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Post by austinace on Feb 19, 2024 5:07:07 GMT -6
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Post by austinace on Feb 19, 2024 5:26:46 GMT -6
Note: The Kenpom ratings have finally come into alignment with the NET ratings. The Kenpom ratings seem to rely more on past years results and have taken awhile to accurately reflect current results when a team like Evansville makes significant improvement from the previous year.
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Post by Ace78 on Feb 19, 2024 23:36:23 GMT -6
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Post by E-Villan on Feb 20, 2024 13:58:03 GMT -6
Nothing on the UIC board about this game yet. Seems the topic of conversation is their hopeful firing of Yaklich. In his 4th season, he is 45-66 at this point. They do seem to be competitive at times.
In all seriousness, how do you build a program or even a culture playing in front of 100 people every night? That has to be brutal on recruiting.
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Post by ATP on Feb 20, 2024 14:54:54 GMT -6
Nothing on the UIC board about this game yet. Seems the topic of conversation is their hopeful firing of Yaklich. In his 4th season, he is 45-66 at this point. They do seem to be competitive at times. In all seriousness, how do you build a program or even a culture playing in front of 100 people every night? That has to be brutal on recruiting. The concept of playing D-1 ball in Chicago should be a natural selling point, but there are a dozen college teams plodding along in Windyville or its 'burbs. Even if you yell, there's a fire truck coming from the other direction.
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Post by E-Villan on Feb 20, 2024 15:02:44 GMT -6
Nothing on the UIC board about this game yet. Seems the topic of conversation is their hopeful firing of Yaklich. In his 4th season, he is 45-66 at this point. They do seem to be competitive at times. In all seriousness, how do you build a program or even a culture playing in front of 100 people every night? That has to be brutal on recruiting. The concept of playing D-1 ball in Chicago should be a natural selling point, but there are a dozen college teams plodding along in Windyville or its 'burbs. Even if you yell, there's a fire truck coming from the other direction. You would think it would be a selling point. You would also think all the local talent would help. The reality is though, with the exception of a few brief spans of success like Loyola had, none of the Chicago area schools have done much of anything over the last 40 years. DePaul, Loyola, UIC, Northwestern and Chicago State have spent more time losing in their conferences than winning.
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Post by aceshigh on Feb 20, 2024 15:39:33 GMT -6
My question is who wants to go to Chicago? I certainly would not want my kid to go to school there. Too many better choices.
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Post by austinace on Feb 20, 2024 15:52:13 GMT -6
Any school in a super cold weather area like Nebraska, Minnesota, Chicago would not be high on my list (unless maybe I was from there). Of course, my wife would say Evansville is too cold. During my time at UE I relished those times it was too cold to do anything else other than going to Carson Center to play in some pickup games.
All that to say: The Chicago area schools don’t really have the appeal to attract elite talent (IMO) if college age kids have other options. But with the (alleged) talent in the area you would think they would occasionally field an NCAA tournament team (more than they do) like E-Villan and ATP mentioned above.
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Post by daddysboy on Feb 20, 2024 17:23:15 GMT -6
UCONN is the #1 team. Nothing but cold and snow there. You get a good coach, a team there can make a run. Loyola.
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Post by bandwagon fan on Feb 20, 2024 17:31:32 GMT -6
I lived in Chicago (actually Rosemont & Schiller Park) in the late 70's into the mid 80's. Ray and Joey Meyer had built a pipeline directly into the locker room at DePaul from the Chicago Public and Catholic School athletic programs. 75% of any kid graduating with DI talent could be signed with a phone call. A year or two prior of him passing the reins over to his son Joey, Coach Kight came up to Chicago and plucked Issah Thomas from Ray's grasp. I believe that may have been the beginning of the end of DePaul's hold on local talent. If Joey could have coached the kids he was so great at recruiting. DePaul would still be a destination for Chicago kids to play Dl basketball.
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Post by stlscooter on Feb 20, 2024 18:06:30 GMT -6
Maybe a rising basketball star's goal is to be good enough to get out of Chicago?
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Post by aceshigh on Feb 20, 2024 18:42:19 GMT -6
Maybe a rising basketball star's goal is to be good enough to get out of Chicago? That was my point. There are many problems there involving crime and safety. I would think many living on the southside would like to see their kids escape the bad environment there.
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Post by ATP on Feb 20, 2024 18:57:07 GMT -6
My question is who wants to go to Chicago? I certainly would not want my kid to go to school there. Too many better choices. Years back when Nebraska ruled the old Big 8 football, a columnist wondered why any All-American worth his salt would want to spend 4 winters in Lincoln. But of course people who live in Lincoln love the place. Chicago as a place to live -- nah -- I live an hour from there and there's not much I can't do/see/hear by living in Valpo and taking the train into the city. For a college student, maybe it's different. There's a robust night life there but it's too expensive for most college students. None of that has anything to do with the actual university they attend. I have a friend who lives in Hyde Park, which is really ritzy U of Chicago turf -- it's great if you have a lot of walkin-around cash. UC students are not typically poor. UIC might be a step up from Chicago State, and is really a step up from Roosevelt or East-West. UIC, as we know, was once known as UI-Chicago Circle. I am glad they changed that. As for crime, it's hard to tell. There are places to avoid in any city. There are places where crime doesn't happen. Universities don't typically have a problem with that in Chicago -- so far as the public is told.
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Post by ATP on Feb 20, 2024 19:10:18 GMT -6
I lived in Chicago (actually Rosemont & Schiller Park) in the late 70's into the mid 80's. Ray and Joey Meyer had built a pipeline directly into the locker room at DePaul from the Chicago Public and Catholic School athletic programs. 75% of any kid graduating with DI talent could be signed with a phone call. A year or two prior of him passing the reins over to his son Joey, Coach Kight came up to Chicago and plucked Issah Thomas from Ray's grasp. I believe that may have been the beginning of the end of DePaul's hold on local talent. If Joey could have coached the kids he was so great at recruiting. DePaul would still be a destination for Chicago kids to play Dl basketball. Beginning of the end? That's kind of accurate and as we saw the Aces move into the late 1980s, that was the "last hurrah" for Midwestern programs. There were a few coaches, including Al McGuire, who were adroit at talking the right language to city players. Recalling 1979, Final Four -- Michigan State, Penn (yeah), DePaul and Larry Bird University.
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Post by aceloverlarry on Feb 21, 2024 11:35:31 GMT -6
2.5 point underdogs tonight. I’m going Aces ML.
Hopefully we can win the next two to secure a winning season. Ziggy went on Jevins Aces on the Air Podcast this week and said that the team is looking to keep playing in a post season tournament if they can finish above .500 and get invited to one. If we win this one, well at a minimum finish .500, but it would be nice to win a few more to make ourselves more attractive for a post season tourney.
If you haven’t listened to Jevins Ziggy interview, I’d highly recommend it. He was very open about future scheduling, NIL, and post season play.
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