Illinois 71, Wisconsin 70 POSTGAME

#176      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
So high right now, FINALLY feel vindicated - for the first time since 2011, when I was literally a freshman in college - talking to my Badgers friends like we are their peer. Football and basketball?! Boom! We are 11-5 (3-2), and I will take it! Anyway, folks, not to be too Cloud Nine-ish, but ... look what we have coming up (rankings are current Pomeroy rankings, where we are #29, and we just beat #24 at their place):

vs. #34 Rutgers
vs. #101 Northwestern
at #20 Purdue
at #19 Michigan
vs. #37 Minnesota
at #22 Iowa
vs. #7 Maryland
vs. #3 Michigan State
at #34 Rutgers
at #27 Penn State
vs. #140 Nebraska
at #101 Northwestern
vs. #43 Indiana
at #4 Ohio State
vs. #22 Iowa

Looking at those games, I see the breakdown like this:

ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO WIN TO MAKE THE TOURNAMENT
vs. Northwestern
vs. Minnesota
vs. Nebraska
at Northwestern
vs. Indiana

GAMES WE SHOULD WIN IF WE WANT TO STAY OFF THE BUBBLE
vs. Rutgers
vs. Iowa

GAMES WE WIN IF WE TRULY HAVE TURNED A CORNER
at Purdue ... if we can win at UW and dominate PU at home, we can win this
vs. Maryland ... payback and protect home court

GAMES WE SHOULD REASONABLY EXPECT TO LOSE AND WOULDN'T CAUSE ANY PANIC
at Michigan
vs. Michigan State
at Iowa ... just have an amazingly bad feeling about them drilling 3s against us again, lol, plus dropping another "average" road game is expected
at Rutgers
at Penn State
at Ohio State

These are just my biased groupings, but even just doing what we "should" do and losing everything else, we would finish 18-13 (10-10). That might not be good enough for a Tournament berth, but it keeps us in the conversation. There is absolutely no reason we can't beat Maryland at home and win at Purdue AND/OR steal one from the last category. This win at Wisconsin was MASSIVE for our season. Let's build on it and possibly get hot and go on a run ... maybe even 2004 style! :)
 
#181      

Bailey

B
Los Angeles
Bailey
a positive win in so many ways

we could have folded a half dozen different times in that game, and to be honest I was expecting us to. But guys kept making plays. Giorgi made plays. Kofi Made plays. Alan. Trent. Ayo finished it. That’s what an actual good team does.

A couple randoms:
Hummel is really good on color. His call on AG’s game tying 3 was awesome.
Vintage bad Kipper tonight. Especially on D.
Enough Brad Davidson praise. Ayo exposed him during winning time. It was beautiful.
Hilarious rewatching the ever-benevolent Kofi trying to help up a Wisconsin guy after the Trent 3 at the peak moment of the game. He’s not on your team big fella!:LOL:
 
#182      

Deleted member 29907

D
Guest
Deleted member 29907
mattcoldagelli said:
Snapping that Wisconsin skid feels like breaking out of jail.
giphy.gif
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And we crawled thru alot of sh*t to get there!
 
#186      

Halloweenie

H
Halloweenie
O
skyIdub said:
So I lived up in the woods in WI for a year and a half, in Door County where lot's of Chicagoan's own vacay homes and/or vacay during the summer. While there I learned that they refer to said Illinoisans as FIB's.......(F...ing Illinois Bast....s)..or FIBWAB's...(FIB With A Boat).

I took it in stride as they are mostly a friendly bunch of cheese eating, cow milking, bar flys.....but this year we pwned them!!

So remember on your vaycay in WI this year and wear your orange and blue as a "friendly" reminder!!
Click to expand...
On it
 
#188      

ChocolateThunder

C
ChocolateThunder
49% from the field 44% from 3. Good shooting solves a lot of problems
3 clutch shots by 3 different players to put away a relentless Badger team was a real pleasure to watch
Going to try and maintain an even keel, every game is going to be battle.
 
#189      

IlliniTime

IlliniTime
IlliniTime
I can't remember a better start to a new year for IL basketball. Pound Purdue at home, holding them to fewest points ever, and then go on the road to Wisconsin and beat them. 2020 looking good so far. And by the way, if anyone was looking for some sort of sign that the program was back to being relevant again.............last night was it, my friends.
 
