http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/cs ... 9758.story

I salute him. This year was bad for NIU but he took the program from the dumps and made them meaningful again. He got them to several bowl games and while he had a losing record overall - he did have some high points during his tenure, like beating nationally ranked Maryland at home in front of an ESPN audience and making Garrett Wolfe a household name.

Best of luck to Joe.

Here's hoping Don Patterson of WIU gets his chance.

I am just glad the SCORE has signed up NIU athletics for a few more years. Those basketball games will be especially interesting this year.

The Ricardo Patton era is starting in tremedous fashion. I'm sure tens of fans will be going to games in the middle of winter.

I'm thinking Capt. Kirk from IOWA. Seems he might be going somewhere else?!!!! It would be a blessing ( for the Bears) if they could get Ron Turner away from the Bears.

Rob Judson put our program into a huge downfall. Patton is going to need a lot more than his first year to revive our program. He's already bringing in some good recruits. We have three high school recruits ranked in the top 35 for the entire state of Illinois for our 2008 class. One of which, Tyler Storm, is rated top 20 by most sources. There's no reason NIU should not be enjoying the success that SIU has been. We have a lot more to offer.

Yes, please remind me again of how well Iowa basketball has done this past season.

More than 6 wins on the season. Actually they had six wins in conference and while the Big Ten is down, it's certainly better than the MAC.

Tyler Storm looks like Ben Rand all over again. I wouldn't get excited. He was woefully overmatched in the Big Ten, went to NIU and did nothing there either. If Patton can land Faber(the big center from LA), now you are talking.

Ben Rand tore his ACL his sophomore year and he was never the same again. Otherwise, he would have been a pretty decent player.

Faber is down to NIU and Minnesota.

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Faber would be a good get. A legit big man like that is hard to find. Even though I hate he Gophers, Tubby is the best thing to return that program to where it was in the 90's.

NIU needs a lot more time than one season under Patton. Rob Judson put our program into the ground before we fired the guy. His best recruits kept on leaving, he was a bad in-game coach, and he had problems with his players and keeping them under control. I'm glad he's gone and i look forward to the day once all of Judson's recruits are gone (except Jake Anderson and Jarvis Nichols) and Patton has a roster full of his recruits.

Big 10 is down? No duh, they've been down in basketball and football.

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Personally, i think Kentucky made a bad decision. But hey, Minnesota fans certainly aren't complaining. He's recruiting like a machine over there. They're going to be very good soon.

I'm hoping the fact that Minnesota already has two higher rated big men will lead Faber to choosing NIU. I will be very happy with Patton's first full recruiting class if we land him along with all our other recruits.

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Oh, i guess i forgot to address Tyler Storm. He had a lot of offers, including offers from DePaul, IL St, Albany, Eastern Illinois, Lehigh, Murray State, Northeastern, The Citadel, and Western Illinois. Probably would have gotten more if he didn't commit to NIU back in Sept. '07. He was just named 2nd Team Associated Press 2007-08 in the Class 3A.

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Iowa had a first year coach as well. After Alford left because he knew this team was bad, he left the cupboard bare. It also didnt help that 3rd team Big Ten player and 1st team all freshman Tyler Smith was able to transfer (for the right reasons) to Tennessee. He was 1st team all SEC. Would Iowa have been top in the Big Ten with him? No. Would they have been more competitive, sure. I give Lickliter two more seasons. I expect improvement next year to get to 500 or slightly better, but year 3, they better be competing in the top half of the big ten again.

Well then, you understand the situation NIU Basketball is in under Patton. Both of us have first-year coaches with little talent on our rosters. However, your last coach didn't suck as much as our's. Rob Judson was a horrible head coach. I hope no other program ever has to endure having him as their head coach again. Everything i have seen has indicated he is a fairly successful assistant coach though, which is why he found his way to Illinois State this season.

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Is NIU Huskie going to drag up every thread that is 8 months old? If so, this board is going to get pretty redundant. Hey NIU Huskie... why don't you start a thread to see what everyone's favorite sports movies are?

I just found this board in the last couple days and decided to set the record straight in some threads i saw since everyone was so easy to bash NIU and there were no Huskies on here to give differing viewpoints.

Btw, this thread is less than 4 months old. Good math there though.

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Hyperbole, Einstein. Look it up.

Using them as comebacks is not a very good use for them.

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