illinimike
- Wheaton, IL
That was a fun game. I'd love to see them take better care of the ball, but overall it was a good win.
Illinois 75, BYU 73 POSTGAME
BYU is not that "young". Keep in mind most of their guys are older than their listed school year because they go on their 2 year mission. Mika and Emery played in the same high school class as Hill, Tate, Morgan, etc. They would be listed as seniors had they not gone on their missions. Haws is only 1 year younger than them. And they all played together in high school so have that added bonus of knowing each other's game for many years.
12 turnovers isn't bad but it seemed like they came at bad times.
I read through the posts and have a few comments:
Mika won't be back next year if he keep playing like he is now. He's one of the top power forwards in the nation.
Illinois is really good. We have depth, size and experience. We are only missing top tier quickness at the guard position and a rim protector. We can score with anybody.
Teams game plan to stop Malcolm Hill. He is stopable, but still a great contributor. His performance, as long as he's making good decisions, has been stellar in the team concept. His stats will vary a lot because of how teams defend him.
We out game planned BYU. And even with that Mika had 20+...
Mika won't be back next year if he keep playing like he is now. He's one of the top power forwards in the nation.
Illinois is really good. We have depth, size and experience. We are only missing top tier quickness at the guard position and a rim protector. We can score with anybody.
Teams game plan to stop Malcolm Hill. He is stopable, but still a great contributor. His performance, as long as he's making good decisions, has been stellar in the team concept. His stats will vary a lot because of how teams defend him.
We out game planned BYU. And even with that Mika had 20+...
Mav had to be careful with how physical he could get with mika because he was in foul trouble, as was any other big trying to guard him. Pretty much had to let him do what he wanted and hope for rebounds. Refs were brutal calling ticky tack stuff. I thought he played pretty smart.
This is a game I will re-watch again, sometimes I'm wrong from my initial observations. Taking the emotion out of it makes a difference.
1. It was an entertaining game to watch, we have a balance team of true position players. We have a legit PG, SG, SF, PF, and C. We haven't had this for many years. We also have depth.
2. Groce said we either play lights out or bone-headed. The team did both. First 15-20 minutes they passed well, fed the post, spaced well, and shot well. They made it easier for BYU to almost win the game by taking quick shots and not defending well at the end (minus 2 steals). With a 7 point lead you need to draw fouls and/or take the clock under 10 seconds each possession. Wisconsin has done this well for years.
3. So glad to have Tracy and Thorne back from injury, they both has exceeded my expectations. Thorne still looks heavy but I think he is getting in better shape. Tracy gives us the ability to drive and shoot the 3 from the PG position. We have lacked this for years.
4. Malcolm and Tracy are awesome, some of their decision making has to be cleaned up during critical part of the game.
5. Mika is a very good college player. He is a tweener in a good sense. Bigger than PF and quicker than C to guard. Many of his points were "slop" just force a shot near the basket while heavily guarded and hope it falls in.
6. Like what I saw from DJ in limited minutes. Really liked the line-up of Thorne, Finke, DJ, Malcolm, and Abrams. Gives you outside shooting, a tall SG, a true center andn DJ working gap and the baseline. We needed DJ in the second half against the zone. Groce is going to have to give him minutes to develop him and improve his confidence.
7. Can't go back in time but Nunn would of helped in this game. JCL needs to devleop a game in which he can drive and pull up for mid range or lay up.
8. We are NCAA bound with 10 non-conference wins and 9-9 record IMHO. Many teams are carrying bad losses and multiple losses due to tougher scheduling than the past when everyone played cupcakes non-conference.
9. We controlled the tempo of the game which was important, especially early on.
A Mizzou win and 9-9 record puts us on the fence to get into the BT. This team is an NCAA type team so I hope they continue to improve and end up with 10 plus BT wins and several BTT wins for a better seed.
1. It was an entertaining game to watch, we have a balance team of true position players. We have a legit PG, SG, SF, PF, and C. We haven't had this for many years. We also have depth.
