Stefanovic still shot 40% behind the arc that isn’t bad really. I am really interested in seeing the strides Newman takes. He had an under the radar frosh year, hit 37% from 3. I imagine Edey will make strides as well he might have looked clumsy at times but he’s only played basketball for a few years. In a year or two from now I could see him having a Tacko Fall effect on opposing offenses acting as a one man zone.
If he’s that unhappy at OSU wouldn’t he just go pro?
That would be my best guess too. I think he’s just a tweener without the NBA athleticism. Think he can have a career overseas though. The problem is that these kids are chasing their NBA dreams and if he gets feedback that says “If you go back and show/improve XYZ, we’ll consider you next year” it changes the dynamics.
I also think Edey is potentially a decent player for them. He’s not a cement-shoes kind of guy totally unable to move.
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That’s some glass half-full stuff right there, boy.
The problem with Edey, at least next season, is that you can’t play him with Williams. So once again the impact of two good pure bigs is limited just like when it was Williams and Haarms.
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He did and is still critical…but he was really streaky this year and never seemed to recover fully after having Covid. I also haven’t looked, but he seemed to struggle against the better teams they played. Finding another shooter would help ease that burden.
…and Haarms and Haas and AJ Hammons and (sort of) Swanigan. It’s been like 6 or 7 years of Purdue having at least 2 pretty good bigs who can’t play together.
It seems like a good problem to have, but man its a weird one.
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I have to believe EJ and his family are looking hard at alternatives after what the OSU fanbase did to him following the tourney loss
I highly, highly doubt that would ever happen.
But if a player or two jumped teams as a result of receiving abuse from their own fanbase, and some other players started following suit…
Well, that would probably hurt us. Because we have a large fanbase and thus some bad apples. But if it resulted in the propogation of a widespread anti-troll ethic, that would be a biiiig win. Because, amongst all groups of people (you name the idealogy, the team, the identity group, the hobby, they’ve got bad apples), there are too many who are just too inclined to be an abusive jerk on the internet.
So I hope he goes and says why. And I hope other guys do the same. Anything to begin a substantive pushback against the culture of internet anger.
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btw there is some replenished Curbelo transfer fear on the Illinois boards in the wake of this confirmation.
Ok, well, if that’s the case my revised opinion on Liddell would change. Curbelo should transfer and Liddel should head to Illinois.
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Illinois losing Miller because he thought he was gonna be The Guy only to get there and find out Curbelo is gonna be running the show, and then ALSO lose Curbelo would be pretty funny.
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The steady dismantling of Illinois over the past 2 months is just so shocking to me. When they destroyed us in Crysler they looked poised for great things. The sheer intensity with which they played, their size, strength, and athleticism, not to mention their coaching (that day) made them seem like a behemoth capable of going head to head with Baylor and Zaga. They looked completely unbeatable and pretty much took over the atmosphere in Crisler. One of the more talented teams I’ve seen in the B1G over the years, it’s been a calamitous couple of months for that program.
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I agree. For as annoying as they and their fans were down the stretch, you had to like the direction of their program. Talented, entertaining players, up-tempo style, NBA quality players, solid recruiting, hanging some banners (even if fewer than they wanted), etc.
When Beilein had to clean house of assistants it was when he was trying to reinvent the program - feels like the program is forcing Underwood to reinvent on the fly.
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Then they went and wrecked my (and many others’) brackets
It’s often said that teams sometimes expend so much energy on the conference title that they just don’t have much left over for the post-season. That kind of described both Michigan and Illinois, in a way, but with the difference being that Michigan has a real banner and Illinois has a fake one, and that Michigan went to the Elite 8 and Illinois lost in the first weekend of the tournament.
IMO, Illinois’ issues had less to do with “expending too much” energy in-conference and more with the fact that they got out game-planned / they were an inconsistent team all year. They would reguarly have clunkers even at their peak.
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Absolutely. Especially since Underpants did nothing to counter Moser’s moves. But it was fun nonetheless to draw that contrast.