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Semi OT - Illinois bball board

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Scangg

Heisman
Mar 19, 2016
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Checked out an Illinois message board and man were they complimentary of a Rutgers. They seemed higher on Rutgers than most on this board. Many saying this is the toughest of their first 10 B1G games and how Rutgers is a contender for the B1G title. Overall very respectful of the Rutgers program and a few saying how they are rooting for us outside of this game. Illinois looking like my new favorite fan base!

Believe I saw @zappaa and @cubuffsdoug both over there and they were welcoming to RU fans which again shows the nice culture of the fan base

One had an interesting comparison as we are both big state schools in major metro areas that are dominated by professional sports. It really is spot on. We have a lot in common as a university in terms of the sports scene in that manner
 
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bigmatt718

bigmatt718

Heisman
Mar 11, 2013
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I feel like Illinois fans are the Rutgers fans of the Midwest. We have a lot in common with the Illini (fantastic school that many of the people living in each respective state takes for granted, for starters).
 
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J

jordkap

All-Conference
Jul 11, 2016
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bigmatt718 said:
I feel like Illinois fans are the Rutgers fans of the Midwest. We have a lot in common with the Illini (fantastic school that many of the people living in each respective state takes for granted, for starters).
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They are also highly likely the most similar in terms of lifestyle. Most of the other Midwest teams are in smaller metro areas and don’t share similar mentalities. The lone exception otherwise may be Maryland.

I don’t count Northwestern either because they are a private school which has a very different group of people.
 
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G

G- RUnit

All-American
Sep 13, 2004
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jordkap said:
They are also highly likely the most similar in terms of lifestyle. Most of the other Midwest teams are in smaller metro areas and don’t share similar mentalities. The lone exception otherwise may be Maryland.

I don’t count Northwestern either because they are a private school which has a very different group of people.
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Minnesota?
 
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RUfan1027

All-Conference
May 29, 2005
835
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My buddy is a die hard Illini fan and keeps texting me saying that they have no one to guard Ron and that we are going to win Sunday. I guess a lot of them are high on us.
 
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RUnTeX

RUnTeX

All-Conference
Dec 21, 2001
7,097
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Scangg said:
One had an interesting comparison as we are both big state schools in major metro areas that are dominated by professional sports. It really is spot on. We have a lot in common as a university in terms of the sports scene in that manner
Click to expand...
jordkap said:
They are also highly likely the most similar in terms of lifestyle. Most of the other Midwest teams are in smaller metro areas and don’t share similar mentalities. The lone exception otherwise may be Maryland.
Click to expand...

While the comparison is apt on several levels including being an in-state powerhouse that tends to be overlooked or settled on as a safety for elite students considering private or OOS options, you both have quite incorrectly characterized UIUC as being located in a major metro area, it's literally very far from one.

The campus is not located anywhere near or within Chicago metro, and is about 2.5 hour drive south from the Windy City. It's also located roughly equidistant to St. Louis, MO and is a tad closer to Indianapolis, IN than either CHI or STL. So of course Urbana-Champaign is not located in any of those 3 larger metro areas, rather the local metro region is much smaller and identified as Springfield-Decatur-Champaign. If you leave U-C in any direction, after a few miles it is cornfields as far as the eye can see....you will not come anywhere close to stumbling upon something resembling a major city skyline 30 miles up the road (or 60 miles down the road) like you would from New Brunswick.
 
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S

Scangg

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RUnTeX said:
While the comparison is apt on several levels including being an in-state powerhouse that tends to be overlooked or settled on as a safety for elite students considering private or OOS options, you both have quite incorrectly characterized UIUC as being located in a major metro area, it's literally very far from one.

