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IU to Win BIG Tilte

No intent to insult. Thanks for the update on the class. If Underwood already has a top 10 class, then filling in with foreign players is no big deal. I just was influenced by two of them committing at the same time.

Given that if these kids play well together, Illinios should be considered a top-of-the-BIG team. Nothing new there.

:cool:
One of them committed to Michigan.
 
So much for my reading comprehension... Thanks Victor.
Go watch videos of that kid. He’s going to be good. Both of those guys will thrive in the modern game. He has similar skill to the top 3 drafts. He’s not there yet but he will be a match up nightmare. He sure looks like a wing. A pretty skilled scoring wing.
 
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With Kaufman and Furst playing along the front line, probably rotating with Mason Gillis, I think we will have sufficient size and agility to guard the front line against anybody. Edey is not as slow and lumbering as some might portray. My concern from a defense perspective is the guard positions. You can guard drivers by backing off them. You guard shooters by staying in their face. The toughest guy to guard is someone like Ivey or Edwards who can do both.

As for the recent Illinois commits, I know nothing about them expect they are from out of the country. Often out-of-country recruits are an indication that the coach is not getting in-country recruits and has to reach further. I’m not knowledgeable about what UI has drug in to make that judgement, but two OOC recruits suggests desperation.
Don't know much about Kaufman but from what I saw of Furst, having those 2 on the court with Edey would present some challenges guarding most teams these days. I mean, there's a reason Painter didn't try playing Williams with Edey and Trevion is pretty nimble? A lot of teams going 1-in, 4 out or even 5 out now. Illinois tried playing Giorgi and then Payne with Kofi and it just doesn't work.

I do like Gillis as a versatile defender.
 
If I were you, the only thing I'd be SMH at is how IU lost that many games in a row to Purdue, especially with all the "talent" IU gets and the "quality" coaches they've hired...
That’s fine. Let’s start a new count? You good with that? I have fun with the countdown of games won by a team without winning a title. PU is #5 on that list.
 
Hawkins was terrible from 3 last year. Edey dominated Kofi. He would send Hawkins home crying.

Illinois is a team I expect Edey to average 20+ against given how small their frontline is.
In the second game, Kofi outscored and outrebounded Edey. In the first game, and Edey elbow gave Kofi a concussion and Kofi wasn’t the same. He missed the next two games with that concussion.

Kofi was a first team All American. Edey was not.
 
With Kaufman and Furst playing along the front line, probably rotating with Mason Gillis, I think we will have sufficient size and agility to guard the front line against anybody. Edey is not as slow and lumbering as some might portray. My concern from a defense perspective is the guard positions. You can guard drivers by backing off them. You guard shooters by staying in their face. The toughest guy to guard is someone like Ivey or Edwards who can do both.

As for the recent Illinois commits, I know nothing about them expect they are from out of the country. Often out-of-country recruits are an indication that the coach is not getting in-country recruits and has to reach further. I’m not knowledgeable about what UI has drug in to make that judgement, but two OOC recruits suggests desperation.
Illinois has the 9th best recruiting class in the country. Got the number one ranked players from Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and Tennessee. None of them are from another country.

Illinois has the 2nd ranked transfer class in the country. Shannon, Mayer, Dainja. None of them are from another country.

Together, it is the top ranked influx of talent in the Big Ten and 6th nationally.

Then Illinois adds a young 17 year old French big man who just won MVP in a European tournament filled with 21 year olds. He is projected as a draft pick in 2024.

Signing him was not an act of desperation. It’s adding to a boatload of talent already assembled.
 
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Illinois has the 9th best recruiting class in the country. Got the number one ranked players from Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and Tennessee. None of them are from another country.

Illinois has the 2nd ranked transfer class in the country. Shannon, Mayer, Dainja. None of them are from another country.

Together, it is the top ranked influx of talent in the Big Ten and 6th nationally.

Then Illinois adds a young 17 year old French big man who just won MVP in a European tournament filled with 21 year olds. He is projected as a draft pick in 2024.

Signing him was not an act of desperation. It’s adding to a boatload of talent already assembled.
They are making the most of Kofi’s unused 2 million charity work. Spreading it around.
 
As for the recent Illinois commits, I know nothing about them expect they are from out of the country. Often out-of-country recruits are an indication that the coach is not getting in-country recruits and has to reach further. I’m not knowledgeable about what UI has drug in to make that judgement, but two OOC recruits suggests desperation.

LOL...You don't know your face from your a$$. Illinois and Michigan is killing it in recruiting. I wish Painter could recruit like them. But that's what I'm expecting from you as a dumba$$ IU fan...
 
