Pregame: Illinois vs Houston, Sunday, March 20th, 11:10am CT, CBS

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#51      

Mistakenj

M
Mistakenj
Need to see some RJ at times and Trent has to be Trent among other things. I wish I felt better about this matchup, but could see us getting beat worse than UAB did.

Something is just off with this team and has been for at least 3 weeks…including the Iowa win.
 
#53      

GallopingGhost

GallopingGhost
Denver, CO
GallopingGhost
Houston favorites at -4.5. I feel at that line about 90% of the bets are gonna come in on Houston.

Then again, Vegas sets lines in a way to make the most money … 🤔🤣

I don’t care. Just play hard and hopefully shots fall much better than last night.
 
#54      

The Galloping Ghost

The Galloping Ghost
Washington, DC
The Galloping Ghost
blife said:
Agreed, in fact I can't remember the last early morning game we did look good in. Seriously we couldn't get slotted in a prime afternoon matchup?
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You have a short memory. Our best game of the season was an early game at Indiana. We had the largest margin of victory ever at their Assembly Hall. It was fun. We might as well do the same to Kelvin.
 
#55      

Calvin

C
Calvin
IllinoisssssssVarsity said:
Things I learned about houston when we were able to tour their facilities with our team in December.

1) straight man, help only when necessary defense. They put A LOT of emphasis on winning your 1v1 defensive matchup. Some defenses funnel to help by design, they do not.

2) There are 2 times they break that rule. They will push players to their off hand in pick and roll situations and they also double the post on all catches. They then scramble out of the double back to their base principles.

3) Their personnel focus in the scout is the best player, and the player who has been hot coming into the game. Knowing that, my guess is they key on Kofi and Hawkins. They don’t want your top dog to beat them or your guy who has been playing well lately.

4) From a scheme standpoint they’ll go over your 10 favorite actions from any situation. My guess is they’ll cover the weave, the cross screen high-low, and the baseline OBs where we screen the screener to get Plummer 3 pt looks. I know we’ve been good on ATOs and have some other BLOB looks we go with, but idk how much scheme they can really cover in a one day prep.

5) Offensively they want to shoot within the first 20 seconds of the shot clock. Samscum thinks if you don’t shoot by then you end up with hero ball beat the shot clock shots that are much lower percentage than you get in the first 20 seconds.

6) They send 4 to the offensive glass at all times. Even if they know a team wants to push, they don’t care. They take the trade off because they think they win more with offensive rebounds than they lose in transition points. I assume this will be doubly true vs us, because we don’t play super fast, and they will want to put pressure on kofi and hawk to defensive rebound, and our guards to consistently box out.

If I think of more I’ll make another post.
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That sounds like a pretty good recipe against Illinois. Kofi is a generational center, but if you put 2 or 3 guys on him with plenty of time to rotate, he's much less effective (as you'd expect). Kofi in the pick and roll is really hard to beat, but they've usually set up pretty slowly, often in so-so position.

Houston is 3rd in Kenpom, and about 8 points better than Illinois. Stating the obvious, the team is going to have to bring it. If we rebound the way we did against Chattanooga, or shoot as poorly, I don't think it will be close.

I'll be happy if they play loose and show more flow. Something was off yesterday, and I feel bad for them if they're not able to play their best on the big stage. One ugly tournament win is better than none, but better would be playing a great game.
 
#57      

220Illini

2
220Illini
Guards just need to loosen up and have some fun offensively. They were scared last night with the exception of Curbelo. He made some mistakes, but he was aggressive and created some things other guys were NOT doing.

Trent probably should’ve had his career ended on one of the worst games of his career, BUT he didn’t and he gets another shot. He will be the key
 
#59      

Ramrod2010

R
Ramrod2010
Calvin said:
That sounds like a pretty good recipe against Illinois. Kofi is a generational center, but if you put 2 or 3 guys on him with plenty of time to rotate, he's much less effective (as you'd expect). Kofi in the pick and roll is really hard to beat, but they've usually set up pretty slowly, often in so-so position.

Houston is 3rd in Kenpom, and about 8 points better than Illinois. Stating the obvious, the team is going to have to bring it. If we rebound the way we did against Chattanooga, or shoot as poorly, I don't think it will be close.

