OT: Illinois' Practice a "One and Done"

[TheBand]

UNION-TRIBUNE

October 13, 2008

The Illinois men's and women's basketball teams got an early start to their seasons Saturday, holding what they called the world's largest outdoor basketball practice on a portable court at Memorial Stadium.

It's unlikely they'll be able to repeat it, though. The NCAA is expected to ban such early events after coaches at other schools complained.

The basketball teams took advantage of Illinois' homecoming football crowd, setting up the court in the stadium's south end zone and practicing and scrimmaging right after the Illini's 27-20 loss to Minnesota.

“The players had fun, got to scrimmage in front of an audience and get those competitive juices going a bit after a long offseason of pickup games in an empty gym,” Illinois men's coach Bruce Weber said.

Weber received permission from the NCAA to hold the practice ahead of the official Oct. 17 start date, and he was hoping for the outdoor practice to become an annual event.

But coaches around the country became irritated that Illinois, along with Kentucky, Marshall and West Virginia, were given special dispensation – and, they worried, a possible recruiting edge – by the NCAA.

According to Weber, the event never was meant to give Illinois a recruiting advantage, though he acknowledged more recruits were in attendance than there would have been at a traditional Midnight Madness event.

[Cowboy]

-i wondered how they got to have that practice as friday is supposed to be the first day of practice

-i think the ncaa messed up big time by allowing these schools to do this

-there should either be an establised first day of practice for everyone or there should not be

-i am not saying 1 extra practice will give a benefit to these schools, but once the ncaa starts giving exemptions to certain schools for certain things i can see a problem with where does this stop

-and another benefit to football schools, it appears

-i would guss every school that asked got to have this kind of event

- and bruce, don't try to tell us you did not think of recruiting when you asked for this.......According to Weber, the event never was meant to give Illinois a recruiting advantage, though he acknowledged more recruits were in attendance than there would have been at a traditional Midnight Madness event.

-and for our internet hounds, how did harrelson look at ky????

[Guest BillikenReport]

Yes, this was a huge recruiting advantage for those schools.

The midnight madness events are big recruiting weekends, but because so many schools have them going on, recruits are spread throughout the country.

In this case, a school like Illinois can bring in most of its recruiting targets because the competition for their attention isn't there.

Any coach that says this kind of event doesn't give them a recruiting advantage is lying. Otherwise, those coaches wouldn't have invited as many recruits as he could get to his campus on unofficial visits for the event.

The NCAA screwed up with this.

[billiken_roy]

whether or not the ncaa screwed up isnt relative imo. the real question is why when word leaked out it was happening, shame on the rest of the schools that didnt jump on the opportunity to do the same. if anything it would have highlighted to the ncaa what the hell was going on and they likely would have put a stop to it.

if you want to be big time, try to keep up.