EIU 80, Illinois 67 (Exhibition) POSTGAME

#127      

icengineer

Southern Illinois
So typical of this board to try and rationalize a really ugly early season performance. Just like how people said we had a shot at a bowl game after we barely beat Ball State in football. Don't get me wrong, I think we'll get better over time. But this loss is disappointing and my expectations for the season definitely went down because of it. Hope I'm wrong and this was just a fluke.

Also, I didn't see the game but what was the crowd like? A rowdy away crowd definitely could have been the difference for a young team.

Hmmm, you didn't see the game, but feel you can critique it? It's not early season, it's preseason, there is a big difference in how games are managed by the staff. What were your expectations before this game? Did you post a prediction in the season prediction thread? The game was sold out, it was a good crowd, lots of Illini fans.
 
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#128      
A rowdy away crowd definitely could have been the difference for a young team.

Exhibitions do not mean much, but the concern with this team is not youth IMO. I think our young guards will get much better, I think we will be solid. My concern is that we do not have much in the frontcourt, not a lot of production and not enough depth to go through the entire B10 season. These two deficiencies have nothing do with youth.
 
#129      
cliche, but it is what it is. An exhibition game loss against a decent team. These guys have a ways to go to get an identity. Not terribly concerned, to be honest. And the schedule is weak so we will have an early season margin for error in many contests. Hoping we get established before we have difficult games, but time will tell. Lotta problems with this team are fixable IMO.
 
#131      
cliche, but it is what it is. An exhibition game loss against a decent team. These guys have a ways to go to get an identity. Not terribly concerned, to be honest. And the schedule is weak so we will have an early season margin for error in many contests. Hoping we get established before we have difficult games, but time will tell. Lotta problems with this team are fixable IMO.

This was not a decent team that they lost to. It was a team that won’t even be in conversation for the 3rd tier postseason tournament. With that said, it is early and I fully expect the team to show improvement as the season goes on. We are most likely not an NCAA tournament team this year and with what we have returning we should not expect to be. The goal this year should be to create an identity and blaze a path for the future.
 
#133      
I saw an EIU team that knew there offense but turned the ball over 17 times, and couldn't score without hitting a lot of threes. And making all but 2 free throws didn't hurt either.

One encouraging stat for the Illini is that we hit our free throws too.
 
#134      
This was not a decent team that they lost to. It was a team that won’t even be in conversation for the 3rd tier postseason tournament. With that said, it is early and I fully expect the team to show improvement as the season goes on. We are most likely not an NCAA tournament team this year and with what we have returning we should not expect to be. The goal this year should be to create an identity and blaze a path for the future.
regardles of "decent" or not....this is a great learning opportunity and I think it will help save us one or two lapses down the line.

that if we lose focus, bad things can happen against weaker teams. they were hot in 2d half and we were not. we tried zone and they hit 3s...we couldnt buy a basket and were getting out of our flow. The system on offense relies on everyone locked in...one player losing focus makes it unravel. alot of film to learn from here.
 
#139      

jmilt7

Waukegan
Did Spicey G or Aaron Jordan get a lot of playing time?

I think someone mentioned in the post game interview that AJ got about 7 minutes. It was kind of a statement/question in that he wanted to know if AJ would get more in the next game. BU said something along the lines of, "maybe". And I thought I heard or read that Spicy G got 5 and MV got 1.
 
#141      
I think it's even more typical of the board to immediately self destruct over an exhibition game loss

I propose a new moniker for some of the participants in the loyalty forums... Sky-Clubbers (as in "the sky is falling")
* Membership would be voluntary and open to all... though a serious commitment to see the "glass half-empty" would be highly encouraged.
* Clubbing others that don't hold to a particular pessimistic viewpoint would also be encouraged and would accrue "Skyfalls" points.
* Finally, various levels could be achieved through original "clubbings" (silver, gold, platinum etc.). Pile-on clubbers, however, would not receive "Skyfalls" points .

What do ya'll think?
 
#142      
For anyone who cares, realized I missed a couple spread possessions in the first ten minutes. First one, we scored with Leron attacking off the 2 man game for a layup. Second time we hit kipper on a post up as the second cutter. We missed, but got a good shot out of it.
 
#143      
For anyone who cares...
*raises hand*

I appreciate your breaking down what happened when we ran the actual offense. When Underwood was hired, I took the time to watch SFA and OSU offensive sets. The tale of two halves in our exhibition game, I thought even upon watching through periscope and later that guy's Facebook, could be summarized by the lack of organized spread offense. The first half wasn't 100% System, but there was some. And we did alright as a team, and some players did great. Kipper was on pace for something like 14 rebounds and 25 points (holy crap). The second half was putrid YMCA ball, even worse than Groce's worst halves.

So some of you are free to dismiss apologists for the poor showing in this exhibition game - and, in fact, I am disappointed the team wasn't doing the things I'm sure the staff is telling them to do - but I bet the team got a vivid wake-up slap about what happens when they don't execute the gameplan. And then, yes, I'm sure Underwood may have raised his voice at them later and perhaps supervised a strenuous practice or two.

What I'm actually concerned about after this minuscule n=1 sample is the lack of a floor leader and 0 Finke rebounds.
 
#145      

KrushCow31

Former Krush Cow
Chicago, IL
Impressive that Williams started. It's hard to stop the state school's little brother in the biggest game of their season when they are shooting 54% and 52% from the 3.
 
#147      
If teaching moment does not seem way to develop swagger.
Freshmen 6/20 shooting
Finke's rebounding would not seem to be a problem when we got 22 of 24 defensive rebounds and 10 offensive rebounds. Uconn won a national championship with a 6'1"" guard leading the team in rebounding with a 7' center.
16 of 24 field goals were assisted.
Personal fouls 21/19 not a good sign for either offense or defense.
Alstork had a lousy game by the stats.
Pretty discouraging to fans as it puts us back to realism.
 
#148      
Impressive that Williams started. It's hard to stop the state school's little brother in the biggest game of their season when they are shooting 54% and 52% from the 3.

That’s just defensive breakdown unfortunately. Our defense is supposed to force anything but straight line passes to screw up offensive rhythm and give our guys time to recover from their aggressive off ball defense to their man. If a team shoots 50% from 3, it’s because they were taking “warmup jumpers” where they felt so in rhythm and uncontested it’s like pregame warmups.
 
#149      

Captain Bubbles

Fairfield, IL
If Illini fans are over-reacting to this loss, they shouldn't be. Underwood and his staff now know what to fix and improve to get better. This is a young team that is still finding a leader.
 
#150      

haasi

New York
If Illini fans are over-reacting to this loss, they shouldn't be. Underwood and his staff now know what to fix and improve to get better. This is a young team that is still finding a leader.



I agree with those saying that Underwood scheduled this exhibition to get ammunition to use on the team to motivate them. But the fact that he needed to do that shows that we’re not very far along at this point. Agree that UW knows what we need to fix. But by all accounts- we need to fix a whole lot. Hopefully we make it out unscathed against the cupcakes and make enough progress in the next month that we can compete when real opponents come around. I think it’s gonna be a few months until we’re really competitive- like February.