USC 82, Illinois 72 Postgame

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#426      
OrangeBlue98
PepeSilvia said:
Brad has made the program nationally relevant and fun to watch again(for the most part). And it's definitely way better than the Weber(post Self recruits) and Groce era.

I think Brad will likely be the coach here until he retires or the wheels fall off a bit but I feel like he's kinda in the weird spot where it's difficult to hire a coach that would be an improvement but I have have very little confidence that he will ever get the program over the hump and win a championship.

While I think it will be frustrating at times but I'd take consistent good and fun seasons with tournament appearances as a floor over whatever it was the Groce and Weber did.
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Given how college basketball has changed, I DO think Illinois can win a national championship. Yes, it won't be easy and things will have to fall the right way, but I don't think it's a far-fetched pipe dream.

Last year, the big issue was that there was simply an incredibly dominant team the likes of which (compared to the other teams) we hadn't seen in quite some time. In my opinion, the last time there was a team as dominant as the 2023-24 UConn team was the 2008-2009 North Carolina team that hammered Michigan State in the national championship game. Put another way, if last year's Illini team was in this year's NCAA tournament field, I honestly think they would have a great chance to win the whole thing.

I've long said that the expectation should be for Illinois to consistently be a program that is playing in the second weekend. If you make enough second weekends, you'll start making Final Fours. If you start making Final Fours, then I think you'll eventually win a national championship (even though Gonzaga kind of blows a hole in that idea).
 
#427      
BDMAN
Steelyunk said:
Leonardo Di Caprio Look GIF by Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
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Neither would playing defense with the effort required to execute it. It was not the type of defense employed but the effort that went in executing
 
#429      
Bigtex
BackThatPassUp said:
They played tissue paper soft. I'm also sick of the same song and dance where Brad let's one player go off bc they're shooting mid range shots but undermining that they're getting to their spots. We saw it with northwestern too.
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was hoping the bad taste would be gone by now. Nope!!! So tired of these kind of performances at home. Underwood is a great road coach. Underwood is an average home game coach.

Equally tired with 1 guy beating Illinois. Most of us posters have been mocked by insiders that collective we don't know basketball, but I think any of us would have adjusted our defense to make someone other than Claude score at will. Maybe since S Harrington said the same thing, maybe it will result in a change.
 
#430      
NarrowJ
Random tidbit: We are 38-33-3 against the spread at home the last 5 yrs (ie, we are outperforming statistical model expectations at home)
 
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#431      
danielb927
NarrowJ said:
Random tidbit: We are 38-33-3 against the spread at home the last 5 yrs (ie, we are outperforming statistical model expectations at home)
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I'd be curious if there's any correlation with the spread itself. Are we slightly outperforming across all types of games, or are we blowing out cupcakes more than expected and otherwise underperforming in tough games?
 
#432      
NarrowJ
danielb927 said:
I'd be curious if there's any correlation with the spread itself. Are we slightly outperforming across all types of games, or are we blowing out cupcakes more than expected and otherwise underperforming in tough games?
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The source I used (betiq.com) does not provide that information, unfortunately, as far as I can tell. However, we can note that all games are weighted equally.

One other tidbit is our spread +/- in home games the last 5 years is +2.0 which is good for #1 in the conference.
 
#433      
danielb927
NarrowJ said:
The source I used (betiq.com) does not provide that information, unfortunately, as far as I can tell. However, we can note that all games are weighted equally.

One other tidbit is our spread +/- in home games the last 5 years is +2.0 which is good for #1 in the conference.
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Pretty interesting! I'm guessing most Illini fans wouldn't guess either of those stats - at least, to me it feels like we underperform at home. So either we've underperformed mainly in big games, or it's just the natural tendency to remember the bad performances a bit more (especially having just had one).
 
#434      
jmm
OrangeBlue98 said:
Well, we now understand a reason for the usual early morning “crap the bed” performances.

These players are compensated. If they have one Saturday where they are at the gym at 6, so be it. You’d think that after years of this, Underwood would think to himself “Gee, we never do well with what’s happening, so maybe we try something different??”

Again, 95% of the time Underwood’s dogged determination and firm belief in himself and his vision is a great thing. Here’s the 5% “dark side”.

We have to get rid of these crap the bed home games. They always put us in bad situations for the tournament. We are a 2 seed and avoid UConn last season if we don’t lose to Maryland, for example.
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OK but now I’m really kind of confused. Didn’t Brad just say in his press conference after the Penn State blowout that success is kind of boring, because it’s small little routines and repetitions that you do every day in order to be great.

If that’s the case, how can two days later he allow the team to skip out on something that’s such a vital Routine.
 
#435      
ILL-Intentions
In the Indiana pre-game, Brad said he needed to play Tomi more. He wasnt playing super well and myself included was calling for more Morez. Tomi does pass well and can help facilitate the offense. I have liked seeing Morez and Tomi on the floor at the same time. Any analytical people know how many minutes they were on the floor together, I dont recall it that much. Maybe packing the lane would have cut down on some of those Claude layups.
 
#438      
AirNeazy
jrichisamazing said:
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?
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Best kept secret in the league is that we have one of the worst home court advantages in the B1G. Like we're not Penn State level but I'd say our crowd is roughly Minnesota-level tier in terms of loudness/intimidation factor. Went to a VCU game recently and their crowd/noise was significantly more amped than SFC/Assembly Hall.

Our crowd barely ever stands/stays loud for extended periods of time, and if there's a foul or stoppage in play......they just sit back down and forget they were screaming their heads off less than 10 seconds before that. Our crowds used to be INSANE, like the Eric Gordon game is still to this day the craziest sports environment I've been at, but you could tell that around 2011/2012 our crowds lost that edge of loudness and craziness and still haven't gotten it back. Don't know if it's PTSD from the 2010s Illini-hellscape or what but we still haven't gotten back to the House of 'Paign days.

