ILLINI IN NE
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INI!!
Pregame: Illinois vs Iowa, Saturday, March 13th, 2:30pm CT, CBS
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illini80
- Forgottonia
I know this isn’t news or any brilliant observation, but Kofi’s defense is just so impressive for a guy who hasn’t played that long. His help defense and rotation are nearly flawless. You almost don’t notice how good he is until Giorgi comes in and you see what it looks like without him. It would be great to have him back, but man I hope he gets paid for what he has done this year. There is no doubt in my mind that we would miss him even more than our best player next year. (With our known roster) Now if he could just hit those free throws consistently....
I'm no bracketology expert. Without looking at teams outside the B1G, I have a difficult time foreseeing us losing a 1 seed when we have 11 quad one wins.
altenberger22
- South Carolina
You may need to talk with Seth Davis........
The "Big Time" crew! We may be seeing a lot of one another over the next 3-4 weeks.CBS: Jim Nantz, Grant Hill, Bill Raftery & Tracy Wolfson
Big Ten Tournament Notes | Illinois vs. Iowa - University of Illinois Athletics
No. 2 seed Illinois faces No. 3 seed Iowa in Saturday's Big Ten Tournament semifinals. (2:30 p.m. CT, CBS).fightingillini.com
Livers is out indefinitely with a stress fracture, so today's match with Iowa may well be for the tournament championship. Illinois proved it can hammer Michigan with the Illini's best player sidelined, but there is no way Michigan beats Illinois or Iowa without Livers. Hate to see any kid sidelined given all the work they put in to get here, but no one felt bad for us having to play the toughest stretch of our regular schedule without Ayo. Plus, I hate the way Michigan backed in to the Big Ten season championship without playing all the games, then rubbed it in our faces.
Livers out indefinitely. Wow. Huge blow to scUM
Deleted member 747903
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Livers is a big loss but they have guys who can reasonably fill his shoes.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Agree. Losing him at the "4" is probably the least damaging loss of a starter they can suffer. Having said that, IIRC, they lost him in advance of their game in The Barn when MN crushed them.
Iowa fans on Reddit are claiming they will steal ILL 1 seed if they win today.
I really appreciate your post and totally agree with you on all points. How your muscles are built, fast twitch v slow twitch. I have tons of the latter, as I was always an endurance athlete. I lift more now than ever at 47, turned my spare bedroom into a gym during the pandemic, and am stronger than I have ever been.I take your point about, e.g., Garza looking soft. I have a different view. I've never been a D-1 athlete, like you and altenberger22, not even close. (Forgive the self-promotionI deadlifted 485 lbs yesterday afternoon @ 55 yrs old and I've studied the S&C topic a great deal over the years so have a decently-informed opinion about it. And I played BB competitively through high school so understand the thinking/taboos over the years about weight training and basketball.
The ability to look "ripped" at a given muscle mass depends to a large extent on genetics. Gaining muscle entails gaining fat; losing fat comes with losing muscle. Some guys (like Garza, I suspect) carry more fat per muscle kg than (for example) I did at that age. It's his physiology. I have no doubt Garza and his teammates are in excellent condition, as all of these guys must be in order to play every day. How strong is he relative to our Fletch-trained guys? Can't tell. Might be stronger, depending on the Iowa BB S&C regimen. Watching him go at it with Kofi can give an indication of relative strength.
We can be ripped and much weaker than a guy of the same height having greater muscle mass and fat. I weight 30 pounds more at 55 than I did when I resumed lifting at 49 but you'd barely know it to look at me. I'm just a lot denser (heh!) Strength is the ability to exert a force against an external resistance, nothing more. It's safe to say that every set of BT starters are in relatively comparable "condition" in terms of endurance and VO2 uptake. But at this level, adjusting for the genetics that give a player a 36" vertical jump b/c he's got an innate excess of fast-twitch muscle fibers and six-sigma neuromuscular efficiency, strength is what separates one player from another. It's hard to tell on the surface how it differs until, say, one guy tries to screen or post up another. And even then confounding variables interfere.
My two cents. Sorry if that seems pedantic. Can we all just agree that the Iowa players are aesthetically repellant?
I find the S&C topic really interesting. Can't wait for the tip this afternoon. Haven't been able to look forward to the BT semis in what, 11 yrs?!
ILL-!!
I'm mostly just talking smack, it's GameDay. My objectivity is on sabbatical for the next month plus.
Iowa is serving up more food for the Illini and we are hungry.
And imagine what happens if we beat Iowa today and Michigan tomorrow!
Please no Larry? There’s 3 other refs right?
Bo Boroski, the tall bald guy? Plus someone whose name we don’t know because he actually does a good job and flies under the radar?
Deleted member 11228
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Not sure what it means. Clue me in, I'm not up on who's who with these stupid refs.
Deleted member 11228
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Iowa fans need to worry about how they lost to IU twice and Minnesota. That's why they won't get a 1 seed.
Does that mean we get Kelly Pfeifer and Bo Borosky?
Well we don’t want Larry Scirotto that’s for sure.
It is going to be a tough road ahead. Iowa going to be tough and don't discount OSU beating Mich. OSU is a pain in the !!! to play if we beat Iowa.
I don't think a win today would "steal" it, but a win today and tomorrow might. It would be 50/50 at that point. Splitting hairs between teams.
No it wouldn’t
INI..
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