Illini Basketball 2017-2018

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#726      
Correct. I think there is some dark magic with Groce that prevents many of his players to get in shooting rhythm. Tate is a good example. Cosby suddenly forgot how to shoot at all after he came. Maybe it's not just his rotation pattern but something more to that.

I remembered one game when Finke was trying to shoot a corner three, Groce shouted at him and Finke cancelled the shooting motion and was totally lost. It ended up a travel of Finke. I was so pissed of seeing that and came to realize why Groce's player does not progress at all.

Hill was probably the only player that is immune to this dark magic but if he is coached by some better guys maybe he has been an all big-ten player and playing NBA right now.

What else are we going to hear on this board? Groce did not let Tate get into a rhythm? If nothing else, Tate played more minutes that he probably should have played under Groce. Mav did not greatly improve under Groce, exceeding expectations? Hill would be in the NBA? Hill had a great career, the reasons that he is not in the NBA have nothing to do with Groce.

Revisionist theorists at best.
 
#727      
Correct. I think there is some dark magic with Groce that prevents many of his players to get in shooting rhythm. Tate is a good example. Cosby suddenly forgot how to shoot at all after he came. Maybe it's not just his rotation pattern but something more to that.

Wasn't Starks the career 3pt leader at Oregon St? ... you could be on to something.
 
#728      
Correct. I think there is some dark magic with Groce that prevents many of his players to get in shooting rhythm. Tate is a good example. Cosby suddenly forgot how to shoot at all after he came. Maybe it's not just his rotation pattern but something more to that.

People said this about Weber too. The more he got on the hot seat, the more tense he seemed to manage the game, and guys with short leases were put under more pressure. I actually give credence to this myself, although I could never prove it.

I do know that, no less of a coach than Brad Stevens has commented on this phenomenon, and said he worked hard to stay relaxed on the sidelines as a result. He believed that the coaches attitude, body language, etc., subtly affected the players, and that in order to get them in the best space mentally, he needed to develop his own attitude into one that was best at fostering focus among his players.

Nick Saban is another top coach that has also put a lot of effort into psychology to help his players.
 
#729      
Not sure where to put this, but NW debuts at #19 in the preseason AP Poll. Say what? Had a great season last year, was gifted a tourney win and then gave Gonzaga a good run, but are they really deserving of that ranking?
 
#731      
Well I really don't know what type of record we will have this year or if we will make the ncaa.....but I want to be able to say at the end of the season that this team played well, won some games we probably had no business of winning and played better teams to the wire in most cases....it was a team that really no one wanted to face the last part of the season and has me excited for next year. If I can truthfully say those things at the end of the season then this year will have been successful IMO
 
#733      
Well I really don't know what type of record we will have this year or if we will make the ncaa.....but I want to be able to say at the end of the season that this team played well, won some games we probably had no business of winning and played better teams to the wire in most cases....it was a team that really no one wanted to face the last part of the season and has me excited for next year. If I can truthfully say those things at the end of the season then this year will have been successful IMO

If all this happens and we don't make the tourney, good chance that means we also lost some games we had no business losing.
 
#734      
People said this about Weber too. The more he got on the hot seat, the more tense he seemed to manage the game, and guys with short leases were put under more pressure. I actually give credence to this myself, although I could never prove it.

I do know that, no less of a coach than Brad Stevens has commented on this phenomenon, and said he worked hard to stay relaxed on the sidelines as a result. He believed that the coaches attitude, body language, etc., subtly affected the players, and that in order to get them in the best space mentally, he needed to develop his own attitude into one that was best at fostering focus among his players.

Nick Saban is another top coach that has also put a lot of effort into psychology to help his players.
I would not call Nick Saban "calm" on the field. He is very intense....even when up many touchdowns. Brad Stevens is calm.
 
#735      
Fans always have an exaggerated view of depth and utilization. Often, depth and getting into rhythm are contradictory. Playing deep into the bench most of the times means that substitutions are more frequent with players expected to perform in shorter spurts at a time.

If you read comments in this section, many believe we will go 10 or 11 deep with meaningful minutes. Reality is that we will probably end up with 8-9 main rotation at best.