#191      

sbillini

sbillini
st petersburg, fl
sbillini
This was the type of game we'd usually lose. Grind out, who's going to be the toughest down the stretch, on the road, against a fundamentally solid team that won't beat themselves. So happy we won the game.

Positives:
  • What i said above.
  • Finally making some 3s
  • Opposing team player (King) had a career night, but still didn't let it get to us
  • Overcoming the foul disparity, and we were able to win without our key bigs on the floor for key stretches (btw, how much game time has Giorgi missed in B1G play due to foul trouble? Likely almost a game's worth in the last two games. it has to be adding up, and that can't be good for us down the line).
Negatives: (not trying to be a downer, but I think it's healthy to be honest as a fanbase)
  • I don't understand why BU had DMW in for long stretches in the 2nd half and both AG and TF on the bench. I guess defensively, but DMW got burned by King 4 plays in a row. Yes, AG totally blew his assignment the first inbounds after being inserted (leading to a wide open 3), but at least he provides some offensive boost. I still feel TF is one good half away from really finding his rhythm (maybe even 2 good shots), and he's lights out on defense for the most part.
  • We need to play better fundamental D without fouling, esp away from the basket. The refs may have been whistle happy, but I think even if they weren't, we still would have had a large foul disparity. A lot of the calls were dumb things we did. Obviously Wisky is one of the best of exploiting that in teams, but do this against a team that has more offensive firepower, and we're toast.
I was perusing the Badger forums. Pretty rational on their part, though many were complaining about the no-call on the last play. Seems to be a lot of hatred for Trice there (given he took the last shot). Sounds like he's got a history of hero balling and putting up bad shots.

Need to bear down and beat Rutgers now! Next two are very winnable, potentially giving us a 4 game B1G win streak. Cue twilight zone music!
 
#194      

wpr

wpr
wpr
skyIdub said:
So I lived up in the woods in WI for a year and a half, in Door County where lot's of Chicagoan's own vacay homes and/or vacay during the summer. While there I learned that they refer to said Illinoisans as FIB's.......(F...ing Illinois Bast....s)..or FIBWAB's...(FIB With A Boat).

I took it in stride as they are mostly a friendly bunch of cheese eating, cow milking, bar flys.....but this year we pwned them!!

So remember on your vaycay in WI this year and wear your orange and blue as a "friendly" reminder!!
Click to expand...

My son lives in Michigan along Lake Michigan. FIB is a thing over there too. It's about 55-45 State fans over Michigan fans in that area.
 
#196      

danbor

D
danbor
Man I hope this gives the guys confidence they need to keep winning. No reason they shouldn't be at the top half of the conference this year.
 
#197      

Steelyunk

Steelyunk
Tobacco Road
Steelyunk
Bailey said:
a positive win in so many ways

we could have folded a half dozen different times in that game, and to be honest I was expecting us to. But guys kept making plays. Giorgi made plays. Kofi Made plays. Alan. Trent. Ayo finished it. That’s what an actual good team does.

A couple randoms:
Hummel is really good on color. His call on AG’s game tying 3 was awesome.
Vintage bad Kipper tonight. Especially on D.
Enough Brad Davidson praise. Ayo exposed him during winning time. It was beautiful.
Hilarious rewatching the ever-benevolent Kofi trying to help up a Wisconsin guy after the Trent 3 at the peak moment of the game. He’s not on your team big fella!:LOL:
Click to expand...
There was lots of BTN call-bashing last night. I agree with you. I think Hummel's pretty good. I heard zero bias on the call.
 
#198      

NotThatPierre

N
NotThatPierre
bombayIllini said:
Well ...........................

For every 2 attempts at the line, we would have got 1 point out of the effort.

So, we got 15 attempts, made 8. IF we had got 23 (which is what WI got), we would have made 12 and won by 5 points and not 1. :)



So, they should have not fouled us at all and taken their chances at a lower %age in FGs.
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Left out of the calculation is the missed front ends. Obviously the Giorgi one late was huge. Were there others?
 