I had season tickets from 05-13 and was in student section until 2016. Krush can't escape blame here either, the student leaders were absolutely terrible in terms of deciding how to create an intimidating section back then and I haven't seen much difference this decade either. Maybe its how our arena is designed, but Orange Krush can't compare to the Izzone, Paint Crew, hell even Maryland's student section washes ours. Whitman and co have got to figure this one out.
 
#439      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
No one expected USC to be a tournament team. And if they did, at most middle of the pack. And they haven't been, at least so far. That is a bad loss as it stands today.
 
#440      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
No one thought USC was a tournament team. They were expected to be at the bottom, and are at the bottom. The win over us is literally the only good thing on their resume. And it needed to come with the best player in the conference not being available.

But regardless, it stands as a bad loss at the moment (Quad 3 at home).
 
#441      
PepeSilvia
OrangeBlue98 said:
Given how college basketball has changed, I DO think Illinois can win a national championship. Yes, it won't be easy and things will have to fall the right way, but I don't think it's a far-fetched pipe dream.

Last year, the big issue was that there was simply an incredibly dominant team the likes of which (compared to the other teams) we hadn't seen in quite some time. In my opinion, the last time there was a team as dominant as the 2023-24 UConn team was the 2008-2009 North Carolina team that hammered Michigan State in the national championship game. Put another way, if last year's Illini team was in this year's NCAA tournament field, I honestly think they would have a great chance to win the whole thing.

I've long said that the expectation should be for Illinois to consistently be a program that is playing in the second weekend. If you make enough second weekends, you'll start making Final Fours. If you start making Final Fours, then I think you'll eventually win a national championship (even though Gonzaga kind of blows a hole in that idea).
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I think last year was likely the best shot Brad had of winning a title simply because Shannon was an absolute unicorn at the collegiate level. However, like you pointed out they just happened to run into a generational rim protector and great team in UConn.

I actually think the portal era hurts Brads chances of winning a title. If it was still the old era, Brads recruiting would give him a chance of getting a team that's just incredibly talented and old that can just win a championship based on talent and experience when a lot of the other big programs were relying on one and done guys.

Now basically every major program is bringing in a ton of talent every year which has evened the scales a bit but also made the in game coaching far more valuable and I just have a hard time seeing Brad beating guys like Hurley, Oats, Self, and so on when those coaches will be similarly if not more talented to Brads team.
 
#443      
EyeoftheIllini
Needed to do something different, but box and 1 wasn’t it. When was the last time you saw a P4 team use a box and 1? And if you’ve seen it used at this level, I’d be shocked if it was used by a team that rarely if ever runs a zone.
 
#445      
chudaman
ILL-Intentions said:
In the Indiana pre-game, Brad said he needed to play Tomi more. He wasnt playing super well and myself included was calling for more Morez. Tomi does pass well and can help facilitate the offense. I have liked seeing Morez and Tomi on the floor at the same time. Any analytical people know how many minutes they were on the floor together, I dont recall it that much. Maybe packing the lane would have cut down on some of those Claude layups.
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Hopefully Tomi will break out from his sophomore slump.
 
#448      
NarrowJ
whiteturbo said:
At some point coach will realize what his D is doing isn't working. Ever heard of a Box & 1? Sheesh I love Underwood but he can be stubborn
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We have a top 10 defense.

Box and 1 is antiquated and doesn't work anymore at this level against today's more modern, complex offenses. Gimmick defenses like that are good for a possession or maybe two, until the opponent realizes what it is and begins to exploit it.

I'm not saying don't make adjustments, the manner in which we were switching is what Sean Harrington was referring to in his tweets. We will never see a box and 1 though or at least I hope not lol.
 
#449      
Ramrod2010
AirNeazy said:
Best kept secret in the league is that we have one of the worst home court advantages in the B1G. Like we're not Penn State level but I'd say our crowd is roughly Minnesota-level tier in terms of loudness/intimidation factor. Went to a VCU game recently and their crowd/noise was significantly more amped than SFC/Assembly Hall.

Our crowd barely ever stands/stays loud for extended periods of time, and if there's a foul or stoppage in play......they just sit back down and forget they were screaming their heads off less than 10 seconds before that. Our crowds used to be INSANE, like the Eric Gordon game is still to this day the craziest sports environment I've been at, but you could tell that around 2011/2012 our crowds lost that edge of loudness and craziness and still haven't gotten it back. Don't know if it's PTSD from the 2010s Illini-hellscape or what but we still haven't gotten back to the House of 'Paign days.

I had season tickets from 05-13 and was in student section until 2016. Krush can't escape blame here either, the student leaders were absolutely terrible in terms of deciding how to create an intimidating section back then and I haven't seen much difference this decade either. Maybe its how our arena is designed, but Orange Krush can't compare to the Izzone, Paint Crew, hell even Maryland's student section washes ours. Whitman and co have got to figure this one out.
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I love our fans because we have been through some crap to get to this point (both football and basketball) and yet we are still as passionate as ever. But we suck at creating an intimidating environment (again both sports).

There is just a general lack of "Let's get loud, I don't care how stupid I might look. Let's all look stupid together while being loud!"
 
#450      
Bigtex
NarrowJ said:
We have a top 10 defense.

Box and 1 is antiquated and doesn't work anymore at this level against today's more modern, complex offenses. Gimmick defenses like that are good for a possession or maybe two, until the opponent realizes what it is and begins to exploit it.

I'm not saying don't make adjustments, the manner in which we were switching is what Sean Harrington was referring to in his tweets. We will never see a box and 1 though or at least I hope not lol.
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Change something for a possession or 2. Use one of the timeouts that underwood usually doesn't use.
 
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