Illini Basketball 2021-2022

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#179      
If all Payne does is guard EJ Liddell he will be worth his weight in gold- the “stretch 5’s” that gave us fits last year is exactly who Payne can guard
Not so sure how much we’ll see Lidell at the 5 this year. Rumor was he was not happy playing the 5. Can’t say I blame him only being 6’5 and getting beat up by Kofi on the post.
 
#180      
No one expected DW to shoot over 50% from the 3 last year, but hard work and experience can elevate a player's performance to surprising results. If Hawkins is the third option at the 4, he needs to transfer because he was a recruiting miss.
Not true. No one expected DE to get another year. However to act like CH showed some awesome skill set for us to expect a huge step i just don't get. Tevian Jones comes to mind. I want him to excell as do I BBV but I hist don't understand why so many think he us close to JG or DW or even Payne. CH shot 23% from 3 and 35% from the field. I hope he surprises us all.
 
#181      
No one expected DW to shoot over 50% from the 3 last year, but hard work and experience can elevate a player's performance to surprising results. If Hawkins is the third option at the 4, he needs to transfer because he was a recruiting miss.
DW earned his opportunity as a senior and through 4 years of hard work. Why is it you feel CH will leap over JG and DW or others that shoot above 35% from the field much less 3 where he shot 23%? Are you so sure Payne can't shoot above 35% from the field or 23% from 3? I am not. I am not drinking the kool aid.I hope CH surprises me but I expect with DW and Kofi back behind him on D that CH may not see any more tick than last year with the new guys we have added at the 3 and 4.
 
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#184      

altgeld88

Arlington, Virginia
I 😍 that. Footage of Jake's oop from Ayo over Iowa in the BTT never gets old.

Illini - Ayo Oop Jake BTT Iowa.gif
 
#185      

DB11Headband

Chicago Burbs
DBHeadband, I think you are a little too top heavy with minutes. My guess is:

Curbelo 28
Trent 27
Kofi 26
Hutch 22
Plummer 22
Damonte 21
Jake 16
Payne 12
Hawkins 12
freshmen, others 14

The freshmen/other minutes might be overstated a little, but hopefully we are dominant enough to allow them some minutes against the lesser competitive teams. We need to be better about not letting NW, Neb, and others hang around to the end. Would also see us play at a very fast pace to wear down opponents. If our depth of talent is as great as some on here believe it to be, then we should have no problem running teams into the ground.
If Curbelo doesn’t average over 30 MPG I’ll eat my hat. And TF averaged 33 MPG last year-regardless of the depth of this year’s team I don’t see him dipping below 30 MPG either.
 
#186      
Been looking at preseason conference rankings. The Big 10 looks to be extremely top-heavy this year. According to Torvik --- Six teams in the Top 25, and only 8 total (just two more) in the Top 50:

Top 25:
1. Illini
2. Michigan
3. Purdue
4. OSU
5. Maryland
6. MSU

26-50:
Indiana and Northwestern are a distant 7 and 8. These six then bring up the rear:

51 & Beyond:
9. Wisconsin
10. Iowa
11. Rutgers
12. Nebraska (with their 5-star recruit)
13. Penn St.
14. Minnesota ---- way, way, way down on the list

Andy Katz has pointed out that we have one of the tougher in-conference schedules this season. We get only 8 games against those bottom six.
I think we benefit from the away only and home only games. Seems to me in our away only games we should go 2-1 at the least. Same for our home only. 2-1 seems very likely and 3-0 is probable. So, that is 5-1 in the "only" games. If we split the H and A games we would be 12-8, which I think we all feel would be disappointing. I'm going to make a way-to-early prediction that we will go 10-4 in the H/A games and that would give us a 15-5 conference record, which is very attainable for this veteran team who will have two All-Americans on it in Kofi and Andre.
 
#187      
If Curbelo doesn’t average over 30 MPG I’ll eat my hat. And TF averaged 33 MPG last year-regardless of the depth of this year’s team I don’t see him dipping below 30 MPG either.
Agree. No one can run the team like he will. Other parts are inter-changeable. PG will require big minutes from our maestro only occasional breaks for him to rest.
 
#189      
As deep as this team is we could have up to 9 players avg. starter minutes. I don't think it's as important as who starts the game but rather whose going to be on the floor at the end.

There is 0% chance that we, or any NCAA team for that matter, will have 9 players that average 'starter' minutes by any reasonable definition of starter minutes. There are only 200 minutes per game so if we had 9 players equally split that time with no other players touching the floor that would only be 22.2 minutes per player which I would say is well below the floor for a reasonable definition of starter minutes.

