That's how it works on every board for every school and every sports talk radio station in every market in America and one assumes the entire world.
Success sells tickets, frustration sells discussion.
Illinois 75, Ohio State 70 POSTGAME
That's how it works on every board for every school and every sports talk radio station in every market in America and one assumes the entire world.
Success sells tickets, frustration sells discussion.
For the most part we ran an offense today. We hit a dry patch at the beginning of the second half where we stood around and also had a bad mix of players.
Groce said after the game that they still need to improve on some things. I still think some of the sub patterns are interesting.
Groce said after the game that they still need to improve on some things. I still think some of the sub patterns are interesting.
Illini1221
Peru,IL
Things should get better with the students aboard.
Leron only had 1 foul.
Tevo
- Wilmette, IL
Which, if accurate, underscores why we need guys with some handles and quickness. Iso's don't work well unless you have an advantage over the defender.
Good win. We didn't really have anyone to guard Lyle. If Hill wasn't in foul trouble I'm guessing he would've tried to shut Lyle down once he got on a roll. He was simply to big for Abrams and Tate.
Going to be a roller coaster. At least we got to go up today. Gotta win at home because the road is unlikely to be kind to us.
Was at the AH tonight. Far from a packed crowd and not very noisy without the Krush but nice to get a W. (P.S. I'll always call our arena the AH.) Few random thoughts:
** LB is no Rodman, but he has those same kinds of instincts for the ball on rebounds and is quick off his feet and plays with an edge that we desperately need on this team.
** MH creates so much offense for us in isolation on his own. He seems to get every ounce of production out of his talent, and he does a great job of selling foul calls to the refs. Savvy vet.
** Good to see TA bounce back from a bad outing at MD. Just good to see him on the court in January with his knees seemingly strong as can be. He's a fighter.
** Great to see MF looking for his shot and playing with confidence. If he had continued shrinking from taking shots tonight we'd have lost. He should have the green light all season.
** Not a fan of JG's offensive system at all. So stagnant and reliant on 1 on 1 play and making difficult, contested shots. We're going to struggle all season offensively, I'm afraid, especially on the nights when those contested and long jumpers aren't falling.
** Better defensive effort in the first half. The guys' intensity was high from the opening tip. We'll never be a defensive juggernaut, but our zone should be able to at least contain a lot of B1G teams with our length.
** Athleticism and quickness bother us a lot. Lyle was a handful. We were fortunate that Jay Sean Tate missed 4-5 bunnies inside. Have a feeling Bryant and IU's guards are going to have a field day next weekend.
** As others have said, our lineup of TA, JCL, MH, LB and MM is our best quintet. No liabilities on offense, and have decent size and a mix of shooters and grinders. Still would like to see TJL instead of JT as backup at the 1. JT didn't make many mistakes tonight, but he didn't do a lot on the plus side, either. Not a big factor. TJL could give us a burst of energy and a change of pace PG off the bench to ignite some transition buckets and attack the lane, perhaps kicking out to JCL for some much-needed open looks at the 3.
** Hope we can find 9 more B1G wins and knock on the Dance door. It's going to be hard, though. We don't have the kind of athleticism or talent to dominate anyone, and our reliance on individual offense over system offense means we'll struggle to score more often than we care to see when tough shots aren't falling. Hopefully we can keep games close and use our experience to win most of the close ones. Guess we'll see.
** LB is no Rodman, but he has those same kinds of instincts for the ball on rebounds and is quick off his feet and plays with an edge that we desperately need on this team.
** MH creates so much offense for us in isolation on his own. He seems to get every ounce of production out of his talent, and he does a great job of selling foul calls to the refs. Savvy vet.
** Good to see TA bounce back from a bad outing at MD. Just good to see him on the court in January with his knees seemingly strong as can be. He's a fighter.
** Great to see MF looking for his shot and playing with confidence. If he had continued shrinking from taking shots tonight we'd have lost. He should have the green light all season.
** Not a fan of JG's offensive system at all. So stagnant and reliant on 1 on 1 play and making difficult, contested shots. We're going to struggle all season offensively, I'm afraid, especially on the nights when those contested and long jumpers aren't falling.
** Better defensive effort in the first half. The guys' intensity was high from the opening tip. We'll never be a defensive juggernaut, but our zone should be able to at least contain a lot of B1G teams with our length.
** Athleticism and quickness bother us a lot. Lyle was a handful. We were fortunate that Jay Sean Tate missed 4-5 bunnies inside. Have a feeling Bryant and IU's guards are going to have a field day next weekend.
** As others have said, our lineup of TA, JCL, MH, LB and MM is our best quintet. No liabilities on offense, and have decent size and a mix of shooters and grinders. Still would like to see TJL instead of JT as backup at the 1. JT didn't make many mistakes tonight, but he didn't do a lot on the plus side, either. Not a big factor. TJL could give us a burst of energy and a change of pace PG off the bench to ignite some transition buckets and attack the lane, perhaps kicking out to JCL for some much-needed open looks at the 3.
