It's going to be a long, disappointing, painful season.
Brad Underwood’s system is failing in spectacular fashion. Adapt and survive, refuse and fail. It appears Underwood is choosing not to adapt. It appears Brad Underwood is going to fail and it doesn’t look like he will be coaching at Illinois long.
Agree - too much dribbling, handoff at pinch post does not work, and for crying out loud we don't need to pick up players at half court unless we plan on trapping - it just exposes us and when I saw Giorgi rushing out to the half court line with (i think it was) 4 fouls already I cringed. Oh yeah, AND STOP FOULING - we can't put teams at the line 30 times - it was the difference in the game yesterday both in points from the line and time on the bench for key players.I think he did adapt at Nebraska. BU went away from his pinch-post in the second half. I suspect the kids are not executing. No matter what they are taught. I suspect it is just too much "me" ball.
If Tevian Jones didn't do something to get kicked out of the school, playing him.
It's going to be a long, disappointing, painful season.
I think he did adapt at Nebraska. BU went away from his pinch-post in the second half. I suspect the kids are not executing. No matter what they are taught. I suspect it is just too much "me" ball.
It's too much "me" ball, because our offense doesn't promote "WE" ball....it is stagnant, it is very predictable, it is elementary at best a majority of time...all of which leads to loss of seconds and well ME ball out of necessity.
It also doesn't help when our 3 guards only 2 know what a floater looks like (Frazier), and out of 3 guards 2 only know what driving the ball in to far is = bad results!
On D against Nebraska....we actually held them significantly below their 60% season avg on 2p attempts; their 3P shots dropped at a over 40% clip which is above their season avg of 33%.
On Nebraska...if Ayo plays his normal game and we cut out a couple of the dumb fouls, we are within a bucket or two at the end and have a chance.
Kudos to Giorgi and KN for keeping us within reach in the 2d half.
I really can’t understand why everyone is so stunned at the results so far. Everyone who knows anything about college basketball picked this team to finish ahead of Rutgers and that’s it. You can rant about coaching, the system and the players not giving enough effort if you would like. It doesn’t change the most important thing to a basketball team. The overall talent level of the team. Screaming about recruiting and talent evaluation makes sense to me. The rest of it is just silly in my opinion.
If we don't beat Akron week 1, I know which team will have a new coach first.Which team is going to have a winning record first.....football or basketball
When people twist themselves in knots arguing that all of our recruits are actually diamonds in the rough that our super smart coach noticed and no one else did, admitting we lack talent is a tough pill to swallow.I really can’t understand why everyone is so stunned at the results so far. Everyone who knows anything about college basketball picked this team to finish ahead of Rutgers and that’s it. You can rant about coaching, the system and the players not giving enough effort if you would like. It doesn’t change the most important thing to a basketball team. The overall talent level of the team. Screaming about recruiting and talent evaluation makes sense to me. The rest of it is just silly in my opinion.
I know nobody wants it to take that long or be that painful, but I think that's what it realistically takes. If we have tons of turnover or fail to recruit and then don't see progress next year I think Whitman will pull the plug on BU (depending on the buy-out he has). The fact that Hoiberg just became a free agent must have Whitman salivating ala Lovie Smith. Illinois NBA ties, proven college recruiting and results at IAST. Now, would he ever consider the Illini?
I think this falls completely on Underwood! Bad offensive and defensive schemes, bad player retention and bad recruiting. I like Giorgi as much as the other fan boys on here but he doesn't start for another Big Ten team and probably can't start for any other Power 5 team.
When people twist themselves in knots arguing that all of our recruits are actually diamonds in the rough that our super smart coach noticed and no one else did, admitting we lack talent is a tough pill to swallow.
Agree on TU, terrible look to sit Ayo for coaches son. Seems like a very Bobby Knight move.
slow start to games
slow start to 2nd half
porous defense
slow passing on perimeter on offense
I watch other teams attack on offense...why don't we do it ?
I watch other teams stay in front of their opponents on D...why don't we do it ?
Painfully hard to watch the games now and hard to get excited about upcoming games...a new low for me after 60 + years being an Illini fan.
I'm sure I''ll still tune in and root them on, but it's becoming apparent we either don't have the right players or the right coach or ........BOTH !
I loved the “they're winners” narrative. That’s digging deep to find some positives on a lowly ranked recruiting class. Dee Brown didn’t win anything in High School. It doesn’t hurt I guess, but talent is the important thing.
I'm fine using that excuse, but eventually (not saying right now), if attrition remains as high as it has, this excuse holds zero water. I give BU another couple years, but like football, theres gotta be some clear signs we are moving forward. So far, I have only seen steps back.So it can't be that we have a bunch of freshmen and sophomores that aren't ready to compete at this level?
I'll see your "winners" and raise you "guys who want to be here."
How much longer before we get normal games from Ayo and Trent again? This is the part that confuses me most. I thought we were strong in the backcourt and and weak in the frontcourt. What changed, and when?