ZoomSlowik

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 28, 2011 -> 02:45 PM) I agree. There are maybe 5 elite jobs in the country and a whole bunch of top jobs. You have to think Duke, UNC, Kentucky and Kansas are elite jobs and add in the top Big East program at the moment. I dont think any elite jobs exist in the Big Ten or Pac 10. I think there are a fair number more than that. Schools like UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA and Indiana have been considered elite for quite some time, there are other ones that one great coach has made elite like Duke, Syracuse, MSU and UConn, and there are others that cycle into the elite bracket from time to time (OSU right now, Florida 5 years ago, Memphis before Calipari left, Michigan 20 years ago, ect). Illinois can easily cycle to the elite group with a solid run of success, but they haven't really had any kind of sustained run in recent history. There's no chance I'd call them a top-10 program right now and you can probably argue they're lower than that.

QUOTE (danman31 @ Jan 28, 2011 -> 02:38 PM) I don't think that's true. If Illinois was a top job 5-10 years ago, Self wouldn't have left for Kansas. I would second that. I would argue that it's 4th in the Big Ten behind OSU, MSU and Indiana (though obviously that last one is going through a rough patch), much less programs like UNC and Kentucky.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jan 22, 2011 -> 01:35 PM) That group also had a horrible time trying to defend Ray Allen. Hinrich's a good defender, but the other two, especially Gordon, weren't exactly stellar. I think it's clear that this Bulls team is much better than that one. The Bulls most likely won't play Boston until the second round anyways. I just hope we don't end up playing NY. I'd much rather play the Hawks or whoever ends up being the 7th seed. Bogans and Korver aren't exactly great defenders either, and Brewer is generally considered to be better matching up against 3's. Gordon averaged 24 PPG that series and Salmons averaged 18. Those two had a pretty big impact on the series regardless of what they did in the regular season. Obviously Boozer and Deng make a difference, but it's not the same as Boston just adding Garnett to the group they already had in that series. You really can't draw any conclusions at all from what happened in that series.

Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich and John Salmons were still on that team too, way better supporting guards than they have now. In other words, it's a completely different series.

In other words, they recycled a story from several months ago with one new little tidbit about Worldwide Wes coming to Chicago, which probably means nothing.

QUOTE (Felix @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 04:16 PM) Chris Bosh also played on a team in a much weaker league/division. There's a reason the Wolves are ranked 22nd in Hollinger's power rankings right now. They are a much better team than the record says. The west isn't exactly as deep as it usually is this year. Portland is barely hanging on to the 8th seed at .500 and New Orleans and Denver aren't exactly great. And I'm not really sure how you can argue that a team that's being out-scored by an average of 5.5 PPG (only 3 teams are worse) and allowing 108 a game (worst in the league by almost 2 points) is better than their record.

This whole train of thought is getting beyond the point as well. Nit-picking about teams with Kobe or Jordan winning 38-40 games is beside the point. Those teams were still relatively competitive with them and awful supporting casts. The T-Wolves are on pace for 20.5 wins in a league where roughly half of the teams are varying degrees of awful. Plus while their roster in general stinks, they also have another pretty competent player/scorer in Michael Beasley (admittedly his D sucks too). That makes it really hard to argue that Love is a truly elite player when he's not having a huge impact on his team's wins. Even someone like Chris Bosh has been to the playoffs as the best player on his team, and no one talks about him being elite anymore.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 03:35 PM) It has to take some version of +/- into account though doesn't it? No it doesn't, it's mostly based on rate stats. Love's would be a lot lower if it did since he's only +2.8 when he's on the floor (+7.7 points per 100 possessions offensively, +4.9 (as in their D is worse) defensively).

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Jan 15, 2011 -> 11:48 AM) Let's not crap on PER. It takes into account defensive impact as well. Statistically, this season, Kevin Love is a top 10 player. And Griffin definitely is going to have a higher FG% as he goes inside much more. Love doesn't dunk like Griffin does, instead he jukes, jives and then shoots. I'm not a Love fan in the least, but he's a heck of a player for at least this year. PER counts rebounds, steals and blocks, not exactly the greatest indicators of total defensive ability.

Ugh, typical NU basketball, 3 point lead late in regulation and with 3 minutes left in OT and blow it both times. If someone had just spiked Green's knee a couple of weeks ago my guys could have two wins over MSU, instead we're still stuck on the wrong side of the bubble until NU beats someone good.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jan 11, 2011 -> 01:18 PM) Wayne Larrivee is now the radio PBP guy for the Packers. I worded that poorly. I knew he did the Packers' games, but that's not something I normally listen too. Apparently he still does games for the Big Ten Network here and there.

