What's wrong with Illinois?

[bugregshu]

I'm not generally one to start threads to spark debate, so bear with me here. There's something wrong with basketball in the state of Illinois. If I'm correct, there are 13 division 1 schools in Illinois. The combined record of these schools this year is 99-131, good for a 43% winning percentage. Not dreadful, but not good. SIU-E and Chicago State technically don't play conference games, so excluding them, Illinois teams are 16-52 in conference so far this year, including 4 that remain winless. That's a 23.5% winning percentage. Awful.

Maybe it's a matter of Illinois just not having very good college teams, but still, you'd think there would be more than 1 team in Illinois capable of competing in their own conference. After all, Illinois is a breeding ground for high school talent, at least a few programs should be challenging for the top of their conference each year, right?

 

[tornado]

SIUE is playing as a provisional team in the Ohio Valley, so you can sorta figure a conference record of 0-4 since theye've lost to all the OVC teams they've played.

And Chicago State, believe it or not, IS playing as a member of the Great West Conference and has a 2-1 record...
CSU even had the Great West Player of the Week this week!
http://www.greatwestconference.org/sports/m-baskbl/gwfc-m-baskbl-body.html
http://www.greatwestconference.org/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/011711aaa.html

 

[ph]

While we produce great players, we must not be as good producing coaches. Which is compounded by all the "inbreeding" of coaches in IL. There's a bunch of coaches and assistants that came from other Illinois schools...

On a more serious note it probably has more to do with the (lack of) media coverage resulting in an overall Exodus of talent without us being able to bring in equivalent players..

 

[Beninator]

I'll throw out some ideas based on what I have seen at the college level.

1. Lack of fundamentals being taught at the lower levels. Especially AAU.
2. Players being over hyped by scouting services especially via internet.
3. Possible exodus of talent to out of state colleges-just an assumption here


Also, to go along with this thread, I believe that last year, there was no Illinois school in the NCAA tournament.

 

[ph]

It may happen to be a cycle. The state of Indiana had a similar problem, but made the NC game last year..