#199      

Steelyunk

Steelyunk
Tobacco Road
Steelyunk
Fighter of the Nightman said:
So high right now, FINALLY feel vindicated - for the first time since 2011, when I was literally a freshman in college - talking to my Badgers friends like we are their peer. Football and basketball?! Boom! We are 11-5 (3-2), and I will take it! Anyway, folks, not to be too Cloud Nine-ish, but ... look what we have coming up (rankings are current Pomeroy rankings, where we are #29, and we just beat #24 at their place):

vs. #34 Rutgers
vs. #101 Northwestern
at #20 Purdue
at #19 Michigan
vs. #37 Minnesota
at #22 Iowa
vs. #7 Maryland
vs. #3 Michigan State
at #34 Rutgers
at #27 Penn State
vs. #140 Nebraska
at #101 Northwestern
vs. #43 Indiana
at #4 Ohio State
vs. #22 Iowa

Looking at those games, I see the breakdown like this:

ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO WIN TO MAKE THE TOURNAMENT
vs. Northwestern
vs. Minnesota
vs. Nebraska
at Northwestern
vs. Indiana

GAMES WE SHOULD WIN IF WE WANT TO STAY OFF THE BUBBLE
vs. Rutgers
vs. Iowa

GAMES WE WIN IF WE TRULY HAVE TURNED A CORNER
at Purdue ... if we can win at UW and dominate PU at home, we can win this
vs. Maryland ... payback and protect home court

GAMES WE SHOULD REASONABLY EXPECT TO LOSE AND WOULDN'T CAUSE ANY PANIC
at Michigan
vs. Michigan State
at Iowa ... just have an amazingly bad feeling about them drilling 3s against us again, lol, plus dropping another "average" road game is expected
at Rutgers
at Penn State
at Ohio State

These are just my biased groupings, but even just doing what we "should" do and losing everything else, we would finish 18-13 (10-10). That might not be good enough for a Tournament berth, but it keeps us in the conversation. There is absolutely no reason we can't beat Maryland at home and win at Purdue AND/OR steal one from the last category. This win at Wisconsin was MASSIVE for our season. Let's build on it and possibly get hot and go on a run ... maybe even 2004 style! :)
Click to expand...
Great post. My preseason SWAG had their record at 11-5 at this point - though I got four of the results wrong (MIA, MO, PU, WI), the record is what it is. Preseason i had a them with 21 wins. The way the B1G season is playing out, i think your 18-13 prediction is far more likely. whether or not that's good enough will depend on automatic bids and how the rest of our conference shakes out. I mean, who thought Rutgers and PSU would be performing like they are? Way too many variable and too many games left to play. I think we're more likely to get to 21 wins than we are to drop to 16.
 
#200      

skyIdub

skyIdub
Winged Warrior
skyIdub
sbillini said:
Negatives: (not trying to be a downer, but I think it's healthy to be honest as a fanbase)
  • I don't understand why BU had DMW in for long stretches in the 2nd half and both AG and TF on the bench. I guess defensively, but DMW got burned by King 4 plays in a row. Yes, AG totally blew his assignment the first inbounds after being inserted (leading to a wide open 3), but at least he provides some offensive boost. I still feel TF is one good half away from really finding his rhythm (maybe even 2 good shots), and he's lights out on defense for the most part.
  • We need to play better fundamental D without fouling, esp away from the basket. The refs may have been whistle happy, but I think even if they weren't, we still would have had a large foul disparity. A lot of the calls were dumb things we did. Obviously Wisky is one of the best of exploiting that in teams, but do this against a team that has more offensive firepower, and we're toast.
I was perusing the Badger forums. Pretty rational on their part, though many were complaining about the no-call on the last play. Seems to be a lot of hatred for Trice there (given he took the last shot). Sounds like he's got a history of hero balling and putting up bad shots.

Need to bear down and beat Rutgers now! Next two are very winnable, potentially giving us a 4 game B1G win streak. Cue twilight zone music!
Click to expand...

Ummmm....it was really pretty easy to understand actually. Foul trouble. Also, EVERY single person we had on King got burned...several times.

Everybody....EVERYBODY....understands what Damonte is right now. We don't have the luxury of reducing his minutes because some of you just want to insert a player you like more. It doesn't work that way.

BU managed the minutes pretty well. Somehow King was a non factor at the end of the game. They made some good adjustments and Damonte, AG, Dre, and Kipper were all part of that.

A very solid game from our coaches with adjustments, substitutions, and game planning. Very solid.