I don’t disagree. But given a choice between Kofi G league or overseas versus coming back one more year, I think we would all choose the latter. Obviously, if he gets picked, he goes, and I’m all for it.
Pregame: Illinois vs Indiana, Friday, March 11th, 10:30am CT, BTN
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Iowa and it's players feel the same comradery and family feel as the Illini do. Kenyon Murray and his family are wonderful people. Many of you might remember a basketball player there in the early 90's, Chris Street. His playing time there paralleled that of Deon Thomas, so during that time the Illini angst against the Hawkeyes was at peak intensity. Jan19, 1993 Chris Street was driving back from a team dinner when he turned onto Hwy 1 and his car was struck by a snowplow. He was killed instantly. Kenyon Murray was his best friend and a teammate. Chris Street played with such intensity that Mike Krzyzewski singled out his praise for him in 1992 when Duke beat Iowa in the ncaa tourney. He also attended Chris' funeral out of respect.
Keegan vowed that day that his first son would be named after Chris Street. Kris was born minutes before his twin brother, Keegan. Both are quiet kids by nature, which often leads to a sensitive nature in youth. Fran stated in his postgame interview Kris will be fine. I am in no way (in fact have sometimes been the antithesis of) a self-righteous virtue signaling social justice warrior. But I am glad the Murray's and the schools are looking into this and donating the proceeds to mental health. This kind of thing can happen in any fan base.
Hope they find the fan and ban him/her for life from the State Farm Center
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yes to that last part!! Illinois/OSU last year was by far the most watched game of the year, it was awesome exposure for us. Something like 4.5 million for the “normal” part of the game and over 6 million for OT as the Selection Show approached.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
The 2009 season was so weird and really gave a false sense of calm during what was a monumental fall from grace.
He would be the face of college basketball I am sure the NLi opportunities would be through the roof. Not sure how much he would get in the G league or overseas but he probably make a pretty penny in Champaign
He had improved his game so much but there is still areas that he needs to work on/ demonstrate to make it in the NBA
I see positives in winning the first game. After that, I see positives and negatives. Again, as I've posted, I want to win every game. But I do not see this year's team poised to make a run of 9 straight victories. We have shown signs of being worn down at times during the past month. It's a great testament to the guys gutting out a share of the championship, but the BTT means little to our seeding after winning the first game IMO. We are probably a 3 if we go 1-1 with a chance to be a 2 if we win it. An extra day of rest, a 3 seed, and seven wins out of our final eight games sounds mighty fine to me. Now, if they prove me wrong and win 9 straight, I'm not gonna complain! JMO
I hope I get to watch 20 more years of Coach BU pressers. What a truly remarkable man on top of the best coach in America. His comments on watching the coach K farewell contrasted to the end of most college coach's tenure really was moving. His description of his love for his players and helping them develop into men. We are so unbelievably fortunate to have BU running this program.
I agree with you about getting a 3 seed with 1 win. The deffrence between a 2 and 3 seed is neglegable. The deffrence between a 1 and 4 is huge.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yep, being a 3 and avoiding the 4 path is huge.
Would be awesome to see Kofi come back and leave as the all-time leader in points and rebounds, although that suspension hurts the points race
Go Nats 88 Illini
Fairfax, VA
I have a gut feeling we need to win 2 to secure a 3 seed, so I would like to see them do at least that...but I am terrible at predicting these things.
He’s got two years to accomplish that.
Not the most intuitive, but what may actually help Kofi’s stock the most is if Philly makes the finals. If eastern conference teams know they have to go through Philly, they may prioritize getting an Embiid stopper. Kofi is one of the few guys out there that’s physically up to the job. I’ve really been encouraged by the way he’s been sliding his feet on the perimeter the last 2-3 games. Hope he can stick in the league.
Matthew Ice II
- Minneapolis, MN
apologize if I missed this in the thread or in a previous thread, but what is the designated Illinois fan bar in Indy this weekend? Only thing I could find was previous years that said Ram Restaurant & Brewery, but looks like that is permanently closed
hooraybeer
- Pittsburgh, PA
Attachments
Illini_1979
- Oregon
Is there a watching group in Springfield and if yes, where do they go?
Matthew Ice II
- Minneapolis, MN
Thank you both!
I just read Josh’s open letter to Illinois fans, and in it were links to Twitter posts by EJ and Kenyon. As deplorable as the fan comments were in the arena’s, the replies to those two on Twitter were nearly as bad. Trying to justify what was said by bringing up what other fans have said to Illini players or calling EJ soft because he took exception to what was said to him and had the audacity to post about it on Twitter — geez what is wrong with people. That’s why I rarely read the comment sections on Twitter.
I think that and '98 are the only 2 times in my fandom where we had what I would call a "surprisingly" good season. We're obviously sometimes better than expected but usually it's like last year where even though we got to a 1 seed, we were still a preseason top 10 team. That '09 team was a whole season of "oh hey, this team is kinda good".
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