Georgetown 88, Illinois 80 POSTGAME

#151      

CAIllini

West Coast
Not sure why, but I'm really upset after this loss and just can't let it go. Embarrassingly sad, sophomoric reaction on my part, but I can't shake it. While the pragmatic side of my brain mostly knew it would be a struggle to reach .500 and we were far from being a tourney team, there was still the hope that a new/fresh team & attitude would shock the "experts", make the tourney, win BU the COY award, and springboard recruiting. Not so much.

We do play in a lot of exciting games, but seems we lose the bulk of them and give up ~90 every time...

My hope bubble already burst in game two and now it's just back to watching on DVR for progress/improvement I guess....I feel like a cubs fan pre 2016 and it's just super depressing right now.

Bummed in Cali.... :(
 
#152      
Two keys to this season:

1) De La Rosa. First game back, still out of rhythm but we are really thin on the frontcourt and need him to be a reliable 15-20 mins guy at C, backing up Giorgi.

2) Tevian Jones. Kipper is not a PF and it shows, but we have no options at PF. He often seems like a player trying to find an identity. So we will be at a disadvantage at PF, therefore we need a taller more athletic SF type to complement Kipper. Tevian is still not comfortable, but the SF position is his IMO if he gains some confidence.

We do now.
 
#153      

Gunner23

Panama City, Florida
Not sure why, but I'm really upset after this loss and just can't let it go. Embarrassingly sad, sophomoric reaction on my part, but I can't shake it. While the pragmatic side of my brain mostly knew it would be a struggle to reach .500 and we were far from being a tourney team, there was still the hope that a new/fresh team & attitude would shock the "experts", make the tourney, win BU the COY award, and springboard recruiting. Not so much.

We do play in a lot of exciting games, but seems we lose the bulk of them and give up ~90 every time...

My hope bubble already burst in game two and now it's just back to watching on DVR for progress/improvement I guess....I feel like a cubs fan pre 2016 and it's just super depressing right now.

Bummed in Cali.... :(

We aren't an entitled program at this time. Holy crap! We're two games in and the season is already over! Somebody call the whambulance...

Hide in your little DVR hole and come out in the future acting like you've been there the entire time...:tsk:
 
#154      
Two keys to this season:

1) De La Rosa. First game back, still out of rhythm but we are really thin on the frontcourt and need him to be a reliable 15-20 mins guy at C, backing up Giorgi.

2) Tevian Jones. Kipper is not a PF and it shows, but we have no options at PF. He often seems like a player trying to find an identity. So we will be at a disadvantage at PF, therefore we need a taller more athletic SF type to complement Kipper. Tevian is still not comfortable, but the SF position is his IMO if he gains some confidence.

In the postgame presser BU did mention Giorgi playing some minutes at the 4 with Adonis at the 5. Obviously Giorgi has to stay out of foul trouble first, and Adonis needs to get acclimated.
 
#156      

pruman91

Paducah, Ky
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/col...cle_063b2840-b719-5d89-b910-f1bfc4fd4bd0.html
With 1:39 left in the game, Illinois sophomore guard Da’Monte Williams blocked Akinjo. Dosunmu came up with a steal on the inbounds pass and fed the ball to junior Kipper Nichols, who couldn’t finish the layup. A replay review showed the ball went off a Georgetown player and Illinois regained possession with a chance to take a lead with 1:32 left in the game. Dosunmu got the ball, drove to the lane and kicked the ball to Nichols, who missed an open 3-point attempt.


But more than anything, Illinois missed Frazier’s defense. The Hoyas shot 55.7 percent from the field and 58.3 percent on two-point field goal attempts.

The help-side defense wasn’t there for the Illini, and the Hoyas took advantage.
“It’s help-side defense and being where you’re supposed to be,” Underwood said. “It’s the difference between winning and losing in college basketball. Truth be told, it’s where we missed Trent the most.”
 
#157      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
We aren't an entitled program at this time. Holy crap! We're two games in and the season is already over! Somebody call the whambulance...

Hide in your little DVR hole and come out in the future acting like you've been there the entire time...:tsk:


Yeah, the season is hardly over.

However, with losses coming up in Maui (let's hope we can limit the damage to 1 loss, but that's not likely) and a tough start to the conference season as usual, we absolutely cannot afford losses to middle-of-the-pack teams on our home court.

We can make ourselves feel better by suggesting that GTown is better than what they are, but in all likelihood, they're going to struggle to make the tournament just as we are. These are not games we should be losing -- Frazier or otherwise.

And this really is becoming a trend. Play exciting basketball, and collapse late in the game. Is it preferable to Groce's style of crap ball? Yes. But losing is losing. At some point, we as a program need to learn how to win and expect it. Clearly we aren't there yet.
 
