InDaAZ
- Eugene, Oregon
Apparently, Giorgi B would be a candidate for the Texas job if only he had better production his junior year… Or he likes to ride on carousels?
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Close. Underwood is apparently not a candidate for the Texas job, because GB allegedly regressed as a player.Apparently, Giorgi B would be a candidate for the Texas job if only he had better production his junior year… Or he likes to ride on carousels?
Meanwhile, Hall and Oates are on the bottom of their list. But I can’t go for that; no can-do.
You can’t be serious with this?
That was Mark Smith experiment class, right?
With Skyy situation this year, , maybe there are more parallels this year than I thought.
By no stretch of the imagination was that a talented roster, sorry.
Hey now, easy AZ.Apparently, Giorgi B would be a candidate for the Texas job if only he had better production his junior year… Or he likes to ride on carousels?
You’ve got a point.FWLIW..I do regret my part in in the Georgi B. Tangent. I got a little carried away; and should of had more self awareness of what thread I was actually in. Lol. I’ll take it as constructive criticism.
Having said that, I’m in good company…virtually everybody that frequents this site has got off topic at one point or another.
Nichi-I can’t figure you though, you did as much or more to derail the thread as anybody and you’re playing self-appointed “topical” traffic cop at the same time?
If Kofi is a generational talent why isn't he in the NBA? No offense to Kofi but this take is poor to put it kindly. You can make a better argument that BU has had over achieving teams.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
That's such a perfect example of using hindsight bias to totally mangle a narrative.
Ayo Dosunmu, one of the best and most important players in the history of the program, gets written out of the Underwood story because his three seasons don't match The Three Good Seasons. Silliness.
True, and he became a lesser player in that transition, eventually just walking away from the team. Whereas Trent Frazier got forced out of being a primary offensive option by Ayo and his game totally flowered.
And this is all I'm really saying about that first Underwood team. They looked like they were doing 3/4 speed Stephen F Austin drills all year, none of it was working, and our trap-happy defense made us a layup line, that was the single most dunked-on team I've ever seen.
Professor Brad got in the lab and fixed it. He's back in the lab again right now.
BBIQ, As a die hard i can justify almost anything but Kofi was absolutely a generational talent for the Illini. He’s the most dominant big man in Illini history, a 2x All-American, and his name is in the rafters no matter how you slice it. Underwood has said he was a great safety net because he was 20 and 10 nightly. Kofi got an astounding offer in terms of NIL to stay for one more year. I’m pretty sure a player that ticks all those boxes would be, to quote BU, “elite”.
Kofi is a throwback big man and his limitations are well-documented on this forum. Why he’s not in the NBA is equally as well-documented.
If getting to the league is your end-all in defining what players are generational then you’re fully entitled to your opinion and I will respect that fully.
I guess I just tend to consider that there are countless cases of absolute college studs who weren’t NBA material. This doesn’t meant they weren’t NCAA generational talents however.
I am not sure how far off topic it was. It does show how we get off topic.Hey now, easy AZ.
FWLIW..I do regret my part in in the Georgi B. Tangent. I got a little carried away; and should of had more self awareness of what thread I was actually in. Lol. I’ll take it as constructive criticism.
Having said that, I’m in good company…virtually everybody that frequents this site has got off topic at one point or another.
Nichi-I can’t figure you though, you did as much or more to derail the thread as anybody and you’re playing self-appointed “topical” traffic cop at the same time?
Is Underwood a candidate for openings elsewhere? The discussion then strays into how well he develops players, was Kofi really a generational talent, etc. It evolves into a referendum on Underwood's coaching ability.
Elsewhere, someone compares this team to the Flying Illini. There is a tangential discussion about the 1989 team.
Are these valid tangents, or off topic? I am not sure.
As I said his minutes dropped but all the stats I mentioned were better per possession. Its all on sports-reference.com for you to see.
I think the biggest thing he did in that lab was upgrade the talent level by bringing in Ayo.
He could have replaced his pressure defense with the pack line, but the offense would have suffered from having fewer points off turnovers and running more half court sets.
Maybe it nets us 5 conference wins, 6 or 7 with a few lucky breaks, but to act like it was some massive coaching failure is such an awful take. We were play Greg Eboigboden more than 10 minutes a game. It was the kind of roster that would have had coach K out for year with back issues.
But here’s hoping you have the ear of the longhorns AD.
I dunno either. Lol
Whatever it was, you’re a fellow Illini fan and I don’t wanna argue with you…like AT all. I really really don’t. (It’s Michigan I hate, they’ve got it comin’.)
