter can negatively impact recruiting have a ton of fuel for the fire today. It's very embarrassing.

 

[illinitiger]

I think most people are lamenting our coaches playing the Chicago recruiting game very,very poorly.

'we won't beg people to come here...'.

 

[bombayIllini]

This is a very complicated case, bombay. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's. And, uh, lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old IllinoisLoyalty's head. Luckily I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind, you know, limber.

Ok. I will stick with Trump. Very predictable, at the very least.

: )

 

[redwingillini11]

NICK IRVIN‏ @NICKIRV Oct 25

More
Either you loyal or not you can't be one way it's all in or nothing #5/19
2 replies
13 retweets
83 likes
nic Irvin yesterday

I have been vindicated for my alarm in this tweet. It makes me soooo happy :tsk:

 

[Combo]

We don't need THT AND WE NEVER DID but we really really want Ayo. We also made a decision to get into bed with the Mac Fire. It may end up being the bed that helps us land mags talent. Underwood is at least playing the game for real. Much respect to Underwood for not being a sissy and taking the best player. Let's see how the Mac Fire relationship goes from here

I agree. Every coach has to deal with this type of situation.

Revoking a kid's offer on the day of his announcement in order to appease another commit's AAU coach seems about as dirty as it gets. I tend to shrug off what I call "victimless" NCAA infractions. This to me is terrible.

Who knows what impact this will have on the perception of Underwood with every other coach in the state. Attaching your wagon to the MIF is a losing proposition in my opinion.

And, as of now, this is pure speculation. No one here knows exactly what happened and we may never know.

 

[FC Illiniman]

'we won't beg people to come here...'.

SIGH

 

[Deleted member 236589]

So far I have seen every single person involved blamed for... something.

The people who believe message boards and Twitter can negatively impact recruiting have a ton of fuel for the fire today. It's very embarrassing.

I was on the "nothing to see here" wagon yesterday with all of the drama. I was irritated with all of the innuendo. I just didn't believe any of it could have legs.

Well, something definitely happened and it wasn't good for us.

 

[ForWhomTheBellTolls]

The first rationalization is always the most difficult. It becomes progressively easier over time.

In college basketball, it seems to me that if you can rationalize well enough, long enough you might end up with a national championship or two. And you might inadvertently end up with some other unintended consequences as our opponent in our most recent title game appearance has found out.

We each make our own choices regarding whether it's worth it or not.

To me, it's just a game. To the kids involved and their families and handlers, it's their future. Since I haven't walked a mile in any of their shoes, it's not my place to comment or characterize their actions. It's easy to say I might act differently if I was in their shoes, but until I am, it's all hypothetical con any event.

 

[Ubermensch]

I was on the "nothing to see here" wagon yesterday with all of the drama. I was irritated with all of the innuendo. I just didn't believe any of it could have legs.

Well, something definitely happened and it wasn't good for us.

What exactly happened? Save the innuendo and rumor. I'd be happy to hear some facts.

 

[TheGMan]

What exactly happened? Save the innuendo and rumor. I'd be happy to hear some facts.

We don't have any. Anybody who says differently is lying. However, we have A LOT of smoke, which is not meaningless.

 

[Deleted member 236589]

What exactly happened? Save the innuendo and rumor. I'd be happy to hear some facts.

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any facts to be had. We'll probably never know what transpired. Both sides will put lipstick on the pig and will let it go away and die.

 

[Ubermensch]

We don't have any. Anybody who says differently is lying. However, we have A LOT of smoke, which is not meaningless.

FTR, I am not referencing THT choosing UI. There's a lot of smoke that won't happen. I hope it's nonsense, but I'm not naive. I'm referring to the blame game.

 

[Applegate20]

I keep reading Ayo and THT are fine. No bad blood there. Ayo and family want best players on board. I see everyone seemingly believing it's all the Irvin's that did this. Problem with this is Irvin's have no juice in terms of Ayo's recruitment unless Ayo and his family are willing to back up Irvin. The ultimatum of Ayo or THT bears no weight unless Ayo is willing to walk away. I could say more on why they may be in Irvins corner (maybe its not by choice), but I'll leave it at that


I have a hard time believing the staff backs away on Irvin's words/threats alone.


Regardless, this sets a horrible precedent that looks bad on everyone involved

 

[Spoon House]

I'd be happy to hear some facts.

We might never get any, unless some sort of attempt at an organized post-mortem is executed by a journalist.

My worthless opinion is that Underwood and his staff were able to smooth the rough edges between parents, and that Ayo and THT themselves were all peachy all along... and then the Irvin camp said "excuse me, but..." at the 11th hour. Sounds like Illinois had to decide between angering the Fire or angering Simeon. What an awful position to be placed in.

 

[Deleted member 631370]

I'm starting to think this was directed at BU and Illinois.

Oh, absolutely.

My only hope now is that we didn't revoke THT's scholarship at the last moment. I really, really hope that's not how it went down.

Because I'm not a "win at all costs" type. And revoking a kid's offer at the 11th hour to assuage the hurt feelings of a big-ego'ed AAU coach would be very hard to accept.

Again, hope that's not the case. Maybe we'll learn the facts after the smoke clears.

 

[EfremWinters84]

I was on the "nothing to see here" wagon yesterday with all of the drama. I was irritated with all of the innuendo. I just didn't believe any of it could have legs.

Well, something definitely happened and it wasn't good for us.

Once again, Loren Tate was at the forefront of this game-changing news. If Tate speaks, we need to listen. He doesn't have the number of insiders that he once had, but he's still connected to some reliable sources.

Thanks Loren!

 

[BMo79]

Are we sure about all this. I was listening to the Jeremy Werner show within the last hour with he and Piper and it was all positive vibes. There was nothing about what has transpired on the last several pages.

That show was this am, you need to listen to the Tay and Carp show with Piper and Werner on it and neither are in Chicago