Best Baseball School(College) in Illinois?

U of I

DI....University of Illinois at Chicago
SIU
University of Illinois at C/U
Bradley
Northern Illinois

NAIA...St. Francis

Juco...Triton
Joliet

I would say John A. Logan and South Suburban would be in the top 1-3 jucos.

I spent the two years at Elgin Community College. Won two Conference Championships, won two Region Championships, went to two Div II World Series. We never won the big prize, but we got to play for it. The field at Elgin is just incredible. We also never lost to Triton or Joliet either.

DI Juco Logan
DII Elgin
DIII Joliet

I'm now at Judson University (NAIA). Can't wait to play Saint Frances and Saint Xavier.

NAIA, yet to be determined., But I thought that it would be cool to play for Gordie Gillespie.

NCAA Div I U of I because if you get the chance to go there you should. It is about the education right?

Div II SIU Edwardsville

Div III ????

Just going by what the pro's told me last year, SIU is the top dog in Illinois. Many didn't have too good of things to say about the Big Ten schools or had no comment.

SIU is doing a nice job of recruiting this year and also has a freshman (Chris Murphy) out of the Pittsburg area who played in the East Cobb program who should be replacing Koski. This kid has excellent speed, a knack for getting on base and is real good defensively.

Baseball America's college section has a Fall notebook blog from Aaron Fitt. He highlighted SIU and also had a write up on Army and talked a little about Kirk Porter.
Sorry, I couldn't include the article to my post, I'm pretty computer stupid. Maybe someone else can post it.

Kind of a biased opinion seed, Didn't UIC win a couple of games in the NCAA regional last year?

Based on the final RPI rankings from 2007, Seedthrower is correct. SIU was ranked #72 and UIC was ranked #99. SIU was the highest ranked of all of the Illinois teams. University of Illinois was #145.

Baseball America College Blog

I really feel like this is a tricky question.

I don't feel like guys should be interested in going to a school because its the best baseball program in the State. Who is to say where is the best? Each coach is different, with different staffs. All these coaches in Illinois are good people with the best interests of the kids in mind.

Not only that, but each school has a different degree of acedemic difficulty to an extent. Is your son or daughter able to leave the roost and go Away? Not all. Is my kid going to play and how long will it take? These are the important things..

Just like Playball likes to wear his community on his jersey as he stated earlier. I think its along those same lines, We are from Illinois and the Midwest, so lets concentrate on making our midwestern area a better place for kids to continue their educations and playing careers.
Now , for all the naysayers who will attack this and ask then why do I go to Jupiter, read the article and tell me where the reporter saw the SIU coach.. Thats why we go!

The who's the best stuff is overrated! Find a fit!!

quote:

Originally posted by deucedoc:

The who's the best stuff is overrated! Find a fit!!

Hopper I was being sarcastic, because I played at UIC and was just being boastful about their bids over the past 5 seasons. I guess you had to know that I played at UIC.

Playball,

Sorry, I did not know that. There is absolutely no problem with being boastful about that either, it is something that you must be very proud of(even if you did not go when you were playing there). To be able to participate in the NCAA postseason tournament has to be an awesome experience and it is great to have some Illinois teams in the tournament!! Hopefully U of I will be participating in it soon also.

Aurora has a nice tradition at the Div. 3 level ... the new conference hasn't worked out as well as they were probably hoping.

Elmhurst / IWU / Augustana / Carthage (isn't Kenosha really a suburb of Chicago!?) offer a lot at the D3 level, too.

Saint Xavier and McKendree are two top NAIA programs

as far as ranking of colleges goes in IL, here is my list.

Div 1. SIU, coach Callahan has done a very nice job down in Carbondale

Div 2. SIUE even though they are turing D-1 next year

Div 3. Aurora

NAIA St.Xavier and St. Francis

Juco: John A. Logan, Elgin, South sub and Joliet.

With Elgin and Joliet, how many people can say they have been going to the world series consistently over the past few years

Alot of great opinions and reasons why they make their choices. Mine are as follows:

D1: Southern Illinois and UIC, SIU because they're the best team in the state in a very competitve conference, while UIC because they've been able to make it to the regional in a conference that is lacking good teams but they've shown they're above that have competed against some of the best teams in the country

D2: SIU-Edwardsville, just recently this program has started to make some noise. Not many D2's in Illinois have done much lately so this is the best of a sub par bunch.

D3: Aurora, year after year this program produces quality teams. Have made it to the world series a few times over the last decade. Up and comer has to be Rockford though. Coach is the head skip for the Rockford Riverhawks independent team.

NAIA: St Xavier, no questions asked. not even close.

JUCO: John Logan, have produced some great players the last 5-6 years that have been drafted or gone to major D1 schools.
Elgin, for northern Illinois this is the top dog. they've gone to 3 or 4 straight world series. play on one of the best fields in Illinois period! (which probably helps with recruiting)

d-1 id go with siuc better conference and challenging schedule than uic.

d-2 i honestly don't know much about.

d-3 i know augustana, monmouth and aurora are always good.

juco
d-1 Lincoln trail they no hit south sub in the district at our place at iowa western last year where we beat em both to go to the series.

d-2 parkland just has a great track record so i'd haveto go with them.