Living in this area, I always wonder how and why so many of the really good local players end up elsewhere. Anthony Beane played at Normal Community and ended up at Southern Illinois. Obediah Church played in Springfield and ended up 500 miles away at Missouri State. Tyler Seibring is at Elon, where he averaged 9.8 points and 4.8 rebounds as a true freshman this year. Seibring's state runner up teammate Alex Peacock got nothing in the way of D1 offers and ended up at Iowa Western CC. When Jeff White signed with Loyola, two other Peoria area players (Peoria Manual teammate Jacoby Roddy and Bobo Drummond) went to Wright State.

You look at the Illinois State roster, and there are three guys from Florida, but only two from Illinois-- Paris Lee from Maywood and a seldom-used transfer from Whitney Young. Bradley's one player from Central Illinois came in at 11th on the team in minutes played; the Braves have three Chicago area guys and one from Rockford. Eastern Illinois has only one player from between I-80 and I-70, and he's from 150 miles away in Peoria. There are no Illinois players on Northern Illinois from south of I-80, and only one at Illinois.

I don't know whether the colleges downstate have a preference for Chicago-area players, or if it's just the fact that kids want to go away to school. There are more foreign players at colleges in Central Illinois than there are natives. Loyola players from Central Illinois have included Jeff White from Peoria, Blake Schilb from Rantoul, DaJuan Gouard from Danville, and Jason Telford from Pontiac in the past several years; Donte Ingram also played two years in Danville before transferring to Simeon.

minimal interest from Loyola Chicago

I don't think it meant that we had minimal interest in him; rather that he was receiving "minimal D1 interest" as in just looks from Loyola and Furman. It seems we've been on him for awhile and he visited campus in September.

Judging by the high number of views this thread has garnered in the past few days, I suspect it is being read by a number of Matt's family, friends and fans.

To those, I would like to say that knowledgable Rambler fans would love to see Matt in maroon and gold. The doubts expressed by a couple of early posters should be dismissed inasmuch as they came from people whose basketball IQ is in the single digits.

Question: How many D1 offers did Ron Baker have?