USC 82, Illinois 72 Postgame

[forbesfrosh]

Thankfully there has been very few of those.

That's two so far this season. He let Martinelli take over the Northwestern game by repeatedly abusing Humrichous & made no adjustment, just as he failed to stop Claude from taking over the game and abusing Boswell and DGL. Underwood said he did an "awful" job of coaching in the NU game. He suggested much the same by saying he "overreacted" against USC and didn't play Ivisic enough or put Humrichous on Claude.
Why did he allow the team to take so many 3-point shots when they were obviously off Saturday? When they surged at the end of the first half by driving inside consistently and drawing fouls from a team that Underwood said "fouls a lot," why didn't they continue to do so?
I know he loves the 3-point shot but we're NOT that good shooting beyond the arc to be taking 25-35 per game. We have the size and skill to dominate inside the arc and don't need to launch so many shots outside it.
Underwood and his staff are great recruiters and have assembled a highly talented team, but in light of that talent there really is no excuse to lose to NU and then USC at home. And it's hard to understand why he isn't better at making in-game adjustments that seem so clear.

 

[SescIllini]

Related to the talk about worst home losses ever, I took a look at some of the worst home losses in the KenPom / Torvik era. The USC one was bad but we've probably had worse.

Here they are sorted by the difference in Torvik ranking at the time of the game.

Date	Opponent	Final Score	Difference in ranking	Notes
12/30/2007	Tennessee St.	58-60	198
2/4/2006	Penn St.	65-66	88*	*Based on end of season KenPom ranking because Torvik doesn't go back this far. The difference at the time of the game was likely even greater. This game ended up costing us a share of the conference title and ended our 33 game home winning streak.
12/10/2022	Penn St.	59-74	88
1/14/2024	Maryland	67-76	86
1/11/2025	USC	72-82	65
1/10/2021	Maryland	63-66	58
1/17/2013	Northwestern	64-68	54
12/2/2019	Miami	79-81	48
2/18/2009	Penn St.	33-38	47
1/15/2014	Purdue	58-66	37	Not an egregious loss on the surface. But it likely caused us to miss the tournament.

- All things considered, I have to take the 2006 PSU game as the worst home loss.
- Half of these games were played between Jan. 10 and Jan. 17.
- And half were played against PSU or MD.

Don't know where Florida Atlantic was ranked in 2018, but losing that home game with Kofi in the stands was terrible. It was very bad weather, Kofi sent something in instagram basically saying he was bored and get me out of here.

 

[21ChampaignSt]

Don't know where Florida Atlantic was ranked in 2018, but losing that home game with Kofi in the stands was terrible. It was very bad weather, Kofi sent something in instagram basically saying he was bored and get me out of here.

Yeah, I probably should have included that one. TBH, I skipped over that season because when you're that bad, there usually aren't many shocking, WTF losses.

But at the time of the game, we were ranked 100 spots ahead of FAU.

 

[STATS GUY]

If I had made the drive and spent the money to watch them play yesterday I would be apoplectic, not because we lost, but because they didn’t come to play. We can wrangle with all the what ifs regarding strategy/tactics, but the fundamental issue was effort/“want to”. If they don’t feel like competing, just send an email blast out to the fans so they can stay home and watch the travesty on TV…or just read the box score after the game. That would be the considerate thing to do.

I had a high school coach once ask at halftime for all of us to go get our wallets. Once he had us all sitting in a group he then asked us all to contribute to a fund to refund the fans as he said ' the fans paid to get in and deserve more out of us'. Actually had to contribute at half time. I did get the money back in pizza after the game as we erased a 18 point deficit for a 10 point win. Message sent and received. Practice was HE** next few days Oxygen deprivation has a way of changing the mind set. Gotta admit I used same speech when I was a high school coach.

 

[BashCtIllini]

That was my exact reaction watching the game yesterday. WTF ? You get a ticket, get up off your a—-s and make some noise ! The crowd had no effect on the game. Sometimes I really wonder about the fan base.

The fan is the paying customer. I think some forget that. The team owes the fans, not the other way around.

What exactly were the fans supposed to be cheering about? We shot 22% from 3, 37% from the field. We got outrebounded, we had 15 turnovers, and USC shot 52% from the field with Claude, who did most of their damage, shooting 60%. Our defense was subpar as well. So you're expecting fans to just mindlessly make noise when nothing positive was happening?

We have games like this every year when the players look lost and apathetic, the coaching looks absent, and we get beat by a subpar team. Out of all the people deserving blame in those games, the fans are absolutely last on the list.

