NIU

gobirds85

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just fired their head coach, Mark Montgomery, on Sunday. A few of the $$$ types at NIU had seen enough and with nothing on the floor and nothing in the pipeline they pulled the plug on him. NIU is a really, really hard sell. I believe he was there 9 years.
 

MadBird

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just fired their head coach, Mark Montgomery, on Sunday. A few of the $$$ types at NIU had seen enough and with nothing on the floor and nothing in the pipeline they pulled the plug on him. NIU is a really, really hard sell. I believe he was there 9 years.
I guess I don't disagree it's a hard sell but I'm not sure why exactly. New arena, "almost" a Chicago suburb so from the fans and media and recruiting standpoint it seems like it should be an "easy sell", halfway decent chance to recruit Wisconsin and Iowa and Indiana kids, and even, going back a few years, a decent history. What are they missing?
 

isuquinndog

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I mean, have you been to DeKalb? Is it easy to get to Chicago from DeKalb not by car?

Or, winning is really all that kids care about.
 

isuquinndog

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The frickin' deer there are killer. Pass

Youre Funny Season 5 GIF by The Office

And you have a good memory
 

Redbirdwarrior

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The campus, basketball facilities, tradition, academic rating, financial stability and recruiting area of NIU is just dreadful. If you think ISU is in basketball hell, we look like Duke compared to those guys.
 

Racine Bird 3813

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I guess if we are going to look at Chicago area schools and Basketball, your list is:
-Chicago St- awful.
-DePaul- should be better but Big East is a tough conference
-Northwestern- trending upward under Collins
-UIC- I am interested to see what Yalick does. I think he will be successful, given time
-Loyola- trending upward under Porter. Good for him, bad for us
-NIU- basketball purgatory in Chicago area, which is too bad, but NIU is a nice campus, I think.

Outside of one NW NCAA Tournament appearance and Loyola's final four run, non of these school are knocking it out of the park at getting Chicago kids to stick around. At least Chicago kids who are at least 3 star players than might win you a mid major conference. Although, I think NW and Loyola are trending in the right direction.

Let's look at the rest of the state schools:
ISU- no comment
SIUC- improving and trending up
SIUE- uphill climb since transitioning to D1
Bradley- improving and I am jealous. I think Brian Wardle is an excellent coach
EIU- meh
WIU- okay I am curious about this. Rob Jeter is a decent coach and he hired a big time Chicago guys with strong AAU ties as his lead assistant. I think you'll see more Chicago kids at WIU than say UIC, DePaul, or Loyola
U of I- obviously much improved under Underwood

So I guess my point it, we have 13 D1 BB programs in our state and many of them are average or below average, which is too bad with all the talent in the state. It seems like other states have more consistency with their D1 programs than Illinois.
 

TBS_20

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Out of 13 D1 programs in Illinois ISU is currently 9th?

Illinois
Northwestern
Loyola
Bradley
SIU-C
DePaul
Illinois-Chicago
Western Illinois
Illinois State
Eastern Illinois
Northern Illinois
SIU-E
Chicago State
 

Manchester Matt

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Out of 13 D1 programs in Illinois ISU is currently 9th?

Illinois
Northwestern
Loyola
Bradley
SIU-C
DePaul
Illinois-Chicago
Western Illinois
Illinois State
Eastern Illinois
Northern Illinois
SIU-E
Chicago State
Western sucks and has forever. I'd wait until they actually do something before moving them up the state's hieracrhy. Eastern also beat them. Maybe flip those two.
 
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