To help define what 'starter' minutes might be I took a look at the minutes/game played by the Top 10 teams from last season (based on the Final AP Poll). Using K-mean clustering I split the roster from each of those teams into 4 clusters (Starters, Key Backup/Rotational Player, Bench Depth, Non-Contributor).

Summary of Results:
* Starters average 29.6 minutes per game (22.4-35.1)
* Rotational Players average 18.1 minutes per game (10.8-24.5)
* Bench Depth Players average 9.9 minutes per game (5.2-15.7)
* Bench Warmers average 2.7 minutes per game (0.5-6.4)

Another thing to note is that of that Top 10 teams, Illinois had the least depth with only 8 key rotational players + Hawkins = 9 players that were significant contributors to our season. With Ayo departing and the additions of Plummer/Payne and improvement in Hawkins I expect slightly more spread in minutes but I'd still be surprised if we had more than 9 true rotational players (Trent/Kofi/Curbelo/Da'Monte/Alfonso/Jacob/Austin/Coleman/Omar) and I'm expecting Trent, Kofi, and Curbelo to average 30 minutes per game so there wont be enough minutes left for the other 6 to play "starter" level minutes (the remaining 6 would average only 18.3 min/game if they split the remaining time exactly equally which is more in line with a Key Rotational Player).

1626835789768.png
 
#190      
Curbelo 35
Trent 33
Kofi 28
Hutch 24
Plummer 22
Damonte 20
Jake 18
Payne 10
Hawkins 10

I don't see many scenarios where Curbelo, Trent, and Alfonso are on the floor together and so their minutes probably wont combine for more than 80. Also our 3 freshmen will be competing for minutes at the 2/3 (and possibly 4) spots along with Hutch, Jake, and Da'Monte which will also limit Curbelo, Trent, and Alfonso from surpassing 80 combined minutes.

Curbelo: 26
Trent: 32
Plummer: 19
* (77 minutes at the 1/2)
DaMonte: 23
Jake: 21
Hutcherson: 17
Hawkins: 11
* (72 minutes at the 3/4)
Kofi: 29
Payne: 9
* (38 minutes at the 5)
Podzimski/Goode/RJ: 11
Lieb/BBV: 2
 
#191      

Nappy I_L_L

Northern Indiana
There is 0% chance that we, or any NCAA team for that matter, will have 9 players that average 'starter' minutes by any reasonable definition of starter minutes. There are only 200 minutes per game so if we had 9 players equally split that time with no other players touching the floor that would only be 22.2 minutes per player which I would say is well below the floor for a reasonable definition of starter minutes.

To help define what 'starter' minutes might be I took a look at the minutes/game played by the Top 10 teams from last season (based on the Final AP Poll). Using K-mean clustering I split the roster from each of those teams into 4 clusters (Starters, Key Backup/Rotational Player, Bench Depth, Non-Contributor).

Summary of Results:
* Starters average 29.6 minutes per game (22.4-35.1)
* Rotational Players average 18.1 minutes per game (10.8-24.5)
* Bench Depth Players average 9.9 minutes per game (5.2-15.7)
* Bench Warmers average 2.7 minutes per game (0.5-6.4)

Another thing to note is that of that Top 10 teams, Illinois had the least depth with only 8 key rotational players + Hawkins = 9 players that were significant contributors to our season. With Ayo departing and the additions of Plummer/Payne and improvement in Hawkins I expect slightly more spread in minutes but I'd still be surprised if we had more than 9 true rotational players (Trent/Kofi/Curbelo/Da'Monte/Alfonso/Jacob/Austin/Coleman/Omar) and I'm expecting Trent, Kofi, and Curbelo to average 30 minutes per game so there wont be enough minutes left for the other 6 to play "starter" level minutes (the remaining 6 would average only 18.3 min/game if they split the remaining time exactly equally which is more in line with a Key Rotational Player).

View attachment 11639
That's a lot of analysis. Thank you. I guess we all want to believe we have this unarguably deep roster that will flow together perfectly with 10 or 11 contributors to our success, but the realist in me tells me that, depending on AH and CH's success, we will only be playing one if the freshman consistently. God only knows who that freshman will be
 
#192      
That's a lot of analysis. Thank you. I guess we all want to believe we have this unarguably deep roster that will flow together perfectly with 10 or 11 contributors to our success, but the realist in me tells me that, depending on AH and CH's success, we will only be playing one if the freshman consistently. God only knows who that freshman will be

Bet you can't guess which one I'm highest on?
 
#197      
That's a lot of analysis. Thank you. I guess we all want to believe we have this unarguably deep roster that will flow together perfectly with 10 or 11 contributors to our success, but the realist in me tells me that, depending on AH and CH's success, we will only be playing one if the freshman consistently. God only knows who that freshman will be
Where’s the minutes for Edgar?
 
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