 

[LTUtd]

Piper said KJ practiced yesterday... How on earth did we not play him????????

It was more KJ's decision. He wanted to play it safe as his arm still wasn't feeling good.

 

[SescIllini]

It was more KJ's decision. He wanted to play it safe as his arm still wasn't feeling good.

KJ is starring at life altering salary, I wouldn't risk his and his family's future on a game that the rest of the team should have won.

 

[blackdog]

If the team gets a F, then the fans get an F-

I know Krush was on break, but we could still give the team at least a little bit of a home court advantage. It doesn't seem like MSU, Purdue, Indiana, etc have as much of a problem with crowd noise on break as we do. Do they do something different than us?

It's really getting worse. This year more and more people are sitting down right after tip off. I'm about to start telling people close to me to stand up if they do because it bothers me. Two dudes in front of us looked like recent grads and one was wearing an orange krush shirt. Sat quietly the whole game. Me and my wife try to do our part but it seems like people are allergic to making noise now.

 

[FloridaMan]

KJ is starring at life altering salary, I wouldn't risk his and his family's future on a game that the rest of the team should have won.

Not blaming him at all, and agree with you for the most part. But it could also be also be said that he is already receiving life altering money to help IL win games at this level. That is the double edge sword that is NIL.

 

[BoiseBaller]

That's two so far this season. He let Martinelli take over the Northwestern game by repeatedly abusing Humrichous & made no adjustment, just as he failed to stop Claude from taking over the game and abusing Boswell and DGL. Underwood said he did an "awful" job of coaching in the NU game. He suggested much the same by saying he "overreacted" against USC and didn't play Ivisic enough or put Humrichous on Claude.
Why did he allow the team to take so many 3-point shots when they were obviously off Saturday? When they surged at the end of the first half by driving inside consistently and drawing fouls from a team that Underwood said "fouls a lot," why didn't they continue to do so?
I know he loves the 3-point shot but we're NOT that good shooting beyond the arc to be taking 25-35 per game. We have the size and skill to dominate inside the arc and don't need to launch so many shots outside it.
Underwood and his staff are great recruiters and have assembled a highly talented team, but in light of that talent there really is no excuse to lose to NU and then USC at home. And it's hard to understand why he isn't better at making in-game adjustments that seem so clear.

This probably won't be popular, but I think Brad is much closer to what Illini fans used to view Bill Self as that what self actually is. A great recruiter with limited bench coaching chops.

That said, I like Brad and appreciate him a ton, but we have seen a lot of games where tactically he was outdone, and a lot of game where we have just had "dudes" who could overcome that by just taking the ball and making one on one plays. Ayo, Terrance, now KJ.

You can be highly successful with this model, and Brad has been. But you'll get a few games every year where we just get out-prepped or out-adjusted when the stars just can't take it over (or are injured).

 

[hooraybeer]

need to get sean harrington on staff in some capacity, he gets it and has a deep understanding of and loyalty to the beloved

 

[SummerofGeorge]

Stated in the game thread that I hoped we lose due to the poor play. Partly out of frustration but stand by it because I feel there is much more opportunity to grow from a bad loss than to be rewarded by eeking out a win when you play miserably. I trust this coaching staff to make this is teachable moment. As for the 11:00 a.m. nonsense, the team we play also starts at 11:00 and tournament games may start that early too. Better figure out a way.

 

[EyeoftheIllini]

Can someone help me out? Looking for the MSU post game. Heck, I can’t even find the Indiana post game thread. They have to be here somewhere because I keep reading that USC loss is the first in a 3-game losing streak.

 

[FrankNitty30]

PSU was a poor "analytics" team, they tried for contested two's the whole game. USC without looking at shot chart seems to be doing mainly "at the rim" 2's (with mismatches) and open 3's.

USC on Illinois, they forces us into isolated 2's with rim protection near the basket. They also let us shoot 3's, knowing we are 200 in the nation in 3 pt percentage (not elite). They kept us off the boards, didn't allow the putbacks and secondary shots. We don't have a top 125 scorer in the nation, the closest was in street clothes. We have a lot of talented players, play great team ball that hustle. On Saturday, hustle and team ball was in USC's favor.

So there are 2 instances. Which….. we are a horrible missed layup by Boswell from winning the Northwestern game.

My original post was that we haven’t had to worry about this very often. AND I CAN GUARANTEE no more so than EVERY other school in the country. Coaches get out coached ALL THE TIME.

He has coached 236 games for us and has the best Winning percentage (tied with Purdue) in the BIG 10 over the last five years and they are light years ahead of 3rd place.

