Perception of NU by the Chicago public league coaches
- Thread starter charcat
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I don't know, if you're from Chicago, I would imagine that moving to the cornfields of Rantoul is pretty jarring and yet the Illini have no problem recruiting city kids.
Very true. That's one reason Penn State has had trouble with basketball recruiting over the years. The current guy there has established a pipeline to Philly that finally seems to be working.
Interesting comparison. It's gotta be tough to recruit at Penn State. Those Philly schools have such great basketball tradition and now that Villanova has a recent national championship, it's gotta be even harder. Temple, Nova, St. Joe's Drexel, even the Quakers, have incredible atmospheres at their games.
If DePaul ever got to Villanova's level, we would be in real trouble, even with Collins.
Not much anymore. For better or worse, most guys on the football or basketball team spend so many hours around their teammates, whether it's practice, film or mandatory study halls, that they don't really have much time for anything else. Their course load and major course of study are limited to an extent that they also see their teammates in many of their classes, too.
Not much danger of that. Their relatively brief, shining stretch as The Team That WGN Made - with their typical schedules consisting of half a dozen made-for-TV glamour games, another six or eight games against middling, second-rate programs and fifteen cupcakes - isn't likely to repeat itself any time soon.
Just a guess here, but that might be because the town these kids come to for Illini basketball is actually a highly ranked college town with a big university, no shortage of fun bars and a pretty campus, and they likely don't care that there are corn fields AROUND that city or that the football team practices pre-season in a small town nearby? LOL.
That's not rain falling on your head NU RoseBowl, that's Ray Meyer spitting on you.
Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, playing basketball and hanging out with guys who played for Morgan Park, Percy Julian and Bogan that's exactly what they used to talk about.
"I'm looking for a highly-ranked college town with no shortage of fun bars and a pretty campus. Preferably one near a small town where a football team practices."
Hey, I'd be honored. Coach was a legend in Chicago; I had all the respect in the world for him personally. I'll spare you the soapbox dissertation, but among other things, WAAAY too many games against Hadley School for the Blind and Little Sisters of the Poor for a program that was presuming to be considered top-drawer. "But look, we went 28-2!"
I went to a lot of those games and you're not wrong.
I will say, DePaul won that handful of games against top opponents. Louisville, UCLA, Notre Dame (thinking....) Louisville, UCLA, Notre Dame. There was a lot of NIU and Evansville on the schedule, Marquette after they were good and Georgetown before they were good (Sleepy Floyd).
The bench went one deep, Bernard Randolph. A Big Ten conference schedule would have broken those teams down. But Aguirre was a delight to watch along with Cummings and Ty Corbin...and later on Rod Strickland.
Also, when they fired Joey Meyer, they lost their unique cachet in the college hoops world. The Meyer legacy story attached to the team went away and they became "just another team" striving in a crowded Chicago landscape dominated by pro sports.
LOL, that's the point: it's not. However, it's being talked about as something we have to overcome to get good talent to Champaign, and that's demonstrably not true.
I think it's pretty damn obvious that, that is because we have had one of the worst BCS football programs over the last three decades?? LOL.
Agree on all counts, Medill. They did win their share - if not more than their share - of those, but also far too many lackluster seven or eight point wins against the Central Suburban League. Won't deny that some of those guys were fun to watch . . . Clyde Bradshaw, Skip Dillard . . . but had they played Big Ten-type schedules, their records wouldn't have been nearly as gaudy.
I think they were pretty darn good. 10 first round picks. The overall number 1 pick in 1981 and number 2 pick in 1982. I think we have had 2 NBA players in my lifetime and I am old. Excluding a cup of coffee, I remember Esch and McKinney. Neither were all stars. Times are different today, but I wish we had their history.
Excuse me for going back to this. It's an interesting comment.
Do you know anything about this relationship, Journ. I only ask because I'd agree with this statement about the Carmody staff - especially Hardy. He and Mullins seemed to have a good relationship.
I have no clue about Mullins and CC's staff. Is it still a strong relationship?
Honestly, I don't either. I was thinking about Hardy as well. I did a quick search and found on the Illinois Wolves site that Ash, Taphorn and Benson all came from that program (and the site notes they were on our first NCAA team). So that seems like a good sign.