Illinois 83, Grand Canyon 71 POSTGAME

#129      
Those announcers were terrific, and they weren't even blatant homers. The atmosphere was awesome, and something that I'm actually jealous of.
Scott Williams is great. After a Bulls game, he was being interviewed in the locker room and with a straight face says....the North Carolina connection hit for 63 points tonight. He was right.....Jordan had 61 and Scott had 2.

25+ years later, that still makes me laugh.
 
#133      
I think nobody is saying that they aren’t happy with the win. But what they are saying is that there are concerns going forward from the first two games. Concerns that lead some to believe that the 2-0 start is a byproduct of weak teams, not the Illini being good.

It’s a never a bad idea to try to extrapolate what a team will do against better competition if they continue to play the same.

I am happy with the win. Now let’s get another on Sunday!
 
#134      
Honestly, I love Kofi, however, I think his production may be at the detriment to others (mainly Giorgi), I expect them to figure this out, and it will be a net positive for the team and Illini nation. JMHO

There are only so many possessions in a game. So yeah, if Kofi is scoring then somebody else isn't. Efficiency is the most important thing. Giorgi only had 9 pts but he only took 5 shots. Not bad. Ayo had 9 pts on 11 shots. Not good.

But also Kofi and Giorgi can switch spots in the offense. I'm sure their will be games where Giorgi has a mismatch and Kofi is the guy feeding him.
 
#136      
Majerle after the game with a GCU co-ed at a local watering hole.




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#137      

danielb927

Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
I was pretty happy with the win. GCU started the season with a bad loss, but I don't think they're as bad a team as that loss would suggest. True road games are tough — even at 42nd (vs 131st) in KenPom rankings, we were only a 6 point favorite or so. Drop them down to 200th and that's probably 10 points, about where we finished. I agree with the posters saying it would be nice to see us get out & score in transition a bit more, but I was pretty happy with the amount of movement in the half court offense tonight compared to Tuesday (at least for the parts of the game where I was paying closer attention). Our offensive rebound rate is 3rd in the nation, and free throw drawing rate is top-40, which are both good things to build on.
 
#138      
If it's solely a favor to Colangelo (and he did have a lot to do with setting this up) then I hope we got something in return. It makes zero sense from a tournament strategy scheduling perspective.
It may, however, make sense from a "let's live life and appreciate our opportunities for enjoyment and growth as young men" perspective.

What a great night: seeing the players challenged and have to rally on their "business trip," nice weather, E.Johnson and J.Colangelo in da house, a few days out west, a chance to work out the kinks prior to the main event, etc.

Beats the heck out of playing Savvannah St. in half-empty SFC.
 
#139      
Just wanted to say I LOOOOOOOVE Andres Feliz. Having a consistent, tough, heady (did I mention TOUGH???) point guard is invaluable. Ayo is the NBA first round pick and way more skilled than Andres, but it’s not an anomaly that the ball was in Andres’ hands down the stretch. He is a LEADER in a way that Ayo still needs to fully absorb. Not dogging Ayo - just saying that he needs to add that “impose your will on the game” element that great players on great teams always seem to bring.
 
#141      

Steelyunk

Tobacco Road
Someone in the game thread said this was a great job of scheduling. I couldn't disagree more. I agree we have to challenge ourselves early, but this game has zero upside. A win isn't worth a ton and a loss is devastating.

If you want a true road game in a hostile environment, just stick with playing Arizona in McKale Center, because winning that game would be huge and losing it doesn't hurt us much at all. There is zero reason to schedule games that make it more likely to lay an egg against a creampuff.
One reason: jerry said so
 
#142      
Just wanted to say I LOOOOOOOVE Andres Feliz. Having a consistent, tough, heady (did I mention TOUGH???) point guard is invaluable. Ayo is the NBA first round pick and way more skilled than Andres, but it’s not an anomaly that the ball was in Andres’ hands down the stretch. He is a LEADER in a way that Ayo still needs to fully absorb. Not dogging Ayo - just saying that he needs to add that “impose your will on the game” element that great players on great teams always seem to bring.
Guess you missed the Michigan State game last year (when Ayo was only a freshman). Great players and great leaders know that it’s not all about themselves all the time.
 
#144      
Why r the teams we played staying with ILL despite the FT advantage? Averaging 20 to's so far, poor free throw shooting, i think both teams shot around 40% from 3.
 
#147      
It was 70 % tonight. Wow there is some serious negativity tonight.
I meant overall through the two games but we shot 65% in the first game so I'll shut up now. And apologize for wanting our team to perform up to it's potential, my bad

EDIT: And I was including the Lewis game where we went 15-27 from FT. Sorry for my negativity, I just see the correctable mistakes and want more from this team but I think there's a lot of positives in this win, especially the rebound margin. Kofi and Griffin have changed the culture in that regard.
 
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#150      
Guess you missed the Michigan State game last year (when Ayo was only a freshman). Great players and great leaders know that it’s not all about themselves all the time.
Didn’t miss that game at all. Loved it. Guess you missed the part where I said “Not dogging Ayo...” My post was a pro-Feliz post, and not an anti-Ayo post. I don’t think we win this game without Feliz’s presence. At the very least, it would have gone down to the wire without him, in my opinion.