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PurpleWhiteBoy said:

Character matters a ton. By character I mean

a) dedication to putting in the work
b) commitment to the other guys on the team
c) doing what the coaches ask

Collins has done an excellent job in identifying which portal guys have it and which guys don't.
And it probably helps that guys with character can see why Northwestern is a better option than most other places.

Greg Gard's selection and development of Tonje is really remarkable. AJ Storr, on the other hand, played no defense.

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Tonje did not exactly come out of nowhere. He was a good player for a pretty good Colorado State team in 21-22 (led by David Roddy--remember him?). He would have helped Mizzou a lot last year, but he missed most of the year with a foot injury.

But, yes. He blew up this year.

Hungry Jack said:

If Martinelli were a hot dog, he would be smothered in mustard, relish, onions, chopped tomatoes, celery salt, and a pickle wedge.

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Perfectly stated.

I think Martinelli is a sport pepper guy though.

He's home.

FeralFelidae said:

Those leagues are professional leagues where the players are professionals paid by the teams, whereas the Big Ten and SEC are conferences of SCHOOLS with teams made up of students who have to go to class and are paid for their name, image, and likeness by third-party entities not funded by the schools.

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Starting in two months, the players will now be paid directly by the schools themselves in addition to their NIL deal

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Catreporter said:

Despite a promising Frish class next year, CCC is going to have to pluck a couple gems from the transfer portal to be competitive.

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It is going to be difficult to do that.
Our transfer pool is

a) grad students who still have eligibility and ability (how many of them are there?)
b) freshmen and sophomores who are performing well at lesser programs - and also have good grades.
c) unhappy freshmen and sophomores who are sitting on the bench at Power 5 schools.

Catreporter said:

The transfer portal can be very tricky, too. Kansas has fallen on its face (relatively speaking) despite a highly rated transfer group. AJ Storr who left Wisconsin is among their underachievers and to think Wisconsin basically traded him for Tonje . I've detailed the tale of the two Jalens NU was after. Leach turned out to be really good (and was a backbreaking loss for this team) while Blackmon has hardly played for a bad Miami team.

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Character matters a ton. By character I mean

a) dedication to putting in the work
b) commitment to the other guys on the team
c) doing what the coaches ask

Collins has done an excellent job in identifying which portal guys have it and which guys don't.
And it probably helps that guys with character can see why Northwestern is a better option than most other places.

Greg Gard's selection and development of Tonje is really remarkable. AJ Storr, on the other hand, played no defense.

McHale was 6-10 while Nick is only 6-7 and Kevin had a very hard shot to block. I love watching Martinelli but he has weaknesses in his game. I can't see any team breaking the bank to get him while I think NU will provide him with a nice NIL package. He's a little like Dawson Garcia of Minnesota in that they are both local guys and Garcia decided to stay with the Gophers for his final season despite their dim prospects and his presence has made them a competitive team.

Most high schoolers are not focused on state income tax affect on their income

Agents may inform them that they will have to think about the issue but doubtful this issue will significantly influence where recruits will play

The transfer portal can be very tricky, too. Kansas has fallen on its face (relatively speaking) despite a highly rated transfer group. AJ Storr who left Wisconsin is among their underachievers and to think Wisconsin basically traded him for Tonje . I've detailed the tale of the two Jalens NU was after. Leach turned out to be really good (and was a backbreaking loss for this team) while Blackmon has hardly played for a bad Miami team.

Hungry Jack said:

If Martinelli were a hot dog, he would be smothered in mustard, relish, onions, chopped tomatoes, celery salt, and a pickle wedge.

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When I see Mart, I see a young Kevin McHale.

Vassar69 said:

If you reserve the right for guys who play their entire careers at the school, few will ever have a chance.

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I'm just going to leave this here for consideration.

Catreporter said:

Illini are finding out it's tough to win against a lot of older guys even when you have a lot of young talent. Fifth year John Tonje lit them up last night for 31 points and Wisconsin is loaded with veterans on that team. They actually might be the best chance the BIG has to reach the final four this year ( To me, MSU doesn't have enough of a three point game but we will see). Despite a promising Frish class next year, CCC is going to have to pluck a couple gems from the transfer portal to be competitive.

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I am really looking forward to this class, but next season will be rough.

Davidgolds5 said:

Am I wrong or does Martinelli not get the love he deserves from cars fans? People comment on his lack of efficiency, and his deficiencies, that he isn’t a great passer and that he forces some shots.
The guy is the last man standing, likely lead the big ten in scoring, provided the cats with multiple game winners (other than buie how many cats players can claim that), and he is only a junior, that never complains, and plays nearly 40 mins/night. Seems like the guy is sometimes taken for granted by the fanbase, or am I wrong?

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I think Nick gets a lot of love from us fans.

But I like to look at the criticisms against him as coming from the measure of perfection. How could he improve his game? Sometimes it's more or other than that as fans have their own agendas and axes to grind, but that's pretty easy to ignore once you've been here long enough.

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Illini are finding out it's tough to win against a lot of older guys even when you have a lot of young talent. Fifth year John Tonje lit them up last night for 31 points and Wisconsin is loaded with veterans on that team. They actually might be the best chance the BIG has to reach the final four this year ( To me, MSU doesn't have enough of a three point game but we will see). Despite a promising Frish class next year, CCC is going to have to pluck a couple gems from the transfer portal to be competitive.

Eurocat said:

I wonder if Illinois would consider this because of a large amount of Illinois alumni? Then this would trickle down to everyone, us, Northern Illinois, Loyola, etc.



Alabama lawmakers have cooked up a plan to recruit more athletes to the state and win more championships, by tempting top prospects with tax breaks on the money they take in for name, image and likeness.

