Good-Bye Rodney Alexander

I guess there will be more details later, but Rodney Alexander will not be back with the team next season. I kind of wondered about his work ethic from what I've read (and personally saw live a couple of times) in that he wasn't really willing to change his game to fit the team's needs (stop jacking up threes - at least try on defense), but who knows what went on behind the scenes. It looked to me like he was trying to play his JUCO game in the Big Ten and that's not good enough. We have guys now willing to play team ball; that was the great thing about the '05 guys, they got along off AND ON the court, and made their games work together. Don't you think DWill could've gone for 20 a night? Sure. Did he whine about it? Nope. Dee was a point guard in high school and had the ball in his MOST of the time. That wasn't always the case at Illinois...he made it work. Great attitudes.

But here comes Tigercoach to quote some stats when played out per minute or over a fictional 40 minutes. Yes, admittedly R.A. was an off the charts athlete though.

Wish it would've worked out, but hopefully we don't think that just because Alexander didn't work out, that the same thing will happen for Dominque Keller. From everything I've read, he has a completely different attitude and is willing to do whatever it takes to play. KU is counting on JUCO Mario Little to contribute big time next season, I think it's not too much to expect that Keller can play solid minutes too.

Good luck Rodney.

http://www.news-gazette.com/blogs/basketblog/2008/04/15/ale
xander_wont_return_for_illini

What does this mean for his scholarship?

Can Illinois go out and sign someone now? or are they screwed because his scholarship is already spoken for after this year?

There are still some good unsigned forwards like Wesley Witherspoon, Jeff Taylor and Devin Ebanks but way too late for Illinois to get involved as they are all set to decide within a week or two. It would have been nice if this could have been done earlier.

His schollie was only out there for one more year. After next season his schollie was going to one of the '09 guys.

Talk is they might give it to Meacham since he's one more and done just like the schollie.

Would've been nice if it had 3 more or even 2 more years on it but it doesn't.

Holdren is supposedly weighing his options too, he can see the handwriting on the wall with Legion coming and Jamar, Meacham, Brock, Chet, McCamey back, and Jeff Jordan showing that he can play some decent minutes.

So how many is that now for Weber that haven't worked out and were permanently benched or left the team? Two? No excuse at all for Rodney, if he was lazy or lacking in skill they should have seen it when scouting him, but Carlwell & his recovery? Yeah, that's Weber's fault (but let's not get into that debate - it's has been discussed in a million other threads). Jury is still out on Semrau.

"Talk is they might give it to Meacham since he's one more and done just like the schollie."

-bsisko

do u mean he can come back for another year after this coming one, his senior year?  like as a fifth year senior?

And...hopefully Trent will get the open scholarship for this next year. He has (even though its sometimes hard for me to admit this) earned his way. He works hard with the talents he has and gives what he can to the team.