Since this branched off into color guys several posts ago, I can't believe no one brought up Dick Vitale. I used to be indifferent to him, but somehow I just realized that basically every game he does is exactly the same. Blow Coach K and several other coaches (usually Boeheim, Izzo, Roy and/or Gary Williams), hype a few good teams that aren't playing, talk up the top couple of freshmen, go on a rant about the top couple of recruits/recruiting classes for next year, comment about how the road to conference championship X goes through team Y, throw in a couple of his catch phrases and call it a game. Commenting on the game that's actually going on now and then would be nice. As for other guys, I can't think of a whole lot of guys that I like, it's mostly indifferent or hate. I guess some of the ones guys have mentioned like Gus Johnson, Pat Foley, John Rooney, Wayne Larrivee (though I'm not even sure what he does anymore). I liked the main guys that did the World Cup (Ian Dark and another guy who's name escapes me). Neil Funk is solid. I used to like Marv Albert for basketball. For color, I actually kind of like Jay Bilas. I absolutely hated the Miller/Morgan combo (the former was okay, latter brutal), McCarver like several others. Buck does nothing for me. Bill Raftery annoys the hell out of me. Can't stand either Cubs' crew, though radio might improve without Santo. I know it'll sound sexist, but I really don't like Doris Burke or the other woman that does college football (after looking it up, it's apparently Beth Mowins. What's worse is whenever Northwestern is on ESPN, we usually get one of the two). The NBA crew with Van Gundy/Jackson bothers me as well.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 10, 2011 -> 10:02 AM) I think we all kinda owe LeBron at least a semi-apology. The Cavs are 1-18 since December 2nd. They are f***ing awful. My goodness. It is pretty amazing to me that they're the worst team in a terrible eastern conference. Obviously they were going to be bad, but I didn't think they'd be worse than teams like Toronto, Washington and Detroit. Mo Williams has just been awful, he hasn't shot this poorly since his rookie year. Jamison, a guy that has thrived in the past taking more shots than he should and playing no defense, has been mediocre at best. Hickson, the guy that was supposed to be their main hope for the future, has been well below average. They have pretty much no assets and can't even pray for luck from the lottery gods because this draft is looking pretty pathetic so far.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 6, 2011 -> 09:25 PM) Oh, no wonder he sounds so familiar. He does all the ESPN games on TV, so I didn't think it was him on the radio too. Thanks. My bad, I didn't read your post very well. I'm not sure who it is right now, though I believe Bardo has done it in the past.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 6, 2011 -> 09:19 PM) Anyone know who the color guy is on the Illini radio broadcasts? I'm pretty sure its an ex player but I never catch his name. Stephen Bardo.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jan 6, 2011 -> 09:11 PM) I think the fact that they only have 6 rebounds after 23 minutes is the most astounding stat in this game. Kind of hard to get a normal rebound total when Illinois has only missed 8 shots.

Does Illinois have more dunks than NU has FG's? I think they might...

I didn't expect NU to have much of a chance tonight, but good god, they look awful.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 5, 2011 -> 08:16 PM) One of you "capologists" tell me an acceptable trade where we land Kevin Martin. The free throw shooting for the Bulls this season has been beyond attrocious, and Martin knows how to get to the line and would be the perfect guard who can not only create his own shot, but he can score from anywhere and doesn't need the ball to be effective. Someone figure out the deal, and we can conference GarPax and get this s*** done. I can think of no better player (who can be acquired... yes I'm including Melo in that) who fits this Bulls roster better. Money isn't really the issue, Deng works and so does a pile of non-essential players (Brewer or Watson would help a lot). The problem will come from a talent perspective as I'm not sure Houston is that anxious to move a solid player signed to a reasonable deal for 3 years for what the Bulls have to offer.

As I've said before, I can't really see why a big-time program would be interested in Fitzgerald at this point in his career. His record is 33-29 and his best season so far is 9-4. While that's pretty good for NU, that gets you fired somewhere like Michigan. That's on top of the fact that I get the impression that he would prefer long-term stability like he has right now over going for the big bucks and prestige at a bigger program.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jan 3, 2011 -> 08:36 PM) Bill Carmody is a very overrated coach. Well on his way to missing the tournament again, and his coaching in the last 30 seconds of tonight's game was awful. Not really the coaches fault when your offense shoots 31% and can't get even one key rebound. They had no business being in that game at all.

I've got this feeling in my gut that NU is going to upset Michigan State tonight. Of course it could just be gas...

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jan 1, 2011 -> 10:02 PM) That's why I said bowl teams. Ah, reading fail.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jan 1, 2011 -> 08:00 PM) Remember, TCU is also 10th for Division I bowl teams in football spending. 11th. The article published recently only counted bowl teams, with the massive caveat being that Texas and their $25 mil a year program didn't make a bowl this season.

At least in my opinion, TCU and Boise State are totally different situations for two reasons (Yes, I know Boise beat TCU last year. s*** happens) : 1) TCU doesn't spend like a little guy. Their football spending was over $20 mil last season, good for 11th in the country. Boise State, by comparison, spent only $6.85 mil. 2) TCU gets a lot of very good athletes from Texas and convinces them to play defense. Boise doesn't have the same kind of recruiting foothold.