Rep. Joe Lovvorn, R-Auburn, introduced HB240, the Competitive Edge NIL Tax Cut Act, in the Alabama House of Representatives on Tuesday. This would exempt student athletes from paying state income tax on the money they earn through NIL deals.

“As NIL continues to change the landscape of college sports, the state must work to foster an environment that helps our schools land America’s top recruits,” Rep. Lovvorn said in a statement. “Exempting NIL earnings from state income tax gives Alabama a competitive edge, leading to more students receiving a quality education here and more championships coming home to Alabama.”

College athletes could get tax breaks under new NIL bill: Will it boost Alabama’s recruiting?

If passed, the legislation would exempt college athletes from paying state income tax on their NIL compensation.

www.al.com

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Wow. That is some serious fandom.

Get old and stay old is the name of the game for teams that aren't featuring one and dones. Minnesota got most of its points last night (and during their impressive run of late) from two fifth year guys, Dawson Garcia (32 points) and Mike Mitchell (14). Mitchell had 25 at USC Saturday. He is a 5th year transfer like Jalen Leach was. I doubt we lose to Nebraska with a healthy Barnhizer and Leach.

Davidgolds5 said:

Overall it just is a silly Jersey retirement. Keep doing what they are doing, and there will be no numbers left to use. Jersey retirements are for true legends. I’m thinking about some of the flyin Illini, Dee Brown, Deron Williams, etc.

Only a matter of time until guys have jersey retired at 2-3 different schools.

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The number isn’t retired. They’re just acknowledging him. He set the single season scoring record for the school (pts/gm, not absolute total since he missed a month).

They have objective criteria that establishes eligibility, including consensus 1st or 2nd team AA. He didn’t meet the criteria, but the AD announced last summer he was making an exception because Shannon Jr would have been 1st team AA if he hadn’t been suspended for a month due to a false rape accusation. It was an ongoing case during the season so voters understandably didn’t want to vote for him. But once the dust had settled and the case went to court, it was clear that he’d been railroaded by a false accusation and they didn’t want him to have to miss the honor of having his jersey hung in the rafters.

It’s a different era now. If you reserve the right for guys who play their entire careers at the school, few will ever have a chance. It’s fun to acknowledge great seasons and careers. Ayo, Kofi, and Shannon have all met the criteria in the past handful of years. It’s way more fun than having to wait 15 years for someone to meet the criteria (which I believe was the case from 2006-2021).

Hungry Jack said:

If Martinelli were a hot dog, he would be smothered in mustard, relish, onions, chopped tomatoes, celery salt, and a pickle wedge.

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But would he eat himself?

PurpleWhiteBoy said:

I was watching that game. Torvik gave the Gophers a 2.7% chance to win when UCLA took that 57-49 lead with 4:17 left.
He rated Minnesota at 1.8% chance to win when they trailed 29-12 with 5:33 to go in the first half.

Is Torvik's calculation too aggressive in writing teams off?

Minnesota is now 6-9 in Big Ten games...

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Kenpom had essentially the same probability (2.9% and 2.0% respectively), the Gophers' efficiency numbers have been mediocre but somehow they manage to win games this year. They are 3rd in the conference in Kenpom's "Luck" factor, behind Oregon and Michigan, and just ahead of Nebraska.

CappyNU said:

Last night, UCLA, who had been playing like a top-10 team in the country over the last month, was up 17 points at home against Minnesota in the 1st half, up 11 at halftime, and up 8 with 4 minutes to play, but eventually lost to the Gophers. It happens to good teams as well as bad, they're college kids.

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I was watching that game. Torvik gave the Gophers a 2.7% chance to win when UCLA took that 57-49 lead with 4:17 left.
He rated Minnesota at 1.8% chance to win when they trailed 29-12 with 5:33 to go in the first half.

Is Torvik's calculation too aggressive in writing teams off?

Minnesota is now 6-9 in Big Ten games...

I think I had mentioned this back in December, but our conference schedule was even more frontloaded for the women than for the men. Per Torvik, our first 12 scheduled conference games this year were against teams in the top-50 (including the rescheduled USC/UCLA games), and we went 0-10 against that slate. 4 of our last 6 conference games were against teams outside of the top-50, and so far we're 2-1. The conference is simply loaded this year, especially with the expansion teams.

For what it's worth, we covered the predicted spread in 7 of those first 10 games...

Davidgolds5 said:

Am I wrong or does Martinelli not get the love he deserves from cars fans? People comment on his lack of efficiency, and his deficiencies, that he isn’t a great passer and that he forces some shots.
The guy is the last man standing, likely lead the big ten in scoring, provided the cats with multiple game winners (other than buie how many cats players can claim that), and he is only a junior, that never complains, and plays nearly 40 mins/night. Seems like the guy is sometimes taken for granted by the fanbase, or am I wrong?

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I think Nick Martinelli gets a lot of love - and he deserves it. But there are weaknesses to his game. He's not a good defender (not saying he's bad, he's just not a +). The efficiency argument, as Gato points out, is tricky, because he is asked to do so much. But he is not good at passing when he is doubled. I think his mindset is that he has to score. Its understandable to a point, but he regularly ignores (or doesn't see) opportunities to give the ball to a teammate for an open look or a dunk. I'd rather have him make the pass.

To me thats just making an honest evaluation. People can disagree,

Last night, UCLA, who had been playing like a top-10 team in the country over the last month, was up 17 points at home against Minnesota in the 1st half, up 11 at halftime, and up 8 with 4 minutes to play, but eventually lost to the Gophers. It happens to good teams as well as bad, they're college kids.