Ncaa

[tornado]

There will be no Illinois teams in the NCAA tournament for the 3rd straight year.....

Here's a scout.com article by the Illini writer speculating on which Illinois team has the best shot to get there...

He ranks Illinois at #1, ISU at #2, and he's got Bradley at #9 - ahead of only WIU, UIC, SIU-E, and Chicago State.

"This might be a bit low for the Braves. I loved the hire of former UW-Green
Bay coach Brian Wardle, but his predecessor, Geno Ford, left Bradley in such
a bad place that it's going to take Wardle a while to dig out of it. Wardle
added about 10 players to his roster last spring -- yes, during the spring --
so it's no surprise the Braves (5-27) took it on the chin last season. The
Braves have only made the tournament twice since Hersey Hawkins left in
1988 -- 1996 and the 2006 Sweet Sixteen appearance led by lottery pick
Patrick O'Bryant. It's a tough road ahead, so Wardle will need patience."

http://www.scout.com/college/illinois/story/1651464-next-state-team-to-make-the-tournament

[Da Coach]

There are 2 NCAA games today- the first 2 of the Play-In round (officially now called The First Four")

#16 Florida Gulf Coast plays #16 Fairleigh Dickinson at 5:40 PM CDT, and #11 Wichita State play #11 Vanderbilt at 8:10 PM CDT in Dayton

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard

[LittleBrave]

from what i understand FGCU is a very popular school with an amazing campus near the beach. Its seen explosive enrollment over the past 8 years. I remember when they played at Carver Arena against BU, they were scrubs. However, their recruiting got on track quick and they exploded onto the scene in 13'. Pretty amazing tale, and it looks like it has become a great place to recruit too. I imagine FGCU may end up in a more prestigous conference before too long!

Yeah, a lot has changed in my alma mater FGCU...the campus was pretty, but nothing special when I was in the 1st graduating class.
Not really near the beach - probably a little closer to the Ft. Myers airport about 10 miles away.

I have no close ties to FGCU now - just got my degree and moved on.
I remember when they were having open try-outs for the 1st hoops team - then it was D-II.

[Da Coach]

FGCU won the first game, and Wichita State is leading Vandebilt in the late game-

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/scoreboard/ncaa-tournament

[tornado]

Shockers running away with the game - now up 17 with just 2:21 left

[Da Coach]

Wichita State offense got hot in the 2nd half, and the defense clamped down and held Vanderbilt to only 20 points in the 2nd half to pull away to an easy 70-50 win. The Shockers scored 20 of the final 22 points in the game.
They advance and play Arizona on Thursday. Judging from Twitter response, they have just become the favorite "cinderella" team-

https://twitter.com/GoodmanESPN/status/709946892629766144

https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/709947419413389312

https://twitter.com/MattNorlander/status/709944446201307136

[bigjimmy]

The Shockers end the game on a 20-2 run and beat Vanderbilt 70-50. Baker and Van Fleet each had 14. Kevin Stallings might have gotten one of the stupidest T's I've seen. Late in the 2nd half as one of his guys was going to make a basket and shoot a FT Stallings, who was barking at a ref about a non foul call the last time down, got T'd up. He was so engrossed about showing who's the boss that he didn't even notice they were about to score. Congrats to Wichita. Any Valley win is a great win. Tough but winnable game against Arizona if Baker and Van Fleet do what they do.

[Vent]

they don't have football or a football stadium, which hurts chances of moving up but they are in the exploratory phase and might have football soon and are already banking donations to build a stadium..

http://www.universityherald.com/articles/2964/20130314/fgcu-receives-first-football-scholarship-fund.htm

http://www.fgcu.edu/president/files/...dy-M011511.pdf

FGCU's growth and success is a real model for what is hurting the MVC. A beautiful campus in a beautiful area. If I'm an 17 or 18 year old kid, I'm certainly going to go to Fort Meyer's as opposed to Peoria, Evansville, Terre Haute, Carbondale & etc. This isn't a knock on those cities as they all have something to offer, but mostly to adults. As for football, they may have to eventually add it to keep up with other Florida schools that have added football and upgraded their programs since. Programs such as UCF, USF, FAU and FIU are competing for a lot of the same kids as FGCU and have all improved and upgraded their football programs.

