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A 19-13 record earned them a ninth seed and a game against eighth-seeded UNLV and former Illinois coach Lon Kruger. Do you know what a ninth seed says about the Illini? That this season should have been so much more. That a listless team is physically skilled enough but not mentally tough enough. And that somebody up there *really, really likes them.
I’m preaching to the choir here, with Weber the scratchy voiced tenor: Start recruiting skilled players who care only about winning. If that means passing on a star player from the Chicago area whom everyone else is recruiting, so be it. When you hear a recruit’s high school coach say he has had trouble lighting a fire under the kid, consider it a very bad sign. And run.
It’s not as if the Big Ten were a juggernaut in 2011. It’s not as if the Illini were overmatched physically during conference play. Other than Ohio State and Purdue, there were no dominant teams. That made it a matter of who wanted it the most. Illinois wanted it as much as a 9-9 conference record suggests it did.
The rest of the seeding led to the normal amount of complaints from schools that didn’t make it and from schools that believed they should have received higher seeds. Shouldn’t Colorado have made the tournament? How about St. Mary’s? Did Utah State, with a 30-3 record, deserve better than a 12th seed? And how did Illinois get in the tournament? Good question. Very good *question.
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/43039...-for-this.html
I’m preaching to the choir here, with Weber the scratchy voiced tenor: Start recruiting skilled players who care only about winning. If that means passing on a star player from the Chicago area whom everyone else is recruiting, so be it. When you hear a recruit’s high school coach say he has had trouble lighting a fire under the kid, consider it a very bad sign. And run.
It’s not as if the Big Ten were a juggernaut in 2011. It’s not as if the Illini were overmatched physically during conference play. Other than Ohio State and Purdue, there were no dominant teams. That made it a matter of who wanted it the most. Illinois wanted it as much as a 9-9 conference record suggests it did.
The rest of the seeding led to the normal amount of complaints from schools that didn’t make it and from schools that believed they should have received higher seeds. Shouldn’t Colorado have made the tournament? How about St. Mary’s? Did Utah State, with a 30-3 record, deserve better than a 12th seed? And how did Illinois get in the tournament? Good question. Very good *question.
http://www.suntimes.com/sports/43039...-for-this.html
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