** Hope we can find 9 more B1G wins and knock on the Dance door. It's going to be hard, though. We don't have the kind of athleticism or talent to dominate anyone, and our reliance on individual offense over system offense means we'll struggle to score more often than we care to see when tough shots aren't falling. Hopefully we can keep games close and use our experience to win most of the close ones. Guess we'll see.
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I'm going to rewatch the second half, I remember one bad line-up that just had a bad mix and we couldn't stop anybody or score. Need to change that line up.
Good to hear from you HoC, agree with your observations. Going to be a long slog through the conference, no easy wins that I can see.
MrOizo
- Chicago
Agree on the difficult path to 9 wins. We don't even have the moxy that we had in the Ray Rice era. Back then, I liked our confidence and toughness better on the road in the big ten. This team scares me...
We will have to win some road games to get to the dance. We will find out what this team is made of. For some reason, I agree with others that the key to those road wins is more young, scrappy and hungry players (TJL, DJW, etc) vs the older and more confidence-shaky players (JT).
Crud...that means JG actually did something right....I hate admitting that
No idea what you're going for here, Leron played 27 min with 1 foul. Taking him out for Finke in the last few minutes had nothing to do with that.
I'm probably only one around here, but I still didn't feel like we played well. Defensive issues persist. Still a lot of ISO and standing around waiting for Malcolm to do something in crunch time and bad play calls/sets out of TO's. Looking ahead, I still don't see where we're any better than 7-11 in B1G, maybe 8-10. To many deficiencies to get very excited.
MrOizo
- Chicago
Maybe stick kipper or dj on him? They have length. Not sure if they are fast enough to keep up with him however.
homesickalien
- Springfield
Right on all accounts.
IllinoisFan733
- Chicago
The Illini played hard and gutted out a win against a pretty good Ohio State team.
Great way to bounce back after the Maryland debacle. With the tough front half of the schedule, I'll take any January win we can get.
Onward to Indiana!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Great way to bounce back after the Maryland debacle. With the tough front half of the schedule, I'll take any January win we can get.
Onward to Indiana!!!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
EfremWinters84
- S. Carolina
100% spot on. Nicely done HoC.
Unfortunately, with all of this in mind, I'm now scared that we may be headed toward a Big 10 record of somewhere between 6-12 and 8-10.
I think this is our main problem right there. Even MH, as good as he has been (his left handed drive was the play of the game IMO), he does not have the athleticism/quickness. Without athleticism/talent and ability to create 1-on-1, a major problem on this team, we just have to wish for a great day when long jumpers (e.g., JCL, Finke, Abrams, Hill) would fall against the better B1G teams.
danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
- Rochester, MN
I noticed at one point in the second half, Matta signaled an offensive play from the bench and Tate (our Tate) was relaying the same signal to the defense and our bench. I have to think it's that kind of floor leadership and smarts that Groce values in using Tate over TJL. I agree that Lucas should get some tick every game, though. He's got less senior savvy and coach-on-the-floor type knowledge built up, sure, but has a great natural feel for the game and running the point.
Absolutely. I really think that Groce's system requires at least one perimeter player--preferably a PG--to be an explosive scorer in order to function properly. We sort of saw it in year one with Brandon Paul. JG's offense looked effective with DJ Cooper running it at Ohio. Ray Rice and Malcolm have done their best, but Rice wasn't a good enough creator off the dribble and Hill isn't athletic enough. It's a system weakness, for sure, and Groce hasn't been able to adjust.
Maybe Frazier will be the guy that makes the engine run properly: attack the basket off the high ball screen, score at the rim and/or draw fouls; do it until you start getting help defenders to sag toward the lane and then kick out to open shooters; if your defender plays off you to stop penetration, knock down threes until he has to get in your jersey; rinse and repeat. That's how an iso-heavy high ball screen offense is supposed to work, but you need a lead guard who can 1) hit 35+ percent from 3pt range, particularly off the dribble, 2) blow by defenders and get to the rim, and 3) find open shooters when the defense collapses. There aren't many of those to go around.
MrOizo
- Chicago
Diving into this further, aren't there quite a few Big Ten teams that we should be well built for? Not tOSU, Purdue, Wisconsin, Maryland, IU, Michigan, or MSU. The good news? With our amazing schedule, we only play those teams 6 more times. With the interior size and experience, the ability of Malcolm to get to the foul line, the solid shooting, and the experience of our main guards we should be a tough out in every other game where we are shooting decent. We need road wins though, and that's always trouble...
Here's the path to 10-8 for me. It won't play out this way, but any home wins against the top 7 conference teams would make up for losses on the road to the bottom half:
@Indiana L
Michigan L
Maryland L
@Purdue L
@Michigan L
Iowa W
@Penn State W
Wisconsin L
Minnesota W
@NWestern W
Penn State W
@Iowa W
NWestern W
@Nebraska W
MSU L
@Rutgers W
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