The State of Illinois Basketball

[Goose85]

Harv and Roy might now the answer to this one, but heard something on a Chicago radio station talking about the state of Illinois and the NCAA tourney. Not sure how accurate this is, but the gist of the story is very telling as you always hear how much basketball talent there is in Illinois.

This year there were no schools from the state of Illinois in the NCAA tourney (there are at least 9 D1 schools too). Despite no Illinois teams in the dance, they were talking about how there were something like 47 kids from the state of Illinois on teams playing in the NCAA tourney.

Never looked at it before, but that is a lot of kids in the tourney from one state that has 9 D1 schools, none of which were in the dance.

[IWB]

I may be wrong, but don't they have 13 D1 schools? NONE finished above .500 in conference play.


Bradley
Chicago State
DePaul
Eastern Illinois
Illinois State
University of Illinois
UIC
Loyola
Northern Illinois
Northwestern
Southern Illinois
SIU - Edwardsville
Western Illinois

[Goose85]

I may be wrong, but don't they have 13 D1 schools? NONE finished above .500 in conference play.


Bradley
Chicago State
DePaul
Eastern Illinois
Illinois State
University of Illinois
UIC
Loyola
Northern Illinois
Northwestern
Southern Illinois
SIU - Edwardsville
Western Illinois



Good catch IWB - I was just going off the top of my head.
Never thought of Edwardsville, Chicago State, Eastern / Western Ill.

And to think Wisconsin had two of four teams and a city like Cincy had two teams in the sweet 16 from one just one city.

[CaribouJim]

Anyone catch the U of I presser for their new coach John Croce? Heard most of it - kind of underwhelming although I'm sure he was nervous - lot of coach speak and he didn't handle the question about sceptics who aren't impressed w/ his MAC conference record (around 500 winning %) even though they've done well in 2 of the last 3 NCAA tourneys - he had a long pause and then his answer didn't really address it. He was on the Score this morning with MU grad Brian Hanley and he sounded a bit better, but still so so in my book - we'll see how he does. He certainly seems like an enegetic guy. Don't know if Howard will end up on his staff - I kind of doubt it.

[Goose85]

If Parker and Nunn and others like him, he will be successful. Plenty of Illinois talent, you just have to get the right kids and the right team attitude (Buzz does a great job of this IMO). Weber landed many of the top Illinois kids, they just didn't mesh well as a team.

[warriorfan4life]

Illinois State should be in the tourney next year if Jankovich stays and they play a representative non-conference schedule. He inherited a bad team down there and has been the bridesmaid losing three of the five MVC title games, two in OT (and in one year where they could have gotten an at-large, Drake ran them out of the building).

[unclejohn]

Illinois State and Western both went to the finals of their respective tournaments, and Western blew a 2nd half lead and went into OT before losing. It would have been ironic if WIU was the one team out of Illinois to make the tournament. But seriously, only about half these schools have any kind of a meaningful basketball program. Northern has made it a couple of times, but has never been consistently successful. Eastern is a small team in Murray State's conference, and I believe they made it once. Edwardsville has only been playing D1 for a few years, and Chicago State is a poor excuse for a university on every level. This is not like Iowa, where there are only four D1 teams, but all of them have some history of success, or even Wisconsin. And while there is talent aplenty in Chicago, The smaller schools are not likely to get any of it. Who wants to go to Eastern and play a bunch of anonymous schools in Tennessee and Kentucky, or Macomb, and play a bunch of schools in the Dakotas? Who wants to go to Edwardsville for anything? Who wants to go to Chicago State who hasn't already been kicked out of somewhere else?

[ziggysfryboy]

Illinois State and Western both went to the finals of their respective tournaments, and Western blew a 2nd half lead and went into OT before losing. It would have been ironic if WIU was the one team out of Illinois to make the tournament. But seriously, only about half these schools have any kind of a meaningful basketball program. Northern has made it a couple of times, but has never been consistently successful. Eastern is a small team in Murray State's conference, and I believe they made it once. Edwardsville has only been playing D1 for a few years, and Chicago State is a poor excuse for a university on every level. This is not like Iowa, where there are only four D1 teams, but all of them have some history of success, or even Wisconsin. And while there is talent aplenty in Chicago, The smaller schools are not likely to get any of it. Who wants to go to Eastern and play a bunch of anonymous schools in Tennessee and Kentucky, or Macomb, and play a bunch of schools in the Dakotas? Who wants to go to Edwardsville for anything? Who wants to go to Chicago State who hasn't already been kicked out of somewhere else?


Tony Romo?

[IWB]

UJ - I hear what you are saying about "Who wants to go to those schools", but those schools are losing to teams in crappier cities with Illinois kids on their rosters. Not expecting those teams to get the cream of the crop, but Illinois has a lot of talent and a huge population as opposed to say Iowa, as you mentioned with the 4 D1 schools.

Here is something I just posted as a response on the premium board about the same topic.....

No offense to those living in, or from Illinois, but how stupid are those people? First people were calling for Simeon's Robert Smith as Illinois' head coach. Now they are calling for Simeon's Robert Smith to be an assistant coach. Don't get me wrong, Smith is talented and certainly qualified, but..... they all want him so they can get his players. However, due to NCAA rules, if they hire him, they can't recruit ANY of his players! Why do these talk show guys not understand this?

[unclejohn]

Well you have to draw some distinction between good universities and good athletic programs. Somebody mentioned Tony Romo, but he didn't play basketball. Eastern has a respectable football team, and won a D-2 championship or two. Football is the reason they are in the conference they are in, playing schools in Tennessee and the like. Eastern can do all right getting state kids who want to play football and are not good enough to play at big time programs. But they have never had any success in basketball, and are not likely to draw lots of actual talent from Illinois to play teams nobody ever heard of in Tennessee. Southern on the other hand has been a terrible school for about forever, but a decent basketball program about as long. (My first Marquette basketball memory was watching them lose in the NIT final to SIU, lead by Walt Frazier.)

Meanwhile, a lot of the other programs just do not put a lot of emphasis on athletics. Northern is actually a pretty good school, and gets lots of kids from Chicago. They tried their hand at athletic success a couple of times, with dubious results, so they have kind of put it aside. Some years ago, Northern quit the MAC to go independent, thinking that they would make a name for themselves in football with all the local talent. That didn't work, and they found themselves looking for any conference that would take them until they got back into the MAC again. During that time, they got one really good player who ended up spending a year or two with the Packers, but apparently could not spell his own name. Apparently everybody on the faculty knew he was an academic joke. So they are content to bump along being an also-ran. Meanwhile, they are doing pretty well as a second-tier state university, and serving the kids of Northern Illinois. And of course, Northwestern is a whole different story with its own challenges.

Lots of these programs are always going to have a difficult time competing on the D-1 level. They actually tend to do better in football. Northern has gotten a few pretty good players, and State and Southern regularly show up in the lower division playoffs (whatever they are calling it now.) They can get the in-state kids who are good but not great. When it comes to basketball however, they are going to have a tougher time going after those kids. There is a lot more competition for them, and they can go play in the Missouri Valley or somewhere, play against better competition, and maybe get on TV once in a while, rather than going to some directional school and playing before an empty gym.

So when you are talking about D-1 programs in Illinois, you really ought to be talking about four or five teams that have some tradition, some interest, and some prospect of D-1 success. The rest of them might as well be playing in D-3. In a way, it is similar to how things are in New York. Loads and loads of local talent. But the big state universities, which are in Albany, Buffalo, Stony Brook, and somewhere else I don't remember, have never amounted to much of anything.