Regarding Booth and Davis, you think they are competing for the same minutes? I could see Booth going in portal again unless he came in knowing this would likely be a developmental year for him and trusts the process, but it won’t be because of Davis.
Tennessee 66, Illinois 64 Postgame
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so how can it be reflected in our coach? wrong players on the court, no inbounds play, bad rotations. he's admitted these things.
some of that is deflecting from his young kids, but some isnt.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Great post. I agree with you substantially. It's infuriating and something that should be fixed easily, no doubt. Perhaps I'm just not paying sufficient attention to how often this goes badly. My question is whether it's a play design problem or execution problem due to lack of cohesion. The two plays on Saturday seemed to me to be the latter. I simply see it as a coordination problem borne of the players' unfamiliarity with each other at this early stage in the season.
I went back and watched the two plays. I'll just offer my take on the first one for the interest of not running too long.
#1 (1:38 remaining): the crux of the problem here, IMO, is that Ivisic sets an ineffective pick for Boswell. It's useless in large part because Boswell, as he breaks, gives his man (#5) too much space to get around Tomi. If the pick had been set rigidly and Bos runs his man properly into it (having groked where Tomi was positioned via his peripheral vision), then KJ could have gotten Bos the ball, wide open, heading along the sideline, and uncovered with a lot of real estate around him near the corner (because UT's #5 guarding Bos would be far behind him after fighting through the pick.) There would be no UT player anywhere near him, only the center low post, mid-paint. Tons of space for Bos at that point to turn, assess the sitch, move sharply toward the basket, draw in UT's center as he did so, and send a crisp bounce pass back door to Ben, who would be breaking toward the hoop from the far corner, completely uncovered for an easy flush. Or both the FT-line UT player and the low post player might break toward Bos and both Tre and Ben are then options for easy buckets. Executed properly, BU's a genius.
Because the initial pick fails, and KJ then fails to think coolly about his options (TBF, Ben in the far corner didn't act to give him one), he sends that terrible pass toward Tomi. It's terrible because it's a slow, telegraphed pass and because the UT guy on Tomi is already breaking in that direction following Tomi. After Tomi's broken pick what should have happened is that Ben in the near corner (hands on his hips... grrrrr) breaks toward midcourt while Tre moves in to screen the UT guy at the FT line. KJ can make an easy, unobstructed long pass to Ben and then they set up to run the O.
Complete fail, all around. Problem is that I have no idea whether Ben is gassed, or spacing out, or has no awareness of what he needs to do. Or whether Bos is unfamiliar with where Tomi is going to be on the initial set-up. Or whether KJ just panicked. Or whether any of them have a sense for how the others are going to move.
Then there's my general objection that I don't like a design with the primary inbound pass along the near sideline to a player breaking toward the corner where he might be easily trapped. In this case it would have been brilliance. Other times, face plant depending on the defensive set and movement. So there's that.
Anyway, no argument that is is badly executed and shouldn't have been. I just don't know what the contribution of coaching/prep and unfamiliarity among the players is here, and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt at this point. If it happens in late January/Feb/Mar then I'm right with you and having an aneurysm about it. Right now I'm just "fix the mf, stat." And "dang... y'all had #1 in the bag and let it out."
I'm also mindful of the old tag line for the wonderful (now long since folded into SB Nation, IIRC) college football blog Every Day Should be Saturday: "Second guessing the split-second decisions of nineteen year-olds since 1999."
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altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
The TL;DR summary of my preceding post is that games leading to championships are usually won and lost at a very thin margin. Saturday's was a title kinda game.
Doesn't matter what else our team gets right. If they fail to execute late inbounding plays they will not go deep in March. I seem to recall an Arizona team, cruising toward the Final Four in 2005 because of splendid execution in the Regional Final against the best team in the nation, that learned this lesson in as painful a manner as possible.
The upside of all this is that our team was playing in a title kinda game in mid-December and had the upper hand for most of it.
Doesn't matter what else our team gets right. If they fail to execute late inbounding plays they will not go deep in March. I seem to recall an Arizona team, cruising toward the Final Four in 2005 because of splendid execution in the Regional Final against the best team in the nation, that learned this lesson in as painful a manner as possible.
The upside of all this is that our team was playing in a title kinda game in mid-December and had the upper hand for most of it.
Pass interferenceGreat post. I agree with you substantially. It's infuriating and something that should be fixed easily, no doubt. Perhaps I'm just not paying sufficient attention to how often this goes badly. My question is whether it's a play design problem or execution problem due to lack of cohesion. The two plays on Saturday seemed to me to be the latter. I simply see it as a coordination problem borne of the players' unfamiliarity with each other at this early stage in the season.
I went back and watched the two plays. I'll just offer my take on the first one for the interest of not running too long.
