EIU 80, Illinois 67 (Exhibition) POSTGAME

#29      
Underwood is going to have a lot of bad habits to break from this team and the influence of John Groce. Getting rid of that garbage 1 on 1 stuff and truly get this team to play with toughness, grit, and a will to win.

C'mon man. More than half of the hero ball was guys who never played for Groce.

The "it's just one (exhibition) game" mentality feels appropriate.

The "wow, they played so bad it must be all Groce's fault" is ridiculous.
 
#31      

Ken

chitown
Im not really ready to take anything from these exhibitions games yet . The result should not be surprising as EIU returns at least 5 players from their rotation last year including several starters and the rest of the squad is filled out with quite a few Juco transfers.
 
#34      
At least I did not get my hopes up too high voting NIT. Hope I get proven wrong, but losing like this is pretty scary.

Hopefully BU had a good reason to get us out on the road early and we learn a lot from this. Othrwise it is going to be a long season.
 
#35      
Im not really ready to take anything from these exhibitions games yet . The result should not be surprising as EIU returns at least 5 players from their rotation last year including several starters and the rest of the squad is filled out with quite a few Juco transfers.

But at the end of the year, that group of guys is still going to be the 200th best team in MBB.
 
#37      

skyIdub

Winged Warrior
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#40      
I know this will sound like serious rationalizing, but here goes. I would rather have a bad loss like this in front of another schools fan base with a week of practice to go for this group, then a fairly easy win. This could not have felt good, and the video of it will make them feel even worse. And it doesn't effect our record. This is exactly what Underwood needs to hopefully get this teams attention.
 
#41      
I'm normally one of the more pessimistic of fans but I actually don't mind this loss. First, it will get the attention of the players in practice and ratchet up the urgency to get their heads out of their !!! and start listening to the staff. Secondly, we have some decent time before our first games and they should be games that we can win. This is going to take some time folks, but we WILL get better. I expect with a young team and a new system to see mistakes. How quickly Underwood can get these things corrected will determine how far we go. Gotta get these Groce habits flushed out of the system...
 
#42      

EfremWinters84

S. Carolina
Stolen from @IlliniToffee but...

"In a way it's impressive to have the worst teams in the conference in both revenue sports"
If this comes to fruition, it will be perhaps the first time ever in the history of Illinois sports. I'm not going to research it, but I can't recall finishing last in both.

Even the bad Serge team rallied to finish 2nd in the Big Ten tourney as I recall. (Not sure how well the football team did that season).
 
#43      

EfremWinters84

S. Carolina
I know this will sound like serious rationalizing, but here goes. I would rather have a bad loss like this in front of another schools fan base with a week of practice to go for this group, then a fairly easy win. This could not have felt good, and the video of it will make them feel even worse. And it doesn't effect our record. This is exactly what Underwood needs to hopefully get this teams attention.
I agree with this. (Can't wait until next Friday!)
 
#44      

Dan

Admin
Underwood: "Didn't count."

Underwood: This is a big kudos to the NCAA for allowing us to play these games. Commend EIU, Spoonhour for doing it.

Underwood: This speaks volumes to what our country is about when we can support a terrific cause.

Underwood: I knew this would be tough. It's why I wanted to play Jay. Terrific coach. 75 percent of team back. Tough team.

Underwood: The most important thing for us tonight, putting on a jersey with bright lights on in front of people.

Underwood: We've got a lot of film to watch, a lot of improving to do.

Underwood: EIU did nothing different defensively in 2H. They play hard and guard.

Underwood: Leadership. Where's it coming? Who's going to provide it?

Underwood: We played pretty. We played like a finesse, pretty team. That's not what I'm about. That's on me.

Underwood: Finke and Black had just one rebound in first half. That'll tell you a lot.

Underwood: Mark Smith was by far our best player in practice. Played poor in last scrimmage. Terrific today besides TOs

Underwood: Moments like today help coach leadership. Moments of adversity show who they are. Tonight's a good thing.

Underwood: This team does not have a guy who's been the guy on a high-major team.

Underwood: Easy to predict this outcome based on what we saw this week during practice.

Asked #illini Underwood if he almost enjoyed this win bc it gives him coaching ammunition: "You figured me out."

Underwood: I enjoy when I get guys at their lowest. You have to find out who people really are. I'd rather do it now than in January

Underwood: Not a big shot-blocking team. Right now, that's not who we are. We have to guard the rim with charges and perimeter D

Underwood: I'm trying to figure out what combination worked on defense.

Underwood: Probably should've gotten Matic in there a little more. Played well in practice.

Underwood: People make way too much about an exhibition game. Not a lot of us coaches worry about it. Look for tendencies, identity.

Underwood: I'm disappointed in our effort tonight and really disappointed in our execution.

Underwood: We've got to get Kipper making tough plays.Can't double-clutch. Gotta get dialed in defensively.

Underwood: The one thing I'm most disappointed in is they outhustled us, outfought us. Winning plays are effort.

Underwood: "That's on me. That'll get fixed. That's nothing I'll tolerate."

Underwood: Mark Smith a natural leader. You'll see him evolve in a lot of ways.

Underwood: Alstork has chance to be elite defender. Had a tough start. He's a vet. He's had tough nights.

https://twitter.com/JWerner247
 
#46      
Didn't play well obviously, but we also have to remember BU was doing a lot of experimenting in this game too. If he played to win then I'm guessing it goes down to the wire instead of them pulling away.

Still excited to see this team evolve. Question is when not if. Pretty much everything is exactly the opposite of Groce. Crashing the boards hard, playing fast, denying defense, very few pick n rolls on offense offense. I can't think of one thing schematically that is the same.
 
#47      
I was preoccupied with other things tonight so I didn't really get a chance to follow the game live. For those of you that did, what's your unbiased take on EIU after seeing them tonight?

I knew that they had 4 of their starters coming back and the one that wasn't was their leading scorer last year. I'm an EIU alum (as if it wasn't evident with some of what I post on here already lol) and I'm curious to see what you all think of this team going forward this season.

I know that EIU has another exhibition game Monday night against Southern Indiana before opening the season at Nebraska next Saturday night.
 
#48      

JFGsCoffeeMug

BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
I couldn't stand the 6 Turnivers from Lucas and 5 from alstork. Any guess on Mark Smiths minutes? 32??? The kid needs the ball more.

From what I saw, the turnovers were mostly due to the team believing they need to play fast and make quick passes, but not really understanding how to do that correctly yet. That should improve with experience.

At least, that's the hope. :)
 
#49      
Listening to the presser. Finke and Black are in the doghouse.

That's generally what coaches do. Critique the upperclassmen leaders because they can handle it. Praise the freshmen for what they did well to build them up. I don't think anyone on the team really played great. Even Smith had a ton of turnovers, bad shots, and defensive break downs.
 
#50      
That's generally what coaches do. Critique the upperclassmen leaders because they can handle it. Praise the freshmen for what they did well to build them up. I don't think anyone on the team really played great. Even Smith had a ton of turnovers, bad shots, and defensive break downs.

He had 2 turnovers. A ton?????? Saw 2 forced shots at the most from Smith. The pull-up 3 and a shot in the lane. Underwood wants to draw contact in the lane.