2. Groce said we either play lights out or bone-headed. The team did both. First 15-20 minutes they passed well, fed the post, spaced well, and shot well. They made it easier for BYU to almost win the game by taking quick shots and not defending well at the end (minus 2 steals). With a 7 point lead you need to draw fouls and/or take the clock under 10 seconds each possession. Wisconsin has done this well for years.
3. So glad to have Tracy and Thorne back from injury, they both has exceeded my expectations. Thorne still looks heavy but I think he is getting in better shape. Tracy gives us the ability to drive and shoot the 3 from the PG position. We have lacked this for years.
4. Malcolm and Tracy are awesome, some of their decision making has to be cleaned up during critical part of the game.
5. Mika is a very good college player. He is a tweener in a good sense. Bigger than PF and quicker than C to guard. Many of his points were "slop" just force a shot near the basket while heavily guarded and hope it falls in.
6. Like what I saw from DJ in limited minutes. Really liked the line-up of Thorne, Finke, DJ, Malcolm, and Abrams. Gives you outside shooting, a tall SG, a true center andn DJ working gap and the baseline. We needed DJ in the second half against the zone. Groce is going to have to give him minutes to develop him and improve his confidence.
7. Can't go back in time but Nunn would of helped in this game. JCL needs to devleop a game in which he can drive and pull up for mid range or lay up.
8. We are NCAA bound with 10 non-conference wins and 9-9 record IMHO. Many teams are carrying bad losses and multiple losses due to tougher scheduling than the past when everyone played cupcakes non-conference.
9. We controlled the tempo of the game which was important, especially early on.
A Mizzou win and 9-9 record puts us on the fence to get into the BT. This team is an NCAA type team so I hope they continue to improve and end up with 10 plus BT wins and several BTT wins for a better seed.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Ridiculous attendance. The promoter (and his equally ridiculous ticket prices) shoulder most of the blame. I hope he (they?) lost his shirt.
You could tell the production crew avoided crowd shots.
Would love to have Mika in an Illini uniform, but I don't see the NBA players others see. He benefited from ticky tack fouls. Those are no go in the NBA, it is brutal down low at the next level.
Don't live in Chicago anymore, so weather probably kept people at home. But probably more the very late start of the game. Even when Illinois was a border #25 team they had no problem drawing a lot of fans against UCLA or Duke. BYU probably wasn't a big draw. Maybe look at a Depaul vs. Northwestern and Illinois vs a good team. 3,000 fans is pretty sad for what used to be a top seller. Great games vs Arizona, Duke, UCLA in the past.
Don't live in Chicago anymore, so weather probably kept people at home. But probably more the very late start of the game. Even when Illinois was a border #25 team they had no problem drawing a lot of fans against UCLA or Duke. BYU probably wasn't a big draw. Maybe look at a Depaul vs. Northwestern and Illinois vs a good team. 3,000 fans is pretty sad for what used to be a top seller. Great games vs Arizona, Duke, UCLA in the past.
Pretty much expected this post from you.. come man, we beat a pretty good team on a neutral court. It doesn't mean that Groce is a great coach, or that we don't have flaws, but it's pretty sad if you can't be happy after this win.
Illini1221
Peru,IL
Just checked the Kenpom rankings and we are still stuck at 66 while BYU is 59. Is this even updated? If not, it makes no sense at all.
Why doesn't it makes sense? Going into the game we were at #67 and BYU was #59, with a projected result of UI 81 BYU 80. We ended up winning 75-73, very close to the predicted result. So no reason to expect the ratings to change much.
Seems about right, a very minuscule jump for beating a similar team in a "neutral" gym. I'd wait until conference season to really start relying on Kenpom though. Dayton is up there at #39 even after their loss. They have 3 losses and played one of the worst offensive halves of basketball I've seen since our 37-33 Penn State loss 6 or 7 years ago. For that matter Northwestern is up there at #46. I'd take the Illini on a neutral court all day against either of those teams.
I think Black's size at his position, at a college level, is fine. Black's biggest problem is playing under control and not picking up easy silly fouls. He often takes himself out of the game, when we desperately need his offensive game.