The campus is not located anywhere near or within Chicago metro, and is about 2.5 hour drive south from the Windy City. It's also located roughly equidistant to St. Louis, MO and is a tad closer to Indianapolis, IN than either CHI or STL. So of course Urbana-Champaign is not located in any of those 3 larger metro areas, rather the local metro region is much smaller and identified as Springfield-Decatur-Champaign. If you leave U-C in any direction, after a few miles it is cornfields as far as the eye can see....you will not come anywhere close to stumbling upon something resembling a major city skyline 30 miles up the road (or 60 miles down the road) like you would from New Brunswick.
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I think you're missing the point. People who attend and are fans live in metro areas and are culturally near major metro areas like Chicago NYC Philly St Louis and are fans of the pro sports teams there. They dont live in the corn fields and there are corn fields in NJ too
 
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RUnTeX

RUnTeX

All-Conference
Dec 21, 2001
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Scangg said:
I think you're missing the point. People who attend and are fans live in metro areas and are culturally near major metro areas like Chicago NYC Philly St Louis and are fans of the pro sports teams there. They dont live in the corn fields and there are corn fields in NJ too
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Well, outside of Chicago and its suburbs there is a substantial population of about 4M who call Illinois home. Not everyone across the state lives either in Chicago or St. Louis metro or otherwise in the cornfields (that might be Iowa or Nebraska, lol). There are several small and medium sized cities (which also comprise smaller separate TV markets from Chicago and St. Louis) that are population centers contributing to the Illini fan base, even though no doubt many are from up in the Chicago area being the one major city/metro within the state. The competition for sports attention with pro sports between central Illinois and central NJ shares certain elements but it's not quite the same IMO.
 
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mr_wizard_65

Senior
Dec 2, 2005
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I just moved to Illinois in January, people here tend to be very friendly and tend to know their sports. I also work with an MSU grad and he is a college BB junkie and was very high on RU since the beginning of last season. This is a fun team to watch and kids and coach that are easy to root for. Really hope we can improve FTs and 3’s outside of Harper and Geo.
 
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jersey07080

All-Conference
Dec 17, 2005
7,074
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Have only been to Champaign for football Last time we were there we literally sat in front of 3 nuns that couldn't believe we were actually from NJ to watch a football game. One of the few bright days of th Ash era.
 
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R

RUforJERSEY

Heisman
Jul 29, 2001
24,868
10,069
113
RUfan1027 said:
My buddy is a die hard Illini fan and keeps texting me saying that they have no one to guard Ron and that we are going to win Sunday. I guess a lot of them are high on us.
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I'm concerned about their depth relative to the Knights.
 
R

RUtrumpet92_rivals498139

All-American
Feb 5, 2003
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RUforJERSEY said:
I'm concerned about their depth relative to the Knights.
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I am not. They have seven players that have averaged 17+ minutes per game. Their next guys are at 7.9 and 7.7 minutes. Maybe someone they want to give heavy minutes has been slowed because of injury or something, but I am not aware of that.

Edited to add this quote from Brad Underwood I just saw in an article:

“I don’t have a lot of bodies,” Brad Underwood said. “You start looking — especially at the guard position — and we get pretty thin, and I had to leave some guys out there a little longer than I had hoped. We basically had four frontline guys out there at the end. That gets to be tough.”

Big Ten opener story from Illinois perspective
 
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ecojew

All-Conference
Feb 1, 2006
9,767
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I read their thread about their game against us. It was actually refreshing to read an opponent's board where the posters were all very knowledgeable and well informed, very respectful and complimentary of the opponent (us), and with no idiots evident at all. It's a lot different from reading the boards of most of our opponents, particularly back in the Big East days.
 
K

Knight Owl

All-Conference
Jul 27, 2001
3,536
2,580
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bigmatt718 said:
I'm completely jealous that they are. Hopefully in a decade or so after we get all of our other sports taken care of, we can do the same.
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I think the administration would need to get creative in order to generate annual revenue and enough tix sold. A 5,000 seat barn with $1 million/yr recurring revenue would make it feasible at least...
Corporate money and big donors would be needed for sure.
 
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track71

All-Conference
Feb 5, 2003
5,149
1,456
113
Illinois alum, Chicago native, ~25 year (NJ) resident. There are a lot of similarities with the two university sports programs, and as an aside state politics also. Illinois might take longer to become respectable in football, but in basketball, both programs look good going forward.
 
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