He is 117-49 during that time overall.

So I’ll stick with my original point. Yesterday is not the norm and is in fact in such a small minority of games that it is laughable to even talk about.

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

Wrong. Win either of those and it is erased.

Agreed. While winning both would be great, IMO it's unlikely (not impossible), and if you can just not lose both back to back, there's reason to feel fine about it.

 

[FromTheLogo]

PSU was a poor "analytics" team, they tried for contested two's the whole game. USC without looking at shot chart seems to be doing mainly "at the rim" 2's (with mismatches) and open 3's.

USC on Illinois, they forces us into isolated 2's with rim protection near the basket. They also let us shoot 3's, knowing we are 200 in the nation in 3 pt percentage (not elite). They kept us off the boards, didn't allow the putbacks and secondary shots. We don't have a top 125 scorer in the nation, the closest was in street clothes. We have a lot of talented players, play great team ball that hustle. On Saturday, hustle and team ball was in USC's favor.

And tough 2's played to the strength of their best player, Claude. We should have let him shoot 3's all day.

 

[Combo]

Agreed. While winning both would be great, IMO it's unlikely (not impossible), and if you can just not lose both back to back, there's reason to feel fine about it.

If KJ isn't back, the most likely scenario is two losses.

 

[mysterio2525]

If KJ isn't back, the most likely scenario is two losses.

Our MSU game next week is another morning game.... So not great. Maybe we do shoot around before the game this time

 

[The Sprouting Divot]

Our MSU game next week is another morning game.... So not great. Maybe we do shoot around before the game this time

Hope that doesn't cut into our sage burning and whatever other woowoo !!!! we did yesterday instead of focusing on the task at hand.

 

[New Creation]

so NWs and USC only conference wins are against us?

 

[BretMyBeachHouse]

Related to the talk about worst home losses ever, I took a look at some of the worst home losses in the KenPom / Torvik era. The USC one was bad but we've probably had worse.

Here they are sorted by the difference in Torvik ranking at the time of the game.

Date	Opponent	Final Score	Difference in ranking	Notes
12/30/2007	Tennessee St.	58-60	198
2/4/2006	Penn St.	65-66	88*	*Based on end of season KenPom ranking because Torvik doesn't go back this far. The difference at the time of the game was likely even greater. This game ended up costing us a share of the conference title and ended our 33 game home winning streak.
12/10/2022	Penn St.	59-74	88
1/14/2024	Maryland	67-76	86
1/11/2025	USC	72-82	65
1/10/2021	Maryland	63-66	58
1/17/2013	Northwestern	64-68	54
12/2/2019	Miami	79-81	48
2/18/2009	Penn St.	33-38	47
1/15/2014	Purdue	58-66	37	Not an egregious loss on the surface. But it likely caused us to miss the tournament.

- All things considered, I have to take the 2006 PSU game as the worst home loss.
- Half of these games were played between Jan. 10 and Jan. 17.
- And half were played against PSU or MD.

I'd put miami of ohio game right around the time of the Tennessee tech disaster on my list. Also Winthrop in 16. And it won't make the torvik list but the Dayton NIT game is on my list.

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

If KJ isn't back, the most likely scenario is two losses.

I doubt he isn't, but then....

 

[bluemountain]

BU has been here 8 years, so we know what we have. On the good side, we will always have top 20 level talent and we will generally play hard. On the bad side, the offense has a boom/bust character to it, we lack discipline and don't do small things well (eg inbounds plays, tight screen action) and a well coached team will find our weaknesses and abuse them because we won't make adjustments. In individual games, we have a high ceiling but low floor; over the course of a season we have a high floor and an Elite 8 ceiling. It can get frustrating, but we can (and have) done a lot worse.

 

[bleedorange and blue]

It was more KJ's decision. He wanted to play it safe as his arm still wasn't feeling good.

Feeling good? What does that mean? There has to be a cause. It's all so strange

 

[Illiniguy13]

BU has been here 8 years, so we know what we have. On the good side, we will always have top 20 level talent and we will generally play hard. On the bad side, the offense has a boom/bust character to it, we lack discipline and don't do small things well (eg inbounds plays, tight screen action) and a well coached team will find our weaknesses and abuse them because we won't make adjustments. In individual games, we have a high ceiling but low floor; over the course of a season we have a high floor and an Elite 8 ceiling. It can get frustrating, but we can (and have) done a lot worse.

I know things change, but if we can keep OA on staff that top 20 level talent is going to be more like top 10. Now, if we can bring in another Gentry X’s & O’s type…