That was a quality win, although I would imagine that the mood and perspective would have been totally different if the last shot had gone in. But a quality win is a quality win.
Now on to Mizzou, and we can't overlook that game, despite their lack of a quality team this year. We need to keep the intensity up in that game.
I thought Mika played well. His importance to them can be easily seen when the lead went from about 6 to 16 when he picked up his second foul. He came back in at the end of the half and they went on a run. Then played even with him playing the second half.
For his personal game, I think he is a great player. Very polished. I don't think he threw stuff up or benefited from soft fouls. I thought he faced up, ripped or jabbed and got to the rim because he is pretty quick for a strong 6'10. His first face up and baseline rip through that he finished with a Reverse was a thing of beauty.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Black has made huge strides on this front. Up until last night, the aforementioned flaws seemed like a vestige of the past. Fouls 2 & 3 certainly seemed debatable. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if he reverts to form.
Saw the first game again. Can someone tell me why having DJ and Malcolm in at the same time doesn't work. Everytime I've seen it looks damm good. We went on a 16 lead with Abrams, Hill, DJ, Finke, and Thorne. The floor looked very well spaced, gaps were attacked, and multiple scoring options were taken advantage of. DJ as a defender is pretty good, had his hands up on the much smaller SG and gives us another rebounding option.
DJ also runs the baseline given us a backdoor option and once again another chance at 2nd chance points via offensive rebounds. DJ was effective towards the end of the season as a rebounder and using his length. I just hate seeing him on the bench for long stretches of time. When DJ was taken out is when BYU went on a run. I think when we go against top 25 teams we need to see more of DJ, he gives us an athletic and length boost.
DJ also runs the baseline given us a backdoor option and once again another chance at 2nd chance points via offensive rebounds. DJ was effective towards the end of the season as a rebounder and using his length. I just hate seeing him on the bench for long stretches of time. When DJ was taken out is when BYU went on a run. I think when we go against top 25 teams we need to see more of DJ, he gives us an athletic and length boost.
Deleted member 3875
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Guest
AD....are you listening? Crazy pricing. Do they know that MJ wasn't going to be playing?
Good recap. Totally agree with 2. I don't know whether coaching is involved, but we don't always have good clock mgmt.
On 5. Mika drew some fouls that were bad calls. Our bigs,mfor the most part, had good position and didn't reach. Still got called for fouls.
I'd like to see more of DJW also. He's very active, and makes himself available by getting to an open spot.
Deleted member 4960
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Being from Central Illinois, BYU, Chicago State, Georgia are not big enough draws for me to drive, get a hotel room and pay high ticket prices, I miss the days of playing Kansas and other high caliber schools, even though Illinois would get waxed.
Black is still the only one on the team averaging more than 3 PFs per game. He has made strides alright, but he needs to stay in the game longer at critical junctions, especially against quality teams. I thought the flow of the game changed yesterday when he picked up his fouls in the first half, mainly due to the fact that he was a big factor in our offensive game early on. In addition to his offensive game, we need his rebounding. We often say that his fouls seem questionable (not just this game, but in past years) but I think that is because his fouls are often silly and unnecessary. JMO.
The Sprouting Divot
Invisible and Bulletproof
- Miracle Mile
What were the ticket prices?
Lot I agree with in this. Front court defense just isn't good enough. The lapses in energy, toughness and smart play overall stand out as much as anything I see in this team.
Not gonna hate on Hill --he's a good player that likes to play within himself (and plays best that way). People want more, but he's not gonna take over a game against decent competition.
On the plus side, BYU was a great test. That team had a ton of heart and battled back into the game when we struggled. And we won with very little from Black, certainly one of our best players. Plus, for much of the early going, we had good rhythm, and movement away from the ball. I cringe when we just stand around, and I see that far too often as a harbinger for a letdown and run by the other team.
Anyway, it was an exciting game, and despite the lapses, we managed to respond after a number of good plays by BYU. They may have been tougher than us, but we had some toughness too.
Yeah, would be a really tough sell to claim an injury that happened in February is affecting him after he played in 8 games.