#1 (1:38 remaining): the crux of the problem here, IMO, is that Ivisic sets an ineffective pick for Boswell. It's useless in large part because Boswell, as he breaks, gives his man (#5) too much space to get around Tomi. If the pick had been set rigidly and Bos runs his man properly into it (having groked where Tomi was positioned via his peripheral vision), then KJ could have gotten Bos the ball, wide open, heading along the sideline, and uncovered with a lot of real estate around him near the corner (because UT's #5 guarding Bos would be far behind him after fighting through the pick.) There would be no UT player anywhere near him, only the center low post, mid-paint. Tons of space for Bos at that point to turn, assess the sitch, move sharply toward the basket, draw in UT's center as he did so, and send a crisp bounce pass back door to Ben, who would be breaking toward the hoop from the far corner, completely uncovered for an easy flush. Or both the FT-line UT player and the low post player might break toward Bos and both Tre and Ben are then options for easy buckets. Executed properly, BU's a genius.
Because the initial pick fails, and KJ then fails to think coolly about his options (TBF, Ben in the far corner didn't act to give him one), he sends that terrible pass toward Tomi. It's terrible because it's a slow, telegraphed pass and because the UT guy on Tomi is already breaking in that direction following Tomi. After Tomi's broken pick what should have happened is that Ben in the near corner (hands on his hips... grrrrr) breaks toward midcourt while Tre moves in to screen the UT guy at the FT line. KJ can make an easy, unobstructed long pass to Ben and then they set up to run the O.
Complete fail, all around. Problem is that I have no idea whether Ben is gassed, or spacing out, or has no awareness of what he needs to do. Or whether Bos is unfamiliar with where Tomi is going to be on the initial set-up. Or whether KJ just panicked. Or whether any of them have a sense for how the others are going to move.
Then there's my general objection that I don't like a design with the primary inbound pass along the near sideline to a player breaking toward the corner where he might be easily trapped. In this case it would have been brilliance. Other times, face plant depending on the defensive set and movement. So there's that.
Anyway, no argument that is is badly executed and shouldn't have been. I just don't know what the contribution of coaching/prep and unfamiliarity among the players is here, and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt at this point. If it happens in late January/Feb/Mar then I'm right with you and having an aneurysm about it. Right now I'm just "fix the mf, stat." And "dang... y'all had #1 in the bag and let it out."
I'm also mindful of the old tag line for the wonderful (now long since folded into SB Nation, IIRC) college football blog Every Day Should be Saturday: "Second guessing the split-second decisions of nineteen year-olds since 1999."
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foby
- Bonnaroo Land
In B1G football, they rarely call that. lol
Bigtex
- DFW
Seems like NW repeat. Make someone other than Martinelli/Barnhizer shoot and score. Against Tennessee it was Lanier (first half) and Gainey (2nd half). Illinois is one of the few (only) teams that don't take the use it or lose it Timeout in the first half - because the abysmal results out of a timeout. Then saw it again the 2nd half down the stretch. Such a winnable game.
For as good as KJ was - 7 turnovers can't be acceptable.
We’re coming off an Elite 8 … But the losses to NW and giving it away to TN haven’t gone over very well …
They want ROI … So far … They aren’t seeing it …
Get blown out against Mizzery and there will be some unhappy people …
Wow. What a disappointing loss. My observations:
1. Will Riley is not a one and done talent. Sorry.
2. Humrichous gets way too many minutes. He can't play defense and scored 5 points in 30 minutes
3. Ivisic looked great against Bama and awful in this game. 4 points?
4. Brad needs to learn how to coach better with x's and o's. He can clearly get recruits/portal guys with talent but can't coach them up all that well.
5. Tennessee is not the number 1 team in the country. Not even the best team in the SEC. Bama and Auburn are better.
1. Will Riley is not a one and done talent. Sorry.
2. Humrichous gets way too many minutes. He can't play defense and scored 5 points in 30 minutes
3. Ivisic looked great against Bama and awful in this game. 4 points?
4. Brad needs to learn how to coach better with x's and o's. He can clearly get recruits/portal guys with talent but can't coach them up all that well.
5. Tennessee is not the number 1 team in the country. Not even the best team in the SEC. Bama and Auburn are better.
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I was afraid of that. Let’s blow Misery out of the gym!!!
Keep it in perspective...young team who has not had much time together (really no summer especially compared to last year.) Last years team got handled by Marquette and Tenn. and went to the elite 8. Obviously some frustrations, but so much potential.
For the most part I am happy with Underwood.. However when your signing the checks, and you see that Underwood is the 8th highest paid coach in college bball you do wonder whether were getting a good ROI.
I don't think the frustrations are about the team not being good.... I don't think they're are about losing the games either... it's about how you lost.
Last year we got beat in those games. These past two games (NW and TENN) we didn't get beat, but rather gave it away... at least that's the perception, way of thought, and feeling that's leading to all this foiling.
Understood, but reading through some of the doomsday takes is maddening
Some? I guess the number can run from 1 to 99%. I'd wager the high side.
