blackdog
- Champaign
While Tominaga was going off and Mast made some 3s, Mast was still 8-21 from the field the rest of the team shot 12-33. Outside of Tominaga Nebraska was 37% from the field and 33% from 3.
Illinois 87, Nebraska 84 OT Postgame
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frozenrope9190
- Aurora, IL
Maybe im just an optimist, but Im looking at that 17-5 record and the 8-3 conference record and #10 ranking in KenPom and Top 12-14 ranking in AP and am thinking "We have a pretty damn good team". Even with all the chaos surrounding our best player, we're still one of the 10-12 best teams in the country.
I get weary of statements like "If we play like this against X, we'll get blown out." But we didnt play X last night, we played Nebraska who shot really well from 3. and we beat them. Not all games are going to be Northwestern style 30 point blowouts. Good teams play rough stretches sometimes. And other teams lose, too. If we're struggling a bit at home, we're also winning B10 games on the road, something that's proven to be very hard to do this year. The only goal is to win the game, not win by 30. Let's just enjoy looking at the standings and seeing all those other teams below us, shall we? Instead ofwringing our hands when the wins aren't glamorous.
Thank you, needed to get that out.
I get weary of statements like "If we play like this against X, we'll get blown out." But we didnt play X last night, we played Nebraska who shot really well from 3. and we beat them. Not all games are going to be Northwestern style 30 point blowouts. Good teams play rough stretches sometimes. And other teams lose, too. If we're struggling a bit at home, we're also winning B10 games on the road, something that's proven to be very hard to do this year. The only goal is to win the game, not win by 30. Let's just enjoy looking at the standings and seeing all those other teams below us, shall we? Instead ofwringing our hands when the wins aren't glamorous.
Thank you, needed to get that out.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
There’s a fine line between games well lament while remembering forever and games we’ll breathe a sigh of relief over and quickly forget. This one could’ve gone either way and fortunately it’s fallen into the latter column. 
Thanks. I love every aspect of that, including the irony of the yelling. It sounds like something I would have done and laughed at myself later.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
No doubt this whole Nebraska team is good.
Good to be on the winning side of a game like this but we got to be better at closing out games. We worked so hard to get to a 10 point lead then lost focus at the end. One thing I think we learned is that while Harmon might be valuable to have on the floor at the end, inbounding the ball is not his strong suit. He made three poor inbounds passes at the finish that could have hurt us a lot more than they did. We gotta find someone else for that role.
At some point the fact that multiple teams shoot out of their minds against us leaves our defense, not luck, as the common factor...
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
I could see myself cussing at quite a few people. Brad Underwood is not one of them.
But....I am sure you could possibly, maybe squint your eyes or think that is is POSSIBLE that a ref might have a reason to cuss BU???
I'm just guessing that BU might use a little colorful language to another adult who could possibly use it back at him.
sacraig
- The desert
Sorry Indy, didn't mean to highjack your post. Couldn't resist the Buffalo Trace! Cheers!
Bigtex
- DFW
pretty sure he was called for the violation in the first half - when he was shooting
I think they have every right to. We got 2 pretty big bailout calls- one on Domask's jumper at the end of regulation (was it a foul? Yes in a tightly reffed game, but the refs had been letting far worse go all night), and the 2nd being when Domask was trapped in the corner off the inbounds and they called the foul instead of the steal (I do believe this was a foul, but with same time and score, typically refs get caught up in the emotions of the game and let the play go).Nebby fans are going through it on Twitter about the officiating.
Now that said, there were some major misses the other way as well- Quincy being smacked in the face which somehow was a no call, Tominaga with a very obvious gigantic travel leading to a Nebraska 3, and 3 moving screens called against Illinois while none were called on Nebraska where Mast especially was doing the exact same thing.
Overall, I thought the refs had some bad moments last night, but it wasn't called in one direction or the other. We just benefitted from 2 big calls in the final minute. And yes, we'd be angry about that too if it went against us.
It's one thing if guys are getting wide open looks. Not the case last night - Tomanaga was hitting everything he threw up
There's a difference between guys getting wide open looks, and guys hitting tough shots. I didn't see a bunch of the former. Nebraska was hitting contested shots. There were multiple scrambles for loose balls that ended up in the hands of a Husker and resulted in a 3. Creating chaos is a goal of the defense. It just seemed like all the bounces were going their way for stretches.
Every team has multiple games where an opponent goes off, and it's not luck. Just as every top 10 team has had to win a handful of games ugly. We see them all the time, we just don't notice them as much because they don't cause us coronary events. Every team in the league has guys who are extremely capable of hurting you. Even the best teams are only a few possessions better than most of the teams in their league. It's always a rock fight.
He needs to take it to the basket more in the half court especially with smaller defenders on him- he’s settling for three point shots way too much
The biggest thing with TJ’s integration back into the team he isn’t using the defensive attention he gets to set up teammates as much as he did earlier in the year- some drive and dish from TJ in the half court would make a world of difference
frozenrope9190
- Aurora, IL
And this is why I HATE when people bi*** about the refs costing games. Cause EVERYONE can point to a call in a game that went against them. And everyone would be right. It's just a way of not accepting a loss, which seems to be quite a popular pastime. Accept the wins, accept the losses, and move forward
I think there is a little something to it... That's why I have wanted to find shot selection stats/analysis for (in particular) the game vs NW at home and also for the game last night vs NEB at home. Many, many well-contested shots going in during both of those games for our opponents, meanwhile we have short shots and layups rolling off the rim at a 50 percent rate.
We are, after all, sub-300 in CBB in luck rating.
It just seemed like we played 20 points better than NEB last night. There were 2 or 3 absolutely terrible NEB possessions where a lucky bounce ended in a made 3. That's in addition to what I thought I viewed last night as far as overall shot selection.
All of that said with the caveat that I strongly agree with your main point, which is that our defense has went in the toilet. I think both things happened last night: (a) our defense again gave up too many easy 2s and also (b) we were on the wrong end of a lot of dice-rolls. I'm happy we still won, but the defense needs something... badly.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
And this is the answer to the other poster(s) who asked why TSJ was putting up 3s instead of driving. He knew he'd get hammered and no call.
RichardKeenesCousin
Richard Keene's Cousin
I'm open to getting cussed at if you feel the need to throw some at me.
I saw 2 fouls where we didn't get FTs but were obviously in the act of shooting (one on TSJ, one on Hawkins). Then the foul at the end where Mast got FTs but wasn't in the act of shooting. That's a potential swing of 6 points right there.
Also, Domask had an obvious travel that wasn't called. He even posted on Twitter: "I think I got away with one lol" or something like that.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Which was completely insane and no one reacted! I feel like I must have missed something, because it looked crystal clearly like he was kicking out to a shooter facing 180 degrees away from the basket. It would be unlike our players and coaches not to throw a fit about that.
All in all we definitely got some home cooking last night though let's be real. We'd have lost our minds about that gift call on the Domask trap when we were collapsing.
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