I don’t wanna sound totally “off the cob” here but there’s too much of that crap in the world; and sometimes on here frankly:
people digging their heals, and doubling down, arguing about nothing, and not even remembering why they were arguing in the first place…lol…refusing to acknowledge that more than one thing can be true at the same time. Bla bah…(I feel sorry for Dan having to actually be the traffic cop.)
It can get real goofy real quick…and it’s a waste of time. Jesus, I was trying to be brief. that didn’t work out once again.
Anyways …All good. Coors Banquet on me. (Also, one for Johnny Lawrence if I ever meet him.)
He was the most dominant player in the Big 10 all 3 seasons he was here. Teams had to completely build their game plans around him. I'm 60 and he is far and away the most impactful single player we have had in my lifetime.
The one year we had Kofi and didn't have Ayo we won the Big 10 title. The one year we had Ayo and no Kofi we went 7-13 in the conference. If we are strictly discussing the games themselves, Kofi was far, far more impactful here than was Ayo.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Strictly discussing the (W-L results of the) games themselves is a silly mode of analysis.
And I don't want to denigrate Kofi, who is rightfully and Illini legend and was our everything last year on a Big Ten title team.
My point is to shine a light on how dumb the thought process is. Before we shot 50% from three in one home game against a team whose best player was hurt and 180 flipped the narrative around here yesterday, there was an "Underwood is bad" trend going around. Therefore he has never done a single good thing as a coach and it was always 100% foreseeable that he would fail, which every data point reveals if you examine it hard enough.
How to explain his massive success here? Oh, that was all because of Kofi, who we got because of Antigua.
Every step along the sports radio meatball college sports hire-to-fire cycle is and always has been totally numbskulled and I'm sick to death of it.
(Lol, the badly behaved coaching debate Gritty flame is being ignited deep within, serenity now!)
I won't tolerate any Giorgi slander here. Are we forgetting who came in and stepped up big time in the BTT against OSU? It was amazing I tell ya.
And if by "Giorgi regressing" you mean "adjusting his role playing with an absolute beast of a man" then yes I agree.
And if by "Giorgi regressing" you mean "adjusting his role playing with an absolute beast of a man" then yes I agree.
I did the sports-reference. Here's what the numbers show. It's certainly possible to argue whether he regressed (I believe he did) and who or what was the cause (I have no idea) but the numbers dropped. Let's get our facts straight.
| Games | Minutes | PPG | PP40 | RPG | RP40 | |
| 18-19 | 33 | 862 | 12.5 | 19.2 | 5.2 | 8.0 |
| 19-20 | 31 | 718 | 6.8 | 11.7 | 4.8 | 8.2 |
| 20-21 | 31 | 449 | 5.1 | 14.2 | 2.7 | 7.4 |
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
My hypothesis is that Giorgi is such a weird player (a term I use with the utmost affection) that when he was given free rein to let his freak flag fly for a team that needed offense and was at the bottom of the standings not getting everyone's best scout and effort every night, the production that first year went above what his actual ability level was.
He used to try things we hadn't seen him do before on a game-by-game basis. And defenders would be looking back to the bench like "that wasn't on the scouting report, what am I supposed to do?"
He used to try things we hadn't seen him do before on a game-by-game basis. And defenders would be looking back to the bench like "that wasn't on the scouting report, what am I supposed to do?"
I don't count PPG or RPG when minutes are reduced. Look at the number per possession as I said in the previous post. Then we can talk about it.
And I will have your back forever.
Okay, I'm looking and now posting. I'm not sure how you say he somehow showed improvement with the possession stat. I'm at a loss.
| 2p% | TRB | AST | STL | BLK | PTS | |
| 18-19 | 58.2% | 11.3 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 27.1 |
| 19-20 | 45.6% | 12.2 | 4.0 | 0.2 | 1.1 | 17.3 |
| 20-21 | 54.7% | 10.4 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 1.3 | 19.9 |
Giorgi had some great moves in the post. Outside of that, where he was increasingly asked to play, not so much. BU made it point to say he'd figure out a way to continue to use Giorgi's strengths, but it just wasn't possible. On top of that, I think there was a consensus that Kofi would not be such a monster his freshman year.
Like I said before, I've no interest in assigning some sort of blame here. But Giorgi absolutely regressed. The team absolutely improved though, so it's hard to argue as a fan as to how things developed. There's always a theoretical spot where things would have been better for both, but I'm not sure there was a real world solution.
JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
- Chicago
Dude, are you comparing a freshman Ayo against a junior Kofi?
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