Other Valley news

All it took was for Southern Illinois to start working on a game with University of Illinois, and the fury has broken loose...

Bruce Weber waited until SIU dropped a bit and is struggling before playing them anywhere as he had promised..but here are a couple of representative comments from Saluki fans...

"Who would have guessed that they finally managed to set this up once we were a thursday night team again"
""We won't play a high major team for a one and done." - Chris Lowery"
"Illinois by 30" (that's actually one of the nicer comments)
"Really , Really bad decision in my opinion....why in the world would we choose to go up their and get our ass handed to us"
..then it goes on and on to 11 pages of rips against their coach and AD...pretty merciless......
http://salukitalk.net/st/viewtopic.php?t=32820

Then there's a 2nd thread with even more vicious and personal attacks about this situation...
http://salukitalk.net/st/viewtopic.php?t=32822

BTW -- the official news story from The Southern says...
"It's not set in stone.."
"a preliminary deal that will place the Fighting Illini's men's basketball team against the Salukis"
"possible matchup"
"a few signatures away"
"contract is not finished yet"
"Lowery did not return a message left on his cell phone Wednesday (about this game)"

....awful lotta "if's"...so obviously this thing is NOT fully set yet...but the SIU fans are vicious about this and a few other recent happenings...
Sad that fans can't just support their program...way too many feel an entitlement to success and believe they have a right to go overboard and bitch when things don't go the way they want...
Honestly...I know there are good Saluki fans who are still suporting their team but they're being drowned out by these whiner and bad fans....
I hope they all disappear like they are promising to do....a team really doesn't need more fans like this..........

Even one of their local beat writers seems like he has this entitlement mindset - demanding the school, the coach, and the athletic department come clean and spill their guts...
seems like I have heard this argument before that somehow the school has the obligation to call up the media guys and tell them all their confidential info...
http://www.thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/winkeler/article_a3f3c328-4cfe-11df-838e-001cc4c002e0.html

BTW-- now it's looking more and more like at least 4 or 5 players are leaving at SIU....



But --- Could finances be the reason...SIU needs money bad...they are in serious financial trouble...

I am seeing some comments that SIU has some serious financial difficulties and may not be able to rely on the Illinois taxpayer to bail them out...
http://socialistworker.org/2010/04/07/struggle-for-sius-future

"the school projects a deficit of some $125 million for the coming fiscal year. This prompted SIUC President Glenn Poshard to require every department to submit a plan for 10 percent across-the-board budget cuts for next year--cuts that would inevitably lead to layoffs and severely undermine education at SIUC."

http://www.alacrastore.com/research/moodys-global-credit-research-MOODY_S_DOWNGRADES_SOUTHERN_ILLINOIS_UNIVERSITY_S_LONG_TERM_DEBT_RATING_TO_A3_FROM_A1_REMAINS_ON_WATCHLIST_FOR_POSSIBLE_DOWNGRADE-RU_600024378_16335679
http://www.herald-review.com/news/state-and-regional/article_16b0a7c2-79df-5b65-9da0-09aec589fe9a.html
http://freesiu.blogspot.com/2010/03/proposed-budget-cut-15-layoffs-at-siu.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/illi-f18.shtml
http://freesiu.blogspot.com/2010/02/state-of-denial-illinois-is-going.html


Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Athletic Director has been placed on "administrative leave"...for "undisclosed reasons"...and it was said to one
TV station it was a "confidential personnel matter."
George Koonce has been on the job for less than a year...one source says an "investigation is under way"...and rumors are swirling...
http://sports.uwmpost.com/2010/04/21/koonce-on-administrative-leave/

Many of the current rumors center on suspicion that Koonce made some kind of shady deal when working on agreements & plan to have the UW-M team play in an on-campus arena...AND he was also busily involved in fund raising & securing cash gifts.. which might just be his downfall...but there are no people who are officially talking about this...
in fact the silence is really quite striking....almost as if something really ominous and serious is going on.

---"bad decision making" and "Koonce is not expected to return to the job" mean he's done something the higher-ups view as seriously wrong and he is now cooked!
I find this in one way, funny since certain voices from UW-M have hammered away about BU ethical issues...maybe they need to get busy cleaning up their own home (and their own personal issues) before speaking out...

There are also concerns of losing scholarships due to so many players leaving and some academic issues.



Between ISU, Creighton, and SIU, there's about 20 junior college players on the rosters...what's happening....all they seem to go after are the jucos!!!



As for the high school coaches who are ripping into the new DePaul coach...seems like a whole lot of sleaze has come from some of these guys on a regular basis...
Robert Smith from Simeon...the coach that was at Simeon when four of his players had someone else to take the SAT and one of them got caught and cost Memphis 30 wins and a Final Four spot...he's doing most of the public bitching!
In fact, one of their players who had some fraudulent issues while there at Simeon
was Kenyon Smith, who is now headed to ISU from Lincoln College- after indeed his academics did get scrutinized and cause him to be declared ineligible at ISU - forcing him to go to juco and get his associates degree since his high school academics were completely worthless. Nice job Simeon Coach Robert Smith...just another young kid's life badly affected and two years at the D-I level ruined...
And plenty of academic fraud was discovered on at least four players there at Simeon, improper grade changing for athletes, phony ringers taking standardized exams, teachers' grades overridden, computers hacked and records altered....etc...all of which was quietly swept under the rug when "nobody" could figure out how it happened??
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=134174&postcount=11
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1596666,derrick-rose-simeon-grades-cheat-memphis.article
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=134176&postcount=12

yea...this guy is really an upstanding citizen...



Iowa's Fran McCaffery is offering all the big kids around like Tom Crean is...
he's found an obscure, skinny kid from Connecticut and I have even heard once source (although I can't confirm) claim he has offered other midwestern big kids like Justin Gant...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=180028&postcount=6



Seems like I recall someone predicting that Walter Offutt was kinda overrated...
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=147853&postcount=4
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15528



Looks like some of the kids on the Illinois Wolves are pretty hot commodities right now...
from Wolves' head coach Mike Mullins...
"Phone blowing up as live period ends -we must be pretty good all of a sudden LOL"
http://twitter.com/wolves10/status/12619764724


And lastly....I heard that Dr. Martin Abegg has passed away...former BU president..
My wife used to babysit for some of their famliy and her family knew them well......
I have met Dr. Abegg as well as his son who is world reknowned as an expert in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and who has spoken widely on them...
http://www.twu.ca/academics/faculty/profiles/abegg-martin.html



And yup....some of the ISU fans are right....JW is waiting for IU to come with the solid offer and is sitting on his other offers...
Probably, with Crean striking out at this rate, there'll be nobody left in a few days and Wilkins will get the offer and grab it...being the next Hoosier to spend his entire career in the IU record books the wrong way...(most losses, worst team, poorest record, etc...)
If Crean does land someone better, then I think ISU is still hanging by a thread..
http://www.idsnews.com/blogs/hoosierhype/?p=10732http://hoosierchronicles.blogspot.com/