[Oskee] Can we beat Northwestern? (Warning long)

John Livengood jdlive at yahoo.com
Mon Jan 7 20:37:27 EST 2008


So you're not happy with the hiring of Ron Zook?

----- Original Message ----
From: Keith Magnuson <magnuson99 at comcast.net>
To: Fighting Illini Sports Enthusiasts List <oskee at heins.net>
Sent: Monday, January 7, 2008 7:37:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Oskee] Can we beat Northwestern? (Warning long)


Not to pick on you Kevin, but you were the first to respond this way.
  This
is what bothers me about our fan base.  Going from National
 Championship to
maybe not making the NIT is tolerable in a 3-4 year span. Wow...

As someone posted earlier, I believe it was Winston, Guenther made the
"safe/loyal hire in Weber".  Too many times Guenther makes reactionary
 hires
instead of proactive hires.  Self, a good recruiter with aspirations
 for
bigger/better things burns him, so Guenther goes with the "loyal"
 better
supposed X's and O's guy that can't recruit in Weber.  In football he
 gets
burned by the supposed Offensive genius in Ron Turner who has no need
 or
desire for recruiting and wants his classes done with before Xmas, so
 he
hires Ron Zook the all world recruiter who battles for top guys until
signinging day but who at times has had his in game coaching
 questioned.
It's almost like he thinks he needs to go with the total opposite of
 the
previous coach.  Extremely odd for the "one man search comittee".

And to respond to who said this year can all be traced back to Jamar
 sitting
out this year and one Indiana guard pulling a fast one on our coaching
staff, I have several questions.  What does that have to do with one
 "senior
leader" Randle fouling out with 2 points against Penn State??  What
 does
that have to do with second "Senior leader" Pruitt walking back on
 defense,
getting outrebounded by a guy 4-5 inches shorter than him, and not get
 taken
off the court by Weber when he does this?  What does it have to do with
Weber writing up plays for Chester Frazier, one of our worst shooters
 in
game ending/winning situations not once, but twice this year? What does
 it
have to do with a Junior college player we spent a scholarship on only
averaging 15 minutes a game?
What does it have to do with us shooting under 60% from the free throw
 line
as a team?

This is what ticks me off the most, we played with Duke, we played with
 and
should have beat 'Zona, why did we quit all of a sudden? No heart, no
hustle, no leadership especially by the senior class.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stewart, Kevin C ERDC-ITL-IL"
 <Kevin.C.Stewart at erdc.usace.army.mil>
To: "Fighting Illini Sports Enthusiasts List" <oskee at heins.net>
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 5:07 PM
Subject: RE: [Oskee] Can we beat Northwestern?


The guard situation was also hurt by the loss of Watkins to the
Clearinghouse. I agree this will be a down year (maybe very down), but
 I
have
hope for the future (we pick up Smith and Legion next year) and have
 good
classes lined up for the next 2 years after that. Illini fans should
 give
Weber and the team a break. One bad year out of 6 or 7 is okay by me.

Kevin Stewart

-----Original Message-----
From: oskee-bounces at heins.net [mailto:oskee-bounces at heins.net] On
 Behalf Of
John Livengood
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 4:29 PM
To: Fighting Illini Sports Enthusiasts List
Subject: Re: [Oskee] Can we beat Northwestern?

Robert, certainly Gordon's reneging hurt, but it only made a bad
 situation
worse. With Jamar out, the only recruited guards we have from 4
 recruiting
classes are Frazier and McCamey (I consider Brock a forward). Chester
 plays
hard, but he really should be at a low major program or coming off the
bench.
While having Gordon and Smith would make this team a lot better, we'd
 still
be servicable with another decent guard or two.

What puzzles me is how well they looked playing in Maui and even vs
 Arizona.
I guess they've just lost confidence, but I really thought that team
 looked
like at least an NCAA bubble team at worst. As of now, I don't even
 think
the
NIT is going to happen unless they start playing a lot better. I don't
 see
them beating anyone on the road, and if you've lost to PSU and
 Tennessee St
at home....?

When does football season start? ;-)

JL


----- Original Message ----
From: Robert Mingee <mingee at swbell.net>
To: Fighting Illini Sports Enthusiasts List <oskee at heins.net>
Sent: Monday, January 7, 2008 10:42:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Oskee] Can we beat Northwestern?


