A side note about Black, people have to stop thinking of the freshman or hurt Black... When healthy he is a top 4 player on our team
Illini Basketball 2016-2017
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well with some of the D our 1's 2's and 3's have played the last couple years wouldn't be a draw back lol
Absolutely true, and I'll one up you and argue a healthy Black would have been our 2nd best player last year and very well could be now. The numbers he was putting up in Europe & praise from the staff in terms of his mid-range shooting correlate- he looked significantly more polished. And no chance he could/should be playing the 3.
I expect good things from Black this year. The rotation that he will form with Finke should be a good one. The differing styles leave the staff with some good line-up options.
Black could well be our second best player with the way I have seen him play the last two Saturdays. If he was, that would be mean that he was very good because I expect JCL to have a big year and I think Thorne is very good, too. Add in Abrams for a pretty solid starting five. A star and four good complementary pieces.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
You can control how your own players are positioned but you can't control who defends each player.
Not many teams play full court, run and gun basketball these days. Full court presses don't work that well against good teams. Remember how many points Illinois used to put up against Iowa's full court press? And Iowa never won anything with that style.
Even the Flying Illini only pressed occasionally. Their pressure was more in the half court.
The last true run and gun team Illinois had was when Harry Combes was the coach. His goal was to get up 100 shots per game.
Black has potential and I watched him in quite a few games in HS. But he needs to start proving that on the court against good college teams on a consistent basis. While I like the international experience and building team chemistry, competition against local town teams is significantly lower than college level. I am very familiar with the landscape of European basketball, but other than the national team of Netherlands when we got crushed, the competition during the rest of that trip was pretty low.
European basketball has changed significantly. It used to be that DI teams would tour against Div. I team in pro leagues, or even strong Div. 2 teams in basketball rich leagues/countries. Unfortunately, with he exception of a few college teams, most college trips do not really include games with those teams anymore, avoiding them as probably too tough. Once you drop below that level, there is really no college or high school basketball in Europe (at a high level) so level of competition significantly drops.
I think Black has potential. But he has to finally get it together and prove it consistently.
Tevo
- Wilmette, IL
Which also applies to many of the individual Illini players and certainly to the team as a whole.
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
+1
Super stoked about our Black/Finke combo at PF. Between the big soph leaps I'm expecting and actually being healthy (knock on wood), am very excited about this season.
Dan
Admin
James Haring hired as Director of Basketball Operations
http://fightingillini.com/news/2016...-named-director-of-basketball-operations.aspx
http://fightingillini.com/news/2016...-named-director-of-basketball-operations.aspx
Chef Illini
- Palatine, IL
Seems like a nice promotion from within. I don't see anything wrong with this.
So much contradiction here, you want to "run and gun" by putting a non ball handling guy at the 3? Sounds more like "run and turnover"...
And zones tend to slow down the pace, too.I think our "best 5" are:
Hill
Thorne
JCL
Don't think there's too much question about these 3 being in that group.
The last 2 for me would probably be Black and Abrams, but it's less clear cut because we haven't seen either play for a while and don't know how healthy Abrams will be. But I expect those 2 to fill out the rest of the starting lineup.
I know many are excited about reports of Nichols' play, but he has yet to get a single minute in a college game. And most Illini fans should know to be very wary of glowing off season practice reports.
I don't think anyone would have Mav in the best 5, but he's going to be in the rotation for sure. As will Finke. That takes care of the front line spots, so it's left to see who else will play at the guard/wing spots. Will need another PG to play for sure. Seems like DJW and AJ will really have to step it up to get playing time, but that kind of competition is what you need on a good team.
If you put LB at the 3 he fouls out in 3. He can't guard without reaching and holding. He was owned by Brian Randle 3 weeks ago at the open scrimmage. He is a 4 and that is where his strengths are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNmPtnNZMYQ
There are so many reasons why a press would be a terrible idea with our current personnel:
Besides the 3, we aren't deep. We aren't more athletic than most B1G teams. We have a couple of guys coming back from injuries so we have some conditioning concerns. We have a couple of guys that have been foul prone already. We were terrible at stopping transition buckets as is last year. Until the team shows that those weaknesses are no more, a press would be god-awful with our team.
You're not going to be able to press with Black at the 3, too slow. You'll get destroyed by teams with better ball handlers and 3 point shooters. That's the big difference between today's game and the Flyin Illini days. The 3 point shot was used sparingly back then, now it's a weapon. There's a reason no one presses, especially in the B1G. Teams are too good at taking care of the ball and will kill you shooting 3s.
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He's definitely a 4, but to be fair, Brian Randle, one of the best players in Europe, would own 99% of current college players and a good handful of NBA guys. Too bad his game and mindset didn't mature until after college. He always left you wanting more when he was here.
Valid points. The Europe numbers excite me still, but I prefer to day-dream about the double-double against AJ Hammons/Isaac Haas in his first start as a true freshman and when he manhandled 2 rebounds & a put-back down low against a bigger more experienced Tanye Jekiri :thumb:
First double/double by an Illinois freshman in his first career start since 1986.
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Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Gents, on my drive across the country I stopped in to Ubben and saw a very raw Roger Powell (freshmen) doing drills with Coach McClain. I thought that Powell was very mechanical and was no way ever going to be a good player or play the 3. He played the 4 during our Championship run, but was really a good 3 except we played 3 very good guards. So I will not rule out that Black could at one point play the 3 if needed, but that is our deepest position.
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