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I disagree to a point on ooc players. There are some very skilled bigs that come from Europe and the game is changing to guys like that. I think the thing to watch with Edey is going to be stamina.(not wether he can guard)He’s going to play more minutes plus can Kauffman guard a 3? The B1G is a big unknown this year. Going to be an interesting year.
TKR's ability to play and defend the three this season will go a long way toward our success, That and point guard too. Oh, and Newman. If it all comes together, this could really be a good season. A lot has to fall in line, though.
 
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In the second game, Kofi outscored and outrebounded Edey. In the first game, and Edey elbow gave Kofi a concussion and Kofi wasn’t the same. He missed the next two games with that concussion.

Kofi was a first team All American. Edey was not.
Kofi was so overrated. Edey dominated him. You went 0-2 against us.
 
The rest of the country could give two sh!TS about IU. Only IU fans believe they're relevant. Otherwise you'd have someone other than Mike Woodson as your coach...
You have to put their views in perspective, they are limited to what the areas surrounding Bloomington think. They don't travel much farther than that and don't understand that what you said is 100% true.
 
You idiot. You misunderstood, or misread what I posted. I am a boilermaker through and through. I am from the state of Indiana and I am a fan of most Indiana schools. Butler, Indiana, Ball State, etc. I am almost a fan of Noter Dame. :cool:

I started this thread to talk basketball, which it has done pretty well. I post on both boards, and enjoy the civility of most posters.
Chill. It was a joke
 

This was written by Illinois writer, so there is definitely some bias for the Illini. I think I agree with who he has in the top 9, but think the order will be different.

I'm not as high on Wisconsin and Iowa. I think Michigan St and Purdue will out perform where he has them.
guess which players these quotes from the Baylor fan base are about:

“Never the consistent scorer we'd hope for, would've come off bench as #6 player next year. Senior season kind of a flop but thanks”

“He has the lowest true shooting % out of all of our regulars. He has the fourth lowest efficiency rating of our regulars.He also currently has the worst TS% and eFG% since his freshman year and both the TS% and eFG% are almost a whole 10% worse than last year as well.”
MATTHEW MAYER

OR this guy:

“Academically ineligible last year.. overweight this year. Really poor self-discipline it seems given the unlimited resources athletes have to correct both.”

“Good: a very skilled post scorer and mid range jump shooter. Bad: everything else.
The former is always a tantalizing item in any big. Forget the academic redshirt or the injury [and related weight gain]. It was everything else that ended his time here.

Work needed to regain physical form: failure.
Cultural fit: failure.
Work on D: failure.
Work on aspects of O other than shooting: failure.”
DAIN DAINJA

For anyone who is honestly assessing the potential of Illinois next year; take a look at the opinions of those who lived for their team. These are their thoughts on two of the Illini’s most heralded pickups. FWIW, Shannon’s former fanbase was absolutely pissed that HE left.

Anyone who thinks Illinois’ front court remotely measures up with Purdue, IU, Michigan, Maryland, Rutgers, WIsky, OSU and others is in for a sad surprise. Unless the foreign kid is an instant impact kinda guy, that is.
 
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That 24/7 report was pretty good. At least it helped me catch up on where the other BIG teams are this year. For whatever reason, I just haven’t paid attention to all the off season and recruiting news. Was it biased toward UI? Surely not. Of course after reading about how much talent UI was bringing in, I though we may as well just award them the trophy and skip the play-offs.
:cool:
 
The best? It is pretty damn good but what else would you say? :)
Question asked in all earnestness, was it just Knight? For as many negative things as people dredge up against Bobby Knight, he was an all time great coach.

I think Indiana can clearly be successful with the right coach (despite recent history), but will it take an all time great coach to get IU back to an elite level? UNC had a couple of mis-steps before landing Williams. KU hasn't missed a beat with three guys over the last40 years. Kentucky has had a couple of bad hires but never an extended down stretch.

Maybe Duke is the best comp? I guess we'll find out. They've been elite for an awfully long time but Coach K was so synonymous with the brand, I wonder if there's not a drop off without him.
 
Don't know much about Kaufman but from what I saw of Furst, having those 2 on the court with Edey would present some challenges guarding most teams these days. I mean, there's a reason Painter didn't try playing Williams with Edey and Trevion is pretty nimble? A lot of teams going 1-in, 4 out or even 5 out now. Illinois tried playing Giorgi and then Payne with Kofi and it just doesn't work.

I do like Gillis as a versatile defender.
I think TKR will be the X factor. If, he has developed to his ranking over the last year. We should definitely be able to depend on his skill set.

Obviously, guard play could be the biggest "unknown" on this team. I just hope collectively they do their job. Our front line should be fine against any B1G team. Depending on our guards to score at a high clip will probably be our biggest issue with any close loss.
 
