I have this strange relationship with my job.  It’s my job, and it’s how I feed my kids, so I have to go.  And when there’s overtime I have to work, I do it with my chin held high.  But the more I enjoy blogging, the more I get bitter at my job.  I have [...]

Now that’s more like it. I know – an awful thing to say.  Michael Orris will work tremendously hard over the next 5 years to make his dream of playing Big Ten basketball a reality, and here I am, already pushing him aside and focusing on our shiny new top-100 recruit. Such is the life [...]

Can I be honest? Actually, I can’t.  I pretty much have to like every recruit that joins the Illini basketball team.  Who wants to be the guy who takes shots at a kid who just made a commitment to work his tail off for 4 years so that I can cheer from my couch?  If [...]

A solid start. That’s the box I’m going to put this Jalen James commitment in.  We needed a point guard, and we needed to get the ball rolling with the 2013 class, and we accomplished both. James is no slouch, mind you – Rivals has him as a 4-star and ranks him #78 in their [...]

Around the time Alex Legion left the program, opening up a scholarship that could be used immediately, I remember thinking that the 2011 recruiting class would be 4 players. Now, it’s 7. Huntington Prep big man Ibrahima Djimde picked Illinois over Old Dominion today, becoming the seventh member of this signing class.  One transfer (Sam [...]