Bigtex
- DFW
you can say the same about DGL who loves playing against eastern (2 years in a row) but his number and production against everyone else has been non existent
This is true. But I have always had the highest aspiration for the Illini roundball program.
I appreciate the wonderful historical record of Our Beloved greatly. But my frustration comes from seeing the Illini once again get to a ‘narrative changing’ game like the Tennessee game.. at home in C/U... and again falling short.
No doubt Coach and Staff must feel some of this as well. But sooner or later we want to see the Illini break through this glass ceiling and get in the same conversation with those half-dozen or so other National legacy name-brands of the past recent history that we all know so well.
There was a chance in 2005 to make that step. And it was great moving up the line with Ayo. And last year was a fine year. But... but...
One More Step needed.
Unfortunately, our coaching staff is more adept at recruiting and less in being tacticians. The team played hard and took the number one team in the nation down to the wire, but the coaching staff still appears after decades of coaching to still be learning on the job and acting cavalier about their ineptness in crucial situations!
Said it during the Alabama game, but we have a bunch of soft players who don't know how to play together yet. It is what it is and hopefully it improves. Sky definitely isn't falling yet but definitely need to see improvement here before the Duke game if we really want to see a FF-caliber team.
That's the tradeoff when you build your team around Euro players. Sure, those guys come in wayyyy more skilled and polished than your average American HS AAU hooper, but they also more often than not come in softer than dog poo. It's up to Brad and co. to toughen them up physically and mentally (and they have physically at least which I was worried about coming into the season). Sorry KJ, but missing game winning free throws, easy inbounds, and letting your man drive coast to coast on you for the GW layup might work in Barcelona or Lithuania but not in high major college basketball.
Also.....any team that gives a players like Ben Humrichous and Jake Davis a combined 36 minutes of playtime doesn't deserve to compete at the B1G or national level. When you compound that with the fact that Morez only got 12 minutes....well if I was Morez's camp I'd be unhappy too.
Brad has been a maestro in the new portal world, but part of that is also knowing who to keep happy and try to retain on your roster at the expense of other factors/players. But risking alienating Morez just because you committed significant NIL for a bum like Humrichous who is only here for one year and you feel like you have to make it work makes no sense. If it's true that Brad is being stubborn and feels like the relationship is already passed the point of no return with Morez's camp, then Josh needs to step up and talk sense into the guy. It's way too early in the season for our star in-state recruit to already have one foot out the door, full stop.
That's the tradeoff when you build your team around Euro players. Sure, those guys come in wayyyy more skilled and polished than your average American HS AAU hooper, but they also more often than not come in softer than dog poo. It's up to Brad and co. to toughen them up physically and mentally (and they have physically at least which I was worried about coming into the season). Sorry KJ, but missing game winning free throws, easy inbounds, and letting your man drive coast to coast on you for the GW layup might work in Barcelona or Lithuania but not in high major college basketball.
Also.....any team that gives a players like Ben Humrichous and Jake Davis a combined 36 minutes of playtime doesn't deserve to compete at the B1G or national level. When you compound that with the fact that Morez only got 12 minutes....well if I was Morez's camp I'd be unhappy too.
Brad has been a maestro in the new portal world, but part of that is also knowing who to keep happy and try to retain on your roster at the expense of other factors/players. But risking alienating Morez just because you committed significant NIL for a bum like Humrichous who is only here for one year and you feel like you have to make it work makes no sense. If it's true that Brad is being stubborn and feels like the relationship is already passed the point of no return with Morez's camp, then Josh needs to step up and talk sense into the guy. It's way too early in the season for our star in-state recruit to already have one foot out the door, full stop.
If they lose to Mizzou, I wouldn’t blame them.
And Uconn's gameplan in general. There's not any scenario where I think we win that game, but I sure as heck think a different gameplan than attack Clingan makes the game respectable.
I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, Underwood was able to cover up some growing concern with the elite 8 run. We lose that ISU game and his seat is getting warm. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the elite 8 run has almost blinded some of the fan bases perspective on Underwood's legit flaws. Again, he has radically improved this program... But I'm personally not content with an elite 8 and no other tournament success in 7 seasons under him. This isn't like Illinois football where making a bowl game each year is the goal. We must make the tourney consistently (rarely if ever miss it) and we should expect relatively frequent sweet 16 runs with the occasional elite 8, final four, and at some point a possible championship. Call me unrealistic, but that's what it needs to be. If Underwood can't achieve that, bring me someone that can.
This right there.
That argument really makes no sense. An "elite" 3 point shooting lineup doesn't need every single player to be shooting them. (It would also help to actually install some plays to get 3 point shooters shots other than ball screens and drive and kicks.) If Morez leaves then it would be a GIANT failure by the staff. You cannot continue to call yourself a basketball program if you have no continuity. You are simply a bunch of one-off teams that happen to wear the same jersey. And if people don't see the problem in that they should talk to some more casual fans this year. I've had multiple people say to me, "I don't know any of these guys" with a strong note of disinterest. That is the sound of a diminishing fanbase.
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