I was ready for the season to start, but this video makes it MUCH more so.
c’mon season! Let’s go!
I-L-L
Illini Basketball 2019-2020
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I was ready for the season to start, but this video makes it MUCH more so.
c’mon season! Let’s go!
I-L-L
I really don't understand where this idea that Giorgi and Kofi are going to be playing a bunch of minutes together comes from. That is only going to happen if Hamlin is another Giorgi; and Giorgi excels at the 4. The odds of either of those things are not good, and the odds of both of them being true is highly improbable at best. Then Giorgi would have to play the 4 most of the time with Kofi, instead of when Hamlin is at the 5. In all likelihood Giorgi and Kofi will play a max of 5 to maybe 10 minutes together.
Thought the BT Powerhouse article was a reasonable prognostication, but erred in not appreciating the expected value of AF to this team. We could have one of the best 3 guard rotations at the 1-2 in the country this year. We are likewise going to be very strong at the 5 with Kofi and Giorgi. So at the 3-4 we have AG, Tev, Kip, DMW, and BBV. Don't think it takes too much faith to think we can get what we need from that group to be successful, given the surrounding pieces.
Thought the BT Powerhouse article was a reasonable prognostication, but erred in not appreciating the expected value of AF to this team. We could have one of the best 3 guard rotations at the 1-2 in the country this year. We are likewise going to be very strong at the 5 with Kofi and Giorgi. So at the 3-4 we have AG, Tev, Kip, DMW, and BBV. Don't think it takes too much faith to think we can get what we need from that group to be successful, given the surrounding pieces.
My hope is that the Kofi/Giorgi combo is good and efficient enough to start and finish the game together. The middle 30 minutes of the game or so, I’d expect to see one or the other for the most part, exception being to start the second half.
What I will say, as I enter potentially dangerous territory with this, is that we have significant sample size on Giorgi from 15 feet. He was pretty bad for a pretty long time, at free throws. The most open, unguarded, easy 15 foot shot in the game. Now, he did improve a bit after his brother came through, so we have both a reason to hesitate, and a reason for optimism.
I don’t think it’s crazy to say that big ten coaches will make Giorgi first prove he can hit an open jump shot at an efficient percentage first. They know how good he is around the rim, and most will take that trade off until he proves they can’t anymore. And being good coaches, I’m pretty sure they’ll adjust if he can.
The flip side that we’re not talking about is, if kofi is spaces out on the floor while Giorgi is in the low post, how do we punish teams when they sag hard off kofi?
What I will say, as I enter potentially dangerous territory with this, is that we have significant sample size on Giorgi from 15 feet. He was pretty bad for a pretty long time, at free throws. The most open, unguarded, easy 15 foot shot in the game. Now, he did improve a bit after his brother came through, so we have both a reason to hesitate, and a reason for optimism.
I don’t think it’s crazy to say that big ten coaches will make Giorgi first prove he can hit an open jump shot at an efficient percentage first. They know how good he is around the rim, and most will take that trade off until he proves they can’t anymore. And being good coaches, I’m pretty sure they’ll adjust if he can.
The flip side that we’re not talking about is, if kofi is spaces out on the floor while Giorgi is in the low post, how do we punish teams when they sag hard off kofi?
He hits open shots
You can call him the Boss-Man! Good stuff, this kid will pave the way for Hawkins and get him ready as well....with these 2 on the wings/post area with KC and Hamlin being the defensive stopper when in....add those 2-3 guards we are looking at and Ayo has done his job for the ILLINI, he has gotten us back! Oh yea, thanks Trent Frazier for leading/deferring/supporting Ayo in this quest!
I understand the point of what you are saying and it makes sense. GB had the ball all the time at 15 feet and was always guarded. I feel we are to caught up in positions and not what changes will actually happen on each end of the court. I just dont think GBs role on the offensive end of the floor is going to change much with Kofi on the floor. It will just be easier for him since he will have a smaller defender to beat. I think BU has made it clear he isnt going to go away from GBs bread n butter. Kofi will be there to draw the bigger man to the opposite side of the floor and crash the glass. On offense rebounding and drawing the other teams big may be where Kofi has his biggest impact. GB will continue to do his thing like he did in the video I posted earlier often taking th ball to the basket. On Defense there should be a major diff set fence for what GB will be asked to do.
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I think that last point is huge. I don't know what Trent and Ayo's relationship is like, but I've never heard anything bad about it on here. So, I give Trent a lot of credit for making room for Ayo because at times it has seemed to negatively impact his game somewhat. But he's been the perfect team player, and I think by the second half of last season he, Ayo and Feliz were playing very well together.
The biggest change in D I basketball Is the 3pt line being moved back about 1 1/2 feet to the international distance. Before that move if you looked at shot charts you can see that teams just didnt take many 18 foot shots. They would either take a 3 or with in 12 feet or so. It will be interesting to see how this move can space the floor and changes offenses and team shot selection in 2019-20. I would expect less 3s , a lower percentage made, and more emphasis on an inside game, driving, an effective mid range game, and converting at the rim. It will be interesting to compare shot charts to the last few years to this season The 3 pt shot gives smaller teams a better chance for upsets and I think power teams will benefit the most from this change and the Belmonts may not
I wonder how this will impact our line ups and others. It should space the floor even more for guys like Ayo,AF, and others to get to the hole.