[Da Coach]

There will be no Illinois teams in the NCAA tournament for the 3rd straight year, and 6 of the last 9 years (since 2007).

Illinois made it in 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007, and 2006. No other Illinois team has made it in that time frame since SIU in 2007 and 2006, and Bradley in 2006.

ISU last made the NCAA in 1998, Loyola in 1985, WIU in 1981, EIU in 2001, NIU in 1996, UIC in 2004, and DePaul in 2004.
Northwestern, Chicago State, and SIUE have never made the NCAA Division I tournament.

Here is an article from CSNChicago.com about the amazing number of Illinois players playing in the NCAA Tournament, but none are playing for Illinois schools, since there are no Illinois schools.
And these 51 players are contributing for just the schools in the NCAA Tournament. There are many more very good Illinois prep players playing outside of Illinois at other schools.

http://www.csnchicago.com/ncaa/51-illinois-players-2016-ncaa-tournament-rosters

[tornado]

so clearly the state of Illinois is NOT lacking good players...
so for the past 3-4 years they must be lacking good coaches and AD's

[Da Coach]

There are 2 more games in the First Four in Dayton tonight (Wed. Mar. 16)-
#16 Holy Cross vs. #16 Southern
#11 Tulsa vs. #11 Michigan

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/scoreboard/_/date/20160316

[lefty]

so clearly the state of Illinois is NOT lacking good players...
so for the past 3-4 years they must be lacking good coaches and AD's

who said Illinois was lacking good players? And I'm not disagreeing regarding the coaches and AD's but it's more like 30 players(tops) contributing(and some not all that much)??¦.they also listed many teams with zero Illinois players in the tournament??¦??¦??¦I'm just not sure it means anything really.

[Da Coach]

When you look at all the very good Illinois players playing out of state, not just among the NCAA teams (include guys like Alec Peters, Brett Bisping, Obediah Church, etc), it is rather astounding. And then look at the abysmal state of D1 college basketball in Illinois, it's pretty obvious to me that the Illinois schools really missed out on these players. There is no reason Bradley couldn't have gotten some of those talented players, but instead, our coaches the past 4 years thought those kids were "not athletic enough to play for Bradley" and chose not to pursue many Illinois kids, while recruiting far less-talented kids from jucos and unconventional places, many of whom came and went quickly.
It's all water over the dam now, but even Geno admits his biggest failure was his recruiting, which was always obvious to a lot of us fans.

[lefty]

When you look at all the very good Illinois players playing out of state, not just among the NCAA teams (include guys like Alec Peters, Brett Bisping, Obediah Church, etc), it is rather astounding. And then look at the abysmal state of D1 college basketball in Illinois, it's pretty obvious to me that the Illinois schools really missed out on these players. There is no reason Bradley couldn't have gotten some of those talented players, but instead, our coaches the past 4 years thought those kids were "not athletic enough to play for Bradley" and chose not to pursue many Illinois kids, while recruiting far less-talented kids from jucos and unconventional places, many of whom came and went quickly.
It's all water over the dam now, but even Geno admits his biggest failure was his recruiting, which was always obvious to a lot of us fans.

But all 3 of those guys had offers from Illinois schools??¦.they chose not to take them.

[tornado]

many of the offers came late and came with strings attached such as requirement to redshirt or pay 1st year then get ride...
With both Bisping & Peters- our staff was on the kids from freshman year of HS on -- I even saw them at several Bradley games -
one time Bisping hanging right with the team, out on the floor during workouts, even going into the lockerroom with the team...
But all that changed 180 degrees when that staff got canned in 2011 - and the next guys came in. They never once even made a single phone call to either of those kids and the rest is history...
Both of them are almost nightly double-doubles and All Conference players. How is it the former staff saw their potential and was recruiting them then the next guys dropped the ball like a hot potato.


plus, maybe you remember --- we showed once when our staff went to the gym of one of our targets - our guys showed up sloppy, in sweats, looking like a homeless street person while the recruiters from the other schools showed up looking quite professional.
Anyone could see the difference - night & day as far as looking like you showed up ready for business.
The kid, of course picked the other guys and we missed on him..