At the end of the day though, no matter whether you play deep or not, much of the success in B1G will depend on weather our top 5-6 players exceed expectations (by outside observers) independent of rankings. The B1G is really heavy on very good coaches, so we need to upgrade talent moving forward because just outsmarting the other coaches with just tactics or system will not work. You need the talent on your top 5-6 with no visible positional gaps.
 
#736      

EJ33

San Francisco
Correct. I think there is some dark magic with Groce that prevents many of his players to get in shooting rhythm. Tate is a good example. Cosby suddenly forgot how to shoot at all after he came. Maybe it's not just his rotation pattern but something more to that.

I remembered one game when Finke was trying to shoot a corner three, Groce shouted at him and Finke cancelled the shooting motion and was totally lost. It ended up a travel of Finke. I was so pissed of seeing that and came to realize why Groce's player does not progress at all.

Hill was probably the only player that is immune to this dark magic but if he is coached by some better guys maybe he has been an all big-ten player and playing NBA right now.

Maybe, but the poor shooting percentages under Groce were mostly due to the fact that his offense was great at generating hard shots instead of easy ones. Contrast that with a Beilein coached team where it looks like he makes his players better shooters, mostly because of the offense they run.
 
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#737      
I was confident after the Spring recruiting season and before the B1G announced 2 league games early December. Tough to get a team with 6 New faces, a new coach, and a new offensive and defensive system ready to play quality teams by December 1 and 3.

Lose both of those conference games and it is a really difficult path to 6th or 7th in the B1G. Split those games and my confidence goes way up.

I don't see how losing early in the season against 2 good teams is going to make it too difficult to make the tournament. 0-2 is nothing to worry about, especially against 2 good teams like NW and Maryland. BU proved that when he started 0-6 last season and Groce proved that when he went like 1-8 in his first season here. 0-2 is pretty easy to bounce back from.
 
#738      
I don't see how losing early in the season against 2 good teams is going to make it too difficult to make the tournament. 0-2 is nothing to worry about, especially against 2 good teams like NW and Maryland. BU proved that when he started 0-6 last season and Groce proved that when he went like 1-8 in his first season here. 0-2 is pretty easy to bounce back from.

I agree. While beating NW should be feasible, at this point I am chalking up games against Maryland as losses no matter what time of the year.

I'd be more worried if the games were against Iowa and PSU.
 
#739      

BananaShampoo

Captain 'Paign
Phoenix, AZ
People said this about Weber too. The more he got on the hot seat, the more tense he seemed to manage the game, and guys with short leases were put under more pressure. I actually give credence to this myself, although I could never prove it.

I do know that, no less of a coach than Brad Stevens has commented on this phenomenon, and said he worked hard to stay relaxed on the sidelines as a result. He believed that the coaches attitude, body language, etc., subtly affected the players, and that in order to get them in the best space mentally, he needed to develop his own attitude into one that was best at fostering focus among his players.

Nick Saban is another top coach that has also put a lot of effort into psychology to help his players.

Sure, there's those examples you mentioned along with the Phil Jackson's of the world, but then how do you explain the Bob Knight's and Frank Martin's and Bo Ryan's of the world who have/had far less than calm demeanors and still manage/d phenomenal results on the court. I'm sure there is some influence on players psyches but IMO it's overstated. Of course, talent can transcend a whole lot of that and having players with the right mental makeup from the beginning certainly helps a lot.
 
#740      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
Also looks like NW has a freshman named Malnati from Northfield. Gotta be a pizza kid, right?

Tino Malnati is indeed the son of Rick Malnati (of Lou's fame and a damn good hoops coach). Tino is a walkon and a redshirt frosh. Good HS player (New Trier), doubt if he'll see significant tick this season.
 
#741      

jmilt7

Waukegan
Sure, there's those examples you mentioned along with the Phil Jackson's of the world, but then how do you explain the Bob Knight's and Frank Martin's and Bo Ryan's of the world who have/had far less than calm demeanors and still manage/d phenomenal results on the court. I'm sure there is some influence on players psyches but IMO it's overstated. Of course, talent can transcend a whole lot of that and having players with the right mental makeup from the beginning certainly helps a lot.