I'll be happy if they play loose and show more flow. Something was off yesterday, and I feel bad for them if they're not able to play their best on the big stage. One ugly tournament win is better than none, but better would be playing a great game.
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The irrational fan inside me believes the teams collective backside was tighter than a...well, you can use your imagination. And they will be in a much better/looser mindset tomorrow.

The likelihood of this is probably like 10% but I'll use it as hope until noon tomorrow.
 
#61      

Illinir1

Illinir1
Camdenton, MO
Illinir1
We really can't do worse than yesterday's stat line......
1647697634846.png
 
#62      

Pikeillinifan

Pikeillinifan
Pikeillinifan
I hope we got all of that tightness out of our system and come in LOOSE.

Kofi needs to hit bunnies and free throws, but the biggest thing we've been missing is offense from Trent, if he can get us 10-14 points and Plummer can hit 4-5 threes we can win this one. Also, I didn't think we'd miss Grandy so much, with him being out and not getting much time yesterday, it puts a huge hole in the lineup.

Not feeling good about this one though after whatever that was yesterday.
 
#64      

jrichisamazing

J
jrichisamazing
It's time to get out and run. That's the recipe to beat a Houston team that wants to send guys to the offensive glass and muck things up defensively.

I think that will be the message after playing so tight yesterday. Get some easy lobs for Hawkins and some transition 3s for Plummer and Frazier.

Don't forget that was the mantra before the season started. All the players were saying we were going to play fast, faster than last year. But then the injuries happened and I think BU was forced to slow it down. Now Hawkins and Belo are playing their best and it's time to take the reigns off.
 
#67      

Dbell1981

D
Decatur, IL
Dbell1981
jrichisamazing said:
It's time to get out and run. That's the recipe to beat a Houston team that wants to send guys to the offensive glass and muck things up defensively.

I think that will be the message after playing so tight yesterday. Get some easy lobs for Hawkins and some transition 3s for Plummer and Frazier.

Don't forget that was the mantra before the season started. All the players were saying we were going to play fast, faster than last year. But then the injuries happened and I think BU was forced to slow it down. Now Hawkins and Belo are playing their best and it's time to take the reigns off.
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Yes! Im ready to see what Dainja is gonna provide next year. Even if we get Kofi back for 1 more year it will be nice to have Dainja to mix it up. Hopefully Fletch can get him closer to the 250 range and be even quicker than he was in earlier videos.
 
#68      

illini80

illini80
Forgottonia
illini80
Docta Illiniwek said:
They have great interior defense. So hopefully we are hot from 3.
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I’d be curious to see what our shooting percentages are for the last 10 games. Seems like it’s dropped but maybe that’s just my recency bias.
 
#69      

NarrowJ

NarrowJ
NarrowJ
Illinir1 said:
We really can't do worse than yesterday's stat line......
View attachment 16444
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I'm also not expecting another 3 pt barrage from Houston tomorrow. Their current rotation players average 32% from three and 64% from the free throw line. Like us, they primarily get it done on the defensive end. My main concern is them sending 4 players after offensive rebounds every possession. We're going to have to take advantage of numbers coming back to our end after HOU missed shots, and it seems to me like we have been more conservative in those situations and content to just stop and setup our half court offense.
 
#71      

illini80

illini80
Forgottonia
illini80
NarrowJ said:
I'm also not expecting another 3 pt barrage from Houston tomorrow. Their current rotation players average 32% from three and 64% from the free throw line. Like us, they primarily get it done on the defensive end. My main concern is them sending 4 players after offensive rebounds every possession. We're going to have to take advantage of numbers coming back to our end after HOU missed shots, and it seems to me like we have been more conservative in those situations and content to just stop and setup our half court offense.
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Rebounding is another reason we need Curbelo on the floor.
 
#73      

DewLou

DewLou
DewLou
Kelvin Samson next to Bruce Pearl is one of the biggest cheats in college basketball. In addition to the Eric Gordon episode, he moved on to Oklahoma and resumed his cheating ways. While nothing has come to light, a leopard doesn't change his spots and I'm sure he's up to no good at Houston. I'm glad Chester is on the Illini staff to bring perspective of who and what he is to a generation of young Illini players who probably are not aware what he did to the Illinois program. Anyway, the talking heads are saying the Illini are +4. It would be great to see them win by double digits and even the score with this cheater.
 
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