I think TKR will be the X factor. If, he has developed to his ranking over the last year. We should definitely be able to depend on his skill set.

Obviously, guard play could be the biggest "unknown" on this team. I just hope collectively they do their job. Our front line should be fine against any B1G team. Depending on our guards to score at a high clip will probably be our biggest issue with any close loss.
I think you generally want Gillis on the court at the same time as Edey for passing and shooting purposes. I doubt we'll see very much of Zach and Caleb on the court together (I could be completely wrong). I'd expect to see a lot of the Zach, Mason, Brandon and Ethan combo with Smith, Jenkins or Loyer playing that third back court position.

Agree that it will be interesting to see how Trey compares to Mason from a defensive mobility standpoint. The 'second team' is where it really starts to get interesting as it's conceivable that we see a Furst + Gillis + Trey lineup at the 3 through 5 if Trey can stay in front of a wing on defense. All of our 4's have to be able to do that to some extent given the amount of switching that occurs in MP's game plan, but you don't want both the 3 and 4 our there playing catchup.
 
guess which players these quotes from the Baylor fan base are about:

“Never the consistent scorer we'd hope for, would've come off bench as #6 player next year. Senior season kind of a flop but thanks”

“He has the lowest true shooting % out of all of our regulars. He has the fourth lowest efficiency rating of our regulars.He also currently has the worst TS% and eFG% since his freshman year and both the TS% and eFG% are almost a whole 10% worse than last year as well.”
MATTHEW MAYER

OR this guy:

“Academically ineligible last year.. overweight this year. Really poor self-discipline it seems given the unlimited resources athletes have to correct both.”

“Good: a very skilled post scorer and mid range jump shooter. Bad: everything else.
The former is always a tantalizing item in any big. Forget the academic redshirt or the injury [and related weight gain]. It was everything else that ended his time here.

Work needed to regain physical form: failure.
Cultural fit: failure.
Work on D: failure.
Work on aspects of O other than shooting: failure.”
DAIN DAINJA

For anyone who is honestly assessing the potential of Illinois next year; take a look at the opinions of those who lived for their team. These are their thoughts on two of the Illini’s most heralded pickups. FWIW, Shannon’s former fanbase was absolutely pissed that HE left.

Anyone who thinks Illinois’ front court remotely measures up with Purdue, IU, Michigan, Maryland, Rutgers, WIsky, OSU and others is in for a sad surprise. Unless the foreign kid is an instant impact kinda guy, that is.
There's nothing at all "honest" here.

But by all means, a jilted fan base is a great source of unbiased evaluations!
 
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There's nothing at all "honest" here.

But by all means, a jilted fan base is a great source of unbiased evaluations!
The statistics they cited on Mayer are accurate.

Dainja had no statistics, but the academic redshirt was also accurate, along with his lack of getting back into playing shape.
 
I think TKR will be the X factor. If, he has developed to his ranking over the last year. We should definitely be able to depend on his skill set.

Obviously, guard play could be the biggest "unknown" on this team. I just hope collectively they do their job. Our front line should be fine against any B1G team. Depending on our guards to score at a high clip will probably be our biggest issue with any close loss.
I agree. The reports out of HS, even with his injury, indicated that he would be the better player of him and Furst. And Furst has panned out marvelously so far, so I hope that bodes well for Trey.
 
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Indinia has no tiltes. Those seem to be repeated Purdue misspellings/errors.

Indiana? Five titles.
You are correct. Indinia stopped winning the day Coach LEO put a player on the field with INDINIA on his jersey and promptly barfed away the rest of the season.
 
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You are correct. Indinia stopped winning the day Coach LEO put a player on the field with INDINIA on his jersey and promptly barfed away the rest of the season.
I think Indiana football was on its way to “not winning” before a walk-on’s jersey had a typo.

If it only would’ve been that easy to fix the season!
 
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In the second game, Kofi outscored and outrebounded Edey. In the first game, and Edey elbow gave Kofi a concussion and Kofi wasn’t the same. He missed the next two games with that concussion.

Kofi was a first team All American. Edey was not.
I thought it funny how Kofi blatantly threw an elbow into Edey's face with no attempt to make a move literally 1 second into him having the ball for the first time in the second Illinois/Purdue game. Illinois fans complained about Edey for weeks, and I don't think I ever saw anyone ever even mention that. Not to mention that Payne got called for a flagrant that same game for elbowing Stefanovic, and Payne had a history of throwing elbows after ending Fulkerson's season with one. And to cap it all off, Kofi was out due to a concussion he had in practice, not from Edey... probably from Payne if I had to guess.
 
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