Perhaps the difference is that the coach, Weber, started to change his demeanor, maybe even subtly but enough for some players to pick up. As the original poster stated, "The more he got on the hot seat, the more tense he seemed to manage the game, and guys with short leases were put under more pressure." Bob, Bo and Frank are always like that. They didn't change, mostly because they were not under pressure of being fired. Weber started off whatever way he was and then got tenser and maybe more irritable as he saw that his time at Illinois was getting close to the end.

By the way, just playing devil's advocate. I don't know anything.
 
#742      

jmilt7

Waukegan
In case anyone is looking ahead to Dec. 31 matchup against Grand Canyon University here's an overview of the team and probable starters. Also a brief mention of Illinois ("Even middle-of-the-road Illinois would be a solid Power-5 win for Grand Canyon to build upon").

https://bustingbrackets.com/2017/11/01/grand-canyon-basketball-antelopes-2017-18-season-preview/

Also, good luck with the webpage. It was difficult to navigate among other things.. Busting Brackets needs to hire a decent webmaster for their site who can make it work with all browsers and all platforms.
 
#743      
In case anyone is looking ahead to Dec. 31 matchup against Grand Canyon University here's an overview of the team and probable starters. Also a brief mention of Illinois ("Even middle-of-the-road Illinois would be a solid Power-5 win for Grand Canyon to build upon").

https://bustingbrackets.com/2017/11/01/grand-canyon-basketball-antelopes-2017-18-season-preview/

Also, good luck with the webpage. It was difficult to navigate among other things.. Busting Brackets needs to hire a decent webmaster for their site who can make it work with all browsers and all platforms.

Grand Canyon will be no pushover. If you ever get to Phx, go check out a game, the atmosphere is outstanding.:chief:
 
#744      
What I'm hoping for out of this team this year is consistency.With Groce we lost so many games (Winthrop, North Florida, Chattanooga) that we shouldn't have. Can we just pretend that the 2015-2016 season didn't happen?

Looking at Underwood's one season at OSU I feel like he won the games that he should have or at least made up for games his team lost for example OSU lost to KSU at home, but beat them in Manhattan.

I just want to see Illinois make the tournament consistently...so like every year. :D

Also just an FYI, Underwood's Stephen F. Austin team beat Shaka Smart's VCU squad in the 2014 NCAA Tournament. Just a fun fact. :thumb:
 
#745      

BananaShampoo

Captain 'Paign
Phoenix, AZ
Grand Canyon will be no pushover. If you ever get to Phx, go check out a game, the atmosphere is outstanding.:chief:

Yep. They've probably been the best b-ball ticket in town the past couple years. Majerle has really built something there.
 
#747      
Agree that those are huge, huge games.

But I was certain that last year's team was not NCAA-caliber and damned if they didn't almost prove me wrong.

I'll keep banging the drum - we think we know how much of a coaching disadvantage we were at last year. We're really only going to find out later this month.

I don't think this can be overstated. It should be really interesting to see how the team responds out of the gate and as the season progresses.
 
#748      

breadman

Herndon, VA
The one thing I want to see eliminated for this team is the mid-season slump rut we have been getting into. We would win early, get into that rut, then try to win out at the end for a really annoying roller coaster league season. Let's hope BU can get rid of it.
 
#749      
The one thing I want to see eliminated for this team is the mid-season slump rut we have been getting into. We would win early, get into that rut, then try to win out at the end for a really annoying roller coaster league season. Let's hope BU can get rid of it.

We dumped January John and acquired Brand New Year Brad, who wins all of his January games. Just don't look at OK State last year.
 
#750      
The one thing I want to see eliminated for this team is the mid-season slump rut we have been getting into. We would win early, get into that rut, then try to win out at the end for a really annoying roller coaster league season. Let's hope BU can get rid of it.
One thing is for sure. The customary no-show coming out of halftime act this team pulled during the Groce years will be a thing of the past. Underwood would sentence them to death by treadmill.
 
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