I wonder how this will impact our line ups and others. It should space the floor even more for guys like Ayo,AF, and others to get to the hole.
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Oh man, I had forgotten about that. Yeah, that's going to be a major change to the game. A lot more space.
You can definitely see how that would help us offensively, though it could also be problematic for us defensively, the less claustrophobic the offensive end is, the tougher it is to choke a team off with overplays and ball pressure.
It all increases the value of guys like Hutcherson, Grandison and BBV though. Length and shooting, length and shooting, length and shooting. A more NBA-like game.
Yeah, I'm surprised it has not been discussed more but it will be among the first things people notice and talk about when they walk into the first game and see the floor with that new line. It will have an impact. I hope it is a positive one for us and I think it will be.
I think that the spacing will make life difficult on any defense, but my initial thoughts are that pressure defenses will fare better than more conservative ones. There will be more long passes, more players in space that they're not used to playing in, and perhaps less of a penalty for leaving the last man on the perimeter open because threes will be more difficult to hit. For a defense that tries to keep everyone behind the ball, help will be one step further away, which will put a ton of pressure on defenders to execute in one-on-one situations.
Time will tell, and defenses will adjust either way. I think that the x factor with this rule change is not going to be the success rate of guys who are good shooters at the current distance, but the willingness of marginal shooters to continue taking threes from a greater distance. In other words, I think that Frazier won't even notice, but Feliz might.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Yeah your first point makes sense. It's tough to analogize to the NBA since the reasons you can't play our defense in the NBA (elite ballhandlers and drivers up and down rosters, plus the much more daunting game and travel schedules) doesn't really have anything to do with floor spacing per se.
On your second point though, one thing we've learned from the pace and space era of the NBA is that even marginal 3-point shooters are better off letting fly than gumming things up and reducing the floor spacing. The break-even point for 3 point chucking is lower than what conventional wisdom previously held.
Dickie V is a believer!
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I thought the national negativity around our football team this year was wrong. Turns out I was the wrong one.
I think the national hype for basketball has gotten way, way out of hand at this point. Here's hoping I'm wrong on that one too.
Did the women go to the new line for threes?
If it helps us on offense, BU did a crappy job coaching last year. If standing two feet further back on 3's makes us better somehow, why weren't we doing it already?
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Because we'd be passing up easier shots that our opponents could take at the other end.
well here is why they moved the line back as mentioned in this article
The committee said the line was moved to make the lane more available for drives from the perimeter, to slow the trend of making 3-pointers so prevalent and to create more offensive spacing by requiring the defense to cover more of the court.
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports...3-point-line-back-for-first-time-in-a-decade/
I would hope that our 3 main guards shoot it well enough to require to be closely guarded to inhibit not only their shooting but also passing abilities. If that happens and i think it will then i see why Rucks thinks especailly Ayo and AF will only get more lanes to drive to the bucket which they did very well last season.
Also with our added length last season and this season in recruiting i hope that the added length, a years experience for our second year players and Kofi in the middle that our Defense is much improved. It should be but we shall see. The good news it is causes problems for our opposition too.
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I'm as big of a three-pointer evangelist as you will find, so no argument there. Regardless of how marginal shooters react to the new line, they'll adapt in about three years or so and the point will be moot.
If the rule change and added space keeps teams like MSU from body-checking cutters and impeding movement away from the ball, it'll have done more to improve college basketball than basically any other potential rule change. (That includes simply calling fouls when defenders illegally impede movement, because I'd much rather just watch basketball than a parade to the foul line.)
Part of me would like to see the three-pointer go away completely, or at least get moved so far back that it's no longer the dominant offensive strategy. Shooting the three clearly makes strategic sense as the game is played today, but from an aesthetic point of view I'd prefer watching Feliz take it to the rack or Giorgi work with his back to the basket. It'll never happen, though if I were Ice Cube I would (among other things) turn the Big 3 into a 21 league, complete with poison 11.
You can barely describe the few ambitious prognostications to this point as "hype"....more like hope....and we all know that..
To me it seems like the national pundits are hyping Ayo even more than we are... that's where most of the team hype is stemming from. I know Ayo is darn good, but I did not expect him to be a preseason All American, let alone a preseason 1st team guy. CBS is also calling him the best NBA prospect in the conference, and a potential top 10 pick. Now there's some hype. I didn't see any of that coming.
If that hype is real, then we are for real. Great point guard play goes a long way. On that note, I do believe Ayo, Andres & a dash of Trent at 1 make up the best PG rotation in the conference. I think that's huge. It's a guard's game
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
The pre 3 point line game was totally clogged in the paint, but that was also a lifetime ago in basketball strategy terms.
They should give it a whirl in the NIT or something.
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