This is good stuff. If Illinois won back to back national titles some of you guys would be proclaiming them the Duke of the Midwest. But Florida does and has been consistently darn good for the last decade and yet they are not on the same level as Illinois.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Donovan made that program and he'll take it with him when he goes.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

So RFDC, are you also willing to admit that Butler is now a better program than Indiana?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I am sure the same things were said about Coach K at Duke in his first decade there.

Hasn't Donovan already had opportunities at Kentucky? Yet he is still at Florida.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

The way the U of I administration treats its faculty, staff, grad students, and the C-U community is straight out of a Dan Bernstein wet dream. I like the Illini just fine, but I certainly don't begrudge anyone rooting for them to lose every game they play.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

But it wasn't true. Bill Foster had them in the Final Four in '78 a few years before K arrived. Vic Bubas had a bunch of good teams in the 60s. I will grant that what Krzyzewski did was enable them to compete- or more than compete- with North Carolina year in and year out. And if Donovan stays at Florida for forty years, we may be having a different conversation.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I don't really care who anyone roots for. I just don't see the Illini as a team that someone would be an anti-fan of. I can see Duke being that. Or the Yankees. Or the Dallas Cowboys. But the Illini? Really?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

If he's surrounded by annoying Illini fans, I can see it. Northwestern is in the same boat, and every time they invent a new way to blow a 4th-quarter lead, I laugh and laugh.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

Lon Krueger took Florida to a final four.

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You can start to hate any team based on being around their fans. I grew up a Michigan fan (my father went there), then I went to school in Michigan and being surrounded by Michigan fans changed by attitude rather quickly. It took living in Ohio to appreciate how wonderful Michigan fans are.

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Elaborate, please?

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Over the last decade, the number of full-time administrative positions has increased by 50%, while the number of full-time faculty positions has risen by 20%. In-state tuition nearly tripled between 2000-2001 and 2010-2011. The number of African American undergraduates has dropped over the last decade. The grad employees had to go on strike a few years back because the administration wanted to start stripping tuition waivers, and SEIU had to do likewise last spring because the administration proposed a wage increase below inflation. The University has had three presidents in the last four years. One resigned due to the clout scandal (ditto the chancellor); the other resigned because he had his secretary create a fake email account and pose as a faculty member to influence Senate debates. At the time of their respective resignations, the former was making roughly $450,000 and the latter roughly $680,000. Each was immediately transferred into a cushy faculty position where they're making well above the mean faculty salary in their respective departments (again, ditto the chancellor). The science departments in particular have increased corporate partnerships, but I was a humanities major, so I'm not as familiar with that end of campus. There's also all the normal crap of spending money on shiny new gyms and a bell tower and other stuff to attract rich suburban white kids and their precious, precious money. In short, you have a bunch of Really Smart Guys making Tough Financial Decisions that result in Everything being Monetized.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

#dynasty

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

You are making my point for me. It again sounds similiar to Florida. Norm Sloan had some success in the 60s with the Gators and then again in a second run with them in the 80s when they won the SEC in 1989. And then as conns pointed our Krueger went to a final four with them in the 90s.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

And I'm not saying Florida is a third-rate program. But what I will say, is that ten NCAA basketball championships at Florida wouldn't equal one SEC East title on the football field and, in reality, probably isn't as important as a pigskin win over Miami. Illinois and Indiana are oddities in the Big Ten in that they are traditionally schools where basketball is king. Now, maybe that has more to do with futility on the gridiron, but I would suggest that may be a chicken and egg argument.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'm guessing a Tall Midget may have matriculated at a place about a million times more obnoxious than Champaign-Urbana. Maybe something on this list: Oberlin, Reed, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Bard, Earlham, Grinell, Middlebury.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'm getting my popcorn ready for this one!

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

it's just your average provincialism. i've rarely run into anyone who has even an opinion of illini anything outside of this region.

Dr. Ken really won't like this.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

he'll manage.

Exactly.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Yeah, I never figured out why anybody would waste the energy to hate Illinois.

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You know me like that.

Shit just got real...Joe Orr trying to drag TM back into this conversation

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I have no affinity for Illinois and Im a casual observer of NCAA basketball


I would think they rank about 20-25th in program prominence or whatever

I think you're being a bit generous. I'd say top 40 at best. Now if you want to rank them in the most underachieving programs over the last 30 yrs, I'd put them in the top 5. Far too many local players choose to go elsewhere. It's not a destination school for the state players and it should be. Lou had a great recruiting run in the 80s. He was a well respected, but subpar coach.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

http://www.suntimes.com/m/24113462-773/ ... vives.html


In a game featuring two of Chicago’s top seniors — Curie’s Cliff Alexander and St. Rita’s Victor Law — the standing-room only crowd was not disappointed.

Kansas-bound Alexander scored 18 points and grabbed 13 rebounds before being ejected from the game as the host No. 9 Condors escaped with a 79-76 overtime victory at the Team Rose Classic.

Law, a Northwestern recruit, finished with 15 points before fouling out with 5:02 remaining for the No. 5
Mustangs.

Both players were given technicals for taunting, and Alexander received his second technical and ejection for hanging on the rim with 2:19 left and Curie (1-0) leading 62-53.

With Alexander gone, St. Rita closed out the quarter outscoring Curie 13-4 as Dominique Matthews, who scored 11 on the run, knocked down a three-pointer with four seconds remaining to send the game to overtime. Matthews finished with a game-high 39 points.

The Mustangs (0-1) took their first lead of the game in overtime on a basket by Chris Williams. Trailing 76-75, Curie closed it out with a basket by Joshua Stamps (13 points) and two free throws by Marcus Gatling (10 points).

“The good thing about this is that it is our first game and we can correct these mistakes,” Curie coach Mike Oliver said. “Free throws killed us down the stretch and kept St. Rita in the game.’’

Alexander said he got caught up in the moment.

“Victor and I are the best of friends and we are both competitive,” he said. “I am really proud of the way my team stepped up.”

St. Rita played without starters Charles Matthews (ankle injury), Armani Chaney and Myles Carter (reason unspecified).

“The kids never stopped competing. I’m proud of our effort and Dominique stepped up and tried to will us to victory,’’ St. Rita coach Gary DeCesare said.

According to the IHSA rules, Alexander will be required to serve a one game suspension for his ejection. Curie’s next game will be at the Marshall County (Ky.) Shootout on Friday.

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Thug league...

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