OK, I'll weigh in here as well.  Let me start first with a question:
 what
would this team look like right now if Jamar and He Who Must Not Be
 Named
(HWMNBN) were on the floor?  Is it really all Bruce's fault that Jamar
imploded and HWMNBN doesn't understand the meaning of the word
 "commitment"?
There's no doubt this team has major issues right now, lack of scoring
primary among them, but I'm still having a hard time hanging all of the
talent issue on Bruce -- it would have pretty tough to not only forsee
 this
situation, but scramble to recover from it.  McCamey and Tisdale look
 pretty
good so far, and Davis for that matter, and I'm willing to give Bruce a
couple more years to see how he recovers from the HWMNBN fiasco.

That's not to say there aren't plenty of things I am willing to hang on
Bruce
and his staff, and I've spouted off here at length about one of them --
 our
pathetic free throw shooting, which seems to be about the only thing
actually
improving in this train wreck of a season (though I haven't checked the
stats
-- that's just a gut feel).  And the lack of heart and effort is
 another.
We
just plain got out-hustled and outplayed on the boards yesterday, and
 that's
flat-out inexcusable.  NO WAY should a team like PSU be beating us that
 bad
on the boards, and it was all lack of effort and position.

And I have one suggestion to add to your playing time point -- make
 Brian
Randle a nice comfy seat at the end of the bench and leave his sorry
 %$@#*&
there the rest of the season.  I'm not sure I've ever in my life seen
 such a
pathetic waste of raw athletic ability.  I think we can live without
 his
constant fouling and missed free throws the rest of the season.  I
 really
hope for his sake he got a good education, because I can't imagine him
making
a living playing basketball anywhere -- he just plain doesn't get it.
  I
think there's still some value in playing Pruitt some, because I think
Tisdale can learn from him (so long as he doesn't pick up his bad
 habits
:-).

Like those that have already posted, I feel that the NIT is far from a
 given
at this point.  You never want to give up on a season, but playing the
 youth
is different -- I'm not convinced they'll do any worse than the vets,
 and
the
program benefits from getting them experience.

-- robert

----- Original Message ----
From: Chris Goldenstein <cgoldens at yahoo.com>
To: Fighting Illini Sports Enthusiasts List <oskee at heins.net>
Sent: Monday, January 7, 2008 7:48:18 AM
Subject: Re: [Oskee] Can we beat Northwestern?

I'm not sure we can win another game at this point, NU might be the
 only
one,
which is really sad.  I think the confidence has been all but beaten
 out of
this team and we have yet to hit rock bottom this year, IMO (although
 the
TSU
game sez otherwise).

I'm happy to hear that McCamey is getting the start @ WIS (yikes).  I'd
 like
to see major minutes at this point for McCamey, Tisdale, Cole, Davis,
 etc.
If Bruce is gonna dig himself outta this, he should build for next
 year,
IMO.
NIT looks to be slim and none right now, but I guess things can change,
 but
I
don't see it.

signed,

A VERY pessimistic fan :(

----- Original Message ----
From: Keith Magnuson <magnuson99 at comcast.net>
To: oskee at heins.net
Sent: Sunday, January 6, 2008 3:30:04 PM
Subject: [Oskee] Can we beat Northwestern?

You have to really start to wonder if you can't beat Penn St. at home,
 can
you even make the NIT?  I've bit my tongue so far, must have been
 overcome
with Rose Bowl joy....

For those of you that are not happy with people booing Chester, I would
 be
happy to listen to ideas of how Bruce Weber can be booed.

There is no excuse for inheriting a team full of talent that he had for
 the
Final Four run and then subsequently in three years, lose to Miami of
 Ohio,
Tennessee St., and Penn State consecutively at Assembly Hall.  The Rose
Bowl, which I thought was a blessing in disguise for the basketball
 program
at one point is starting to make me wonder.  Will the football success
 make
this slide in basketball tolerable by our fan base? I sure hope not.

A short phone conversation with a friend of mine from Sprinfield summed
 up
what our basketball team has become.  Due to his coaching job for
 middle
school basketball and Rose Bowl trip, my friend has only been able to
 attend
one or two games this year and he sits in Section A.  Today was the
 first
day he was able to get someone to take his ticket, he has eaten every
 other
ticket.  And yes I said, take his ticket, they were willing to take his
ticket, but would not go if they had to pay for it.  That folks, sums
 it up
right there.

This is ridiculous.

Keith Magnuson
"OrangeKrush99"


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