#158      

pruman91

Paducah, Ky
In the first half i had to really search and see if Kipper and AJ were on the court....their presence was nondescript at best in that first half....Kipper had some good stretches in the second half but AJ was a non factor for the whole game....rerun from last year and I believe their mins should go to Tevian and Alan for the future growth...Hells bells if there are going to be mistakes like that made then better for the frosh to make them and hopefully they learn as it seems the upperclassmen haven't.

the game was there to win and dumb mistakes and lack of hustle is a scene seen before and I for one am tired of it..
 
#159      

Deleted member 29907

D
Guest
No Frazier may have played a "small" role in the loss as well?...?..idk
Frazier is our best on ball defender and would have slowed Akinjo down some (see the MSU game last year). We missed his D and his end of game control last night. The last 2 mins we looked out of sorts and didn't look like we were running the offense.

Overall good game for the team (other than we needed better shooting at the end) given we lost our best player. GU pretty much shot very well given it was an away game. And (other than the blow-bys) against a pretty tight D.

What puzzles me is why we defended McClung so tightly given his outside shooting is crap. His whole game seems to be drive, jump and figure it out.

Loved what DMW did last night.
 
#160      
Frazier is our best on ball defender and would have slowed Akinjo down some (see the MSU game last year). We missed his D and his end of game control last night. The last 2 mins we looked out of sorts and didn't look like we were running the offense.

Overall good game for the team (other than we needed better shooting at the end) given we lost our best player. GU pretty much shot very well given it was an away game. And (other than the blow-bys) against a pretty tight D.

What puzzles me is why we defended McClung so tightly given his outside shooting is crap. His whole game seems to be drive, jump and figure it out.

Loved what DMW did last night.
Great points....and agree with MClung D....should have dared him to shoot 3p.

GT was really hot for most of the night. Didnt see too many uncontested.

I thought Gorgie had decent 1st shot D many times...he seemed like a statue after a couple 1st shots though...not going after the miss.

Young group who will learn. No doubt TF would have made a difference.
 
#161      
Last night's announced attendance (albeit some student freebies in there) was 14,656 or 94% of capacity. Kudos to the fanbase for that type of performance.
 
#163      
That was one of the few games in the last few years that I could watch start to finish. I believe this team will get much better as the season progresses. If last year's team, without Frasier, would have played last night they would have lost by twenty points in my opinion. Underwood has the Illini trending in the right direction.
 
#164      
Watched second half

Positives:

Pace of play, AYO, Feliz.

Negatives: Defense, Rebounding, Half court offense last four minutes

If we continue to pressure good teams guards at half court, we will get what we got tonight...dribble drives, leading to defensive scrambles, layups, and offensive rebounds. We must get half court offense started sooner, doubling Ayo on pick and roll blew up our offense at end.

Trent will make a big difference obviously. I think Coach needs to mix up defensive pressure or we are going to lose a lot of 90 to 80 games against good teams. We are too undersized to allow all of these dribble drives to the basket. Fun to watch but more losses than we will like.
 
#165      
One other thing...we need Kipper and Aaron to have any chance...the lazy play by Kipper was inexcusable but I am sure Coach will remind him of that frequently in days ahead. Call to benching those two is a pure over reaction.
 
#166      
This was a great game for the fans.
We really missed Trent but over all was very encouraged by the team play.
Have patience grasshopper by Big 10 play this will be a very competitive team.
 
#167      
There's a lot to like in the Freshmen, which is great, but I still think this program is a year or two from a true recovery.
 
#168      
Kipper shouldn't be a primary decision maker, but he should be on the floor...he does struggle with lay ups. I realize they are contested. I wish AJ could fill into a Sean Harrington type role....of the bench....burys a couple 3s, ends up with 9 or 12 points in every game because others teams don't notice he's in, and when he's in, it's usually against 2nd teamers. Only thing is, he does pass well, and I believe he made a great early pass that led to an easy bucket.

Lastly, agree on they should have defended Macglug like teams defended TJL last year.

But I think Georgetown will be pretty decent....and I still maintain that we will trend towards the bubble.
 
#169      
8 pages in and I can't find any specific for praise for McClung. Along with Ajinko and Pickett, these guys are going to be a load to defend on the perimeter for the Big East all year. And they should only get better. These aren't scrubs.

BU has one-ish big (Giorgi/Kipper) and had a strategy to sell out and defend Govan at all costs. The dude was held to 11 pts on 7 shots. The Illini pressured the hell out of the ball; forced a ton of turnovers, gave up a bunch of layups. Constant pressure all game. If a B10 team has less than two guards to handle pressure, they'll be toast.

Not nearly enough praise for defense by Williams and Feliz. Those guys have some sixth sense for getting in passing lays and ripping balls away. They are going to be obnoxious and frustrate a lot of B10 offenses this year.
 
