Not even comparable. We were embarrassed at EIU and it wasn’t because EIU had a great night. We were outhustled in every part of the game and looked awful. This team last night looked more lost than at the Eastern game but there was fight and effort in most plays. Our players didn’t look like they wanted to play from the get go at Lantz. There’s been a noticeable shift for the better.
Illinois 83, Illinois Wesleyan 67 (Exhibition) POSTGAME
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Agreed
This game just confirmed what I already thought about this season. It's going to be rough early. Very rough. Could be some lopsided losses. But....I do think this team will improve and be playing some of their best ball by the end of the year.
Much like I was hoping from the football team (and didn't get in any shape or form) I'm hoping for improvement this season with hopes that we could eventually actually be pretty good.
Kathy? I like your optimism, but there is no way we even come close to sniffing the big dance this year. Next year? Yes. Once again we're going to have to be patient.
Much like I was hoping from the football team (and didn't get in any shape or form) I'm hoping for improvement this season with hopes that we could eventually actually be pretty good.
Kathy? I like your optimism, but there is no way we even come close to sniffing the big dance this year. Next year? Yes. Once again we're going to have to be patient.
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Deleted member 643761
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Hate to put too much stock into a first game against IW. That said, it's a nice early indication that Feliz is going to be good. If this holds, it also takes a little of the early pressure off of Ayo which hopefully helps his development.
I've said this before, but if in fact our guards are going to be upper tier in the B1G, let's say top four group, then the success of this season is going to largely come down to Underwood's coaching. I'm not saying he should be able to coach them to a title, but he needs to figure out how to create offense when every team is going to be cheating on our guards because of the lack of big man presence. And he'll need to figure out the defense when we're undersized.
in the ideal scenario we're not as undersized as we're worried about because teams have to align their 5 with ours, not vice versa.
I've said this before, but if in fact our guards are going to be upper tier in the B1G, let's say top four group, then the success of this season is going to largely come down to Underwood's coaching. I'm not saying he should be able to coach them to a title, but he needs to figure out how to create offense when every team is going to be cheating on our guards because of the lack of big man presence. And he'll need to figure out the defense when we're undersized.
in the ideal scenario we're not as undersized as we're worried about because teams have to align their 5 with ours, not vice versa.
Exhibition games are just scrimmages but skills/personnel -wise IMO the two main areas of concerns are: rebounding and interior offense/defense. Playing against a Div. III school we should have dominated the rebounding war even if it was just a scrimmage. Rebounding is a lot about attitude and positioning and did not see the overall hustle at either end of the floor. On the interior, especially on offense, we have some serious lack of skills (interior defense is a concern but was harder to evaluate as IW was overmatched and did not have many interior offense threats). While Giorgi hit some 3-pt shots, we really did not have anyone with inside skills against a clearly overmatched team. This is a a team that we should have dominated inside and we did not.
It is good to see for the first time in a long time having 3 guards who can handle the ball and this ability will come handy when we get pressed, but it was more than obvious who was the main PG/general on the floor, and that was Frazier.
It is good to see for the first time in a long time having 3 guards who can handle the ball and this ability will come handy when we get pressed, but it was more than obvious who was the main PG/general on the floor, and that was Frazier.
Tacomallini
- Washington State
This will be a confusing season if The General and El General are two separate people.
Tacomallini
- Washington State
Definitely do not tell that man about their 1/2 price slices after 3pm
I saw improvement over last year's team, which showed improvement over the previous year. We're going to have our rough spots (other posters have highlighted the areas I saw last night that needed improvement - defense overall <there seemed quite a few times that IW broke free to uncontested looks at the basket>; rebounding (a guard - admittedly a talented guard, led our team in rebounding); and interior passing (comes with having young bigs). Without getting philosophical, I like what I saw, which is how I'm approaching this year. We saw some fun basketball at times last year, I'm hoping to see more this year.
Just keep in mind we will play our 10 best players. Trent, Ayo, and Feliz will garner about 25 minutes a piece. We have a big hole at the 5, hopefully Adonis can play Jan 1st for BIG games. Kipper and AJ will have to fill the role at the 4.
College is a guards game, our guards will not rank at the bottom of the BIG. Please name a trio of guards in the BIG better than Illinois.
Charles Matthews, Jordan Poole, Zavier Simpson. MSU might have a better trio as well. Could be more, we don't really know at this point. Feliz looked good last night. But he was playing the smallest, least athletic team we will play all year. He has never played against D1 opponents, let alone Big Ten opponents. Remember how good Mark Smith looked for 5 games last year against much better competition than we saw last night?
It looked sloppy, yes. But the big difference is we have guys who can create. Last year we only had Trent (and sometimes Tejon but very inconsistently).
This year Trent, Feliz, and Ayo can make things happen when things break down. This team is going to make a lot of mistakes just like last year. But this team is going to be much better at making something out of nothing. When our half court sets are garbage, those 3 can go get their own shot or create a shot for someone else.
This year Trent, Feliz, and Ayo can make things happen when things break down. This team is going to make a lot of mistakes just like last year. But this team is going to be much better at making something out of nothing. When our half court sets are garbage, those 3 can go get their own shot or create a shot for someone else.
I agree, but I don’t ever remember Mark Smith looking good. He had a couple games where he showed potential but nothing like what Feliz did last night.
MSU=Winston, Langford and McQuaid are pretty good, too!!
In the first 4 games he has 56 pts on 41 FGA. I think that's good. If you include Augustana (I left them out for obvious reasons), he has 69 pts on 51 FGA. He did a good job attacking the rim early in the season last year. When competition picked up, he couldn't do it anymore. Every year we see kids that can play in the non-conference season and then everything shuts down when we get into the big ten. I hope Feliz averages 20 for the season, but he still has 2 of those skill level jumps to go through to get there.
I saw potential. Remember the days we looked forward to seeing our freshman play but didn't count on them for meaningful minutes? Nunn and Hill didn't start games until halfway through the B1G season. Overall I like a lot of the pieces Underwood has to work with. Hopefully he can build on this and then a few years from now maybe we will have something.
the national
- the Front Range
When I watch these highlights, usually an hour passes before I realize, I get sucked into watching old games highlights (beating Indiana '13, Arizona '05, Michigan St '79, Indiana '89 and Mizzou '95). Sometimes I forget how good DJ and Brandon were.
Deleted member 236589
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I'd name any trio that has played literally one second of high Division I basketball together. 2 of the 3 players you're including in this dream team of guards hasn't played vs a DI opponent yet. They played Illinois Wesleyan last night. If you're able to make heads or tails out of anything that occurred last night, then more power to you.
I'd argue that if we had three of the top five guards in the conference, we should have beaten them by 40+ points.
Maybe we just start with how they do vs the likes of Evansville before putting them on the cover of SI.
Feliz has played two years of international ball and was top ranked juco PG. He will be fine in the BIG.
And that was a huge mistake that JFG kept making and part of the reason he is at Akron. The game has changed and freshman are consistently leading programs all across the NCAA. Transfers are more likely, this NBA development league change will also transform the landscape.
Yeah, and one of this games was DePaul where he scored 21 points and drew praise from the opposing coach (Dave Leitao) who mentioned in his post-game conference that Mark Smith was the difference in that game.
illini80
- Forgottonia
It may have been the BTN+ thread, but the earlier answer given was no. None of the plus games will be on regular BTN.
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