The smile is back on Bobby Hill’s face. That was good to see Thursday as the Illinois State forward discussed his rehab and recovery from a second major knee surgery in less than a year.
Hill is confident he’ll be ready for the start of the 2009-10 season. Check out Friday’s Pantagraph or pantagraph.com later for details on Hill’s progress from surgery from a ruptured patellar tendon suffered in February.
Here is some other ISU basketball news with the start of official practice 129 days away:
— Coach Tim Jankovich said the Redbirds are still looking for two more games to round out their 2009-10 schedule. Jankovich confirmed the Redbirds have signed two-year home-and-home nonconference series with Ohio University and Illinois-Chicago. The tentative date for the game at Ohio University is Dec. 16. The UIC game also will be on the road.
Although Jankovich wouldn’t say, the Redbirds are expected to play St. Bonaventure, Southeast Missouri State and Norfolk State in another Thanksgiving round-robin at Redbird Arena and go to Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in exchange for two games at ISU in the future. Jankovich did say the Redbirds won’t be in the NIT Preseason Tip-Off Tournament.
— Jankovich said his entire team – including five freshmen – is on campus and enrolled in summer classes. There are 40 teams entered in ISU’s Team Camp this weekend, with individual camp beginning Monday. ISU had 50 players attend its Elite Camp a week ago.
— Jankovich and his staff won’t be home much in July. Live recruiting runs from July 6-16 and 22-31. Three coaches can be recruiting at the same time.
— Hill gave a glowing report about freshman guard Justin Clark after watching pickup games: “I see a Champ (Oguchi) out there. He shoots the ball very well. I’ve been watching him knocking a lot of shots down. He’s going to help. Austin (Hill) is a great defender. With what we’ve got coming in I think we’re more tough. Some of the (new) players get down and play defense hard.”
- Happy birthday, Osiris Eldridge! The ISU standout turned 21 on Thursday and spent the day in hometown Chicago.
i am very excited for the season to start.the new guys will be fighting for future playing time. practice should be brutle. its good they will have a year to play with the seniors. the coaches seem to be putting together a strong group and the future looks good. go redbirds.
Come on Jank. Get it done. The fans want it and deserve at least 1 game vs. the Big Boys.
A 2 for 1 with SIUE that starts down there? What is that? We really have scheduling issues.
[...] — Coach Tim Jankovich said the Redbirds are still looking for two more games to round out their 2009-10 schedule. Jankovich confirmed the Redbirds have signed two-year home-and-home nonconference series with Ohio University and Illinois-Chicago. The tentative date fRead more at http://www.pantagraph.com/blogs/main/?p=3958 [...]
Dear Jank,
Thank you for bringing ISU to DII scheduling level. On the bright side, you are grooming your resume nicely for your next job opportunity.
Although scheduling is difficult for all Valley teams, your staff’s inability to get anyone worthwhile on the schedule is beyond disbelief. Can’t wait for those return games against SIU-E!
Next year, be sure to try to get a game at Carthage, or if you really work hard – maybe you can get a two for one against Chicago State.
scheduling is tough on the valley guys folks. None of the big boys want to play the better teams of the valley because they have nothing to gain by beating us and everything to lose by getting beat by us. I dont know what kind of budget we have as far as scheduling goes, but id love to see us take a page out of gonzagas book from the past decade. Take the attitude that we will go play anybody anywhere anytime, and we dont need to do a home and home series or anything like that. It was great to start 17-0 last year, but we played NOBODY!!! Throw in a few solid schools, even if road games, and then when the mvc regular season and the valley tourney comes around, we re battle tested. Just a suggestion, overall, great job by timmy though, he has generated excitement in the hoops program i havent seen since i was there in the 90s under bob bender and especially kevin stallings. I do worry about how long we get to keep him though.
[...] Illinois State could really use a healthy Bobby Hill. Hill visited WSU as a high school senior and former Shocker coach Mark Turgeon thought he was a Big 12-quality athlete at that time. ISU’s non-conference schedule again appears to lack sizzle (with some dates to fill). [...]
Chad- What other Valley team has a schedule this bad? Does anyone know if Evansville had to promise two additional games with SIUE to get them on the schedule last year?
i guess were gonna have to only have about 4 losses or win the conference championship to make the tournament