#170      
Watched second half

If we continue to pressure good teams guards at half court, we will get what we got tonight...dribble drives, leading to defensive scrambles, layups, and offensive rebounds. We must get half court offense started sooner, doubling Ayo on pick and roll blew up our offense at end.

I think Underwood believes his best chance is to sacrifice layups for pressure. They won't survive many games with good bigs because they have no interior defense. Otherwise we will be sitting in a zone all game and I don't think that fits his aggressive nature.
 
#172      
A replay review showed the ball went off a Georgetown player and Illinois regained possession with a chance to take a lead with 1:32 left in the game. Dosunmu got the ball, drove to the lane and kicked the ball to Nichols, who missed an open 3-point attempt.

This pass from Ayo was at Kipper's ankles. It was wide open, but tough rhythm at the end of the shoot clock with the game on the line.
 
#173      

danielb927

Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
I woke up at 3:30 AM to watch the second half from Italy and thought we looked good, despite the loss. The defensive intensity and pace of the team were awesome when we stretched out a bit of a lead. Obviously we have some things to work on in the halfcourt game when things tightened up the last few minutes.
 
#174      
I agree Underwood believes that but our defense efficiency rating is generally poor because of layups and offensive rebounds. If your argument is that will be a problem anyway.. maybe. What I saw was too many drives leading to open threes or layups. Not enough steals to offset.
 
#175      
Hi!

I got back from the game real late last night, and didn't feel like making my run-down post. So here it is. Just some observations:

1) Ayo is the real deal. But he's not perfect. In the 2nd half after we became tired, he went into hero-ball mode on a couple of possessions and just played some real ugly basketball. However, when his body is ready to go and his mind with it, he clearly lives up to his hype. We will not have Ayo for all 4 years, no sirree.

2) We miss Trent badly. Exactly what Trent brings to the table is what we missed the most tonight. We missed a speedy guard with great lateral quickness to contain Maclung. We missed a body to give Ayo a blow. We missed scoring output. We missed another potent scorer to keep the defense honest. Get better soon, TF!

3) Giorgi is a straight upgrade over Michael Finke. He's got Finke's skillset, is faster, and plays with fire. Still commits some freshman mistakes. I think he had 2 moving screens, and those really hurt. But in general, he played with poise, he played with intensity, and he rebounded. He will never be able to be a lane banger to hang with the true centers of the NCAA, but he is more than serviceable and will be a stellar 4-year player for us.

4) Da'monte Williams is explosive. I starkly saw last night what we've been hearing from practice reports, etc. Williams clearly feels much better about his knee, and is making explosive drives to the basket. It's exactly the dimension he needed to add from his game. Williams was incredible last night with tons of hustle plays and some offensive output to boot.

5) Feliz is good, but short. Feliz is an all-around good player, but airmailed a few very easy, open 3's, and in the process of trying to drive to the basket, got badly overwhelmed by height. He has limitations, and the sooner he learns to play around them (especially for the conference season), the better. Feliz is tremendous in transition and only made 1 poor transition decision last night (tried to give it to de la Rosa at the last second - he should have just finished with contact for an and-one).

6) De la Rosa shouldn't have played last night. I question his playtime over Samba. We could have used Samba's quickness in the lane last night, and with his knee still clearly not 100% ready, De la Rosa looked like he was walking through molasses. At one point he got knocked down going after a rebound and was very slow getting up. He favored his knee and limped a few steps. I stopped breathing for a bit.

7) I'm about ready to give up on Kipper. We saw some Good Kipper and some Bad Kipper last night. The Good Kipper was a huge boon to the team. The Bad Kipper gave away the game, as has been extensively discussed here. I'm about ready to pull the plug on Kipper altogether and get Griffin and Jones some quality minutes. By the way, Kipper has permanently lost his role as technical foul free throw shooter, in my book. He went 1/2 again last night. Give it to Ayo or Da'monte instead, Coach.

8) Griffin is better than advertised. I know his box score isn't too flashy, but while out on the floor, he looked like the game was moving at a comfortable pace for him, whereas Tevian was a little bit all over the place yet. Griffin is just really controlled and doesn't have the typical deer-in-headlights look about him. Eager to see him break out of his shell. He's gonna be a good Illini.

9) We are not a good FT shooting team. And it wasn't just one player. Kipper had costly misses. So did Feliz. Even AJ got bit by the bug. I hope they were shooting free throws after the media had emptied out last night.

10) SFC was rockin' last night. If Illinois basketball truly comes back, we are going to pack that house every night. On a random Tuesday night, the place was darn near full, and it was loud. We had ample occasion to speak up to the stripes (but I will emphasize that the team, not the officiating crew, cost us the game).

11) Underwood wore a KSU tie on accident last night.