Maryland 91, Illinois 70 Postgame

[Illini2010-11]

Promise you guys, this team will be totally fine. The bumps suck right now but it will be worth it come March. Winning streak starts Sunday

Passing this message on to @SkyysNotFalling, to ensure that the ever optimistic outlook returns, as this poster got pessimistic after the game last night.

 

[CoachHooleyHoo]

I agree with you on Ben being too small to defend the paint well. The other problem in my opinion is that he is to slow of foot to defend most forwards or guards that come his way.

Yeah...you're not wrong on that. Definitely not the quickest guy and gets out of position at times as a result. But I actually went back and watched some of our most recent games, and he's a better defender than we give him credit for. He's good on help defense, based on consistent positioning he seems to be locked in on the scouting report (obviously that's an assumption on my part but it's based on how he consistently guards certain players...guys that can't shoot, etc.), and when he does get beat, he's got some hops so he can make plays even when he's out of position. His biggest problem is that when he gets a strong forward, he just gets buried deep and can't do anything about it. This is just my opinion, but I think he's our best help defender on the team.

 

[LvilleILL1]

I’ll say it.

I don’t see how KJ is a top 5 pick while TSJ sits in the G-League.

Age, potential, sure…I get that. But one guy was a dog / competitor and the other is very laissez faire all too often.

Not sure how that's your takeaway. He's turnover prone but he's the most talented player we have had overall in a long time. The things he can do on a basketball court are super impressive especially for an 18 year old kid that just moved halfway across the world

 

[Big Jack]

Promise you guys, this team will be totally fine. The bumps suck right now but it will be worth it come March. Winning streak starts Sunday

Bahaha you gotta check your enthusiasm at the door my friend.

 

[OrangeBlue98]

Passing this message on to @SkyysNotFalling, to ensure that the ever optimistic outlook returns, as this poster got pessimistic after the game last night.

It's OK to be realistic. I know the Oregon game probably got me more fired up than what was probably optimal.

I’ll say it.

I don’t see how KJ is a top 5 pick while TSJ sits in the G-League.

Age, potential, sure…I get that. But one guy was a dog / competitor and the other is very laissez faire all too often.

He needs a good 15 pounds of muscle on him if he's going to be an immediate contributor in the NBA. The physicality of guard play will be a completely different level than what he's seeing right now.

 

[Illini2010-11]

It's OK to be realistic. I know the Oregon game probably got me more fired up than what was probably optimal.


He needs a good 15 pounds of muscle on him if he's going to be an immediate contributor in the NBA. The physicality of guard play will be a completely different level than what he's seeing right now.

I don't disagree, but I was enjoying the overly unrealistic and optimistic prediction in the bracketology thread of Illini by 30 over Michigan State.

 

[Poe's Law]

KIA.....waiting for the Sargeant White messages to start.

MIA is hopefully more apt.

@RichardKeenesCousin said it best, I’m sad. I expected to compete for a big ten crown and it’s exceedingly unlikely at this point.

Hope we get the good version of this illini squad against Northwestern. Dropping a 3rd home game to an inferior team isn’t going to sit well.

 

[skyIdub]

Dude, do you really read that comment as me putting “the responsibility on just 2 players”??

Good grief reading comprehension is just dead.

 

[illini80]

I said in one of the recent losses, a few unexplainable January losses seem to be the rule, not the exception for Underwood teams and I don't think he really minds. He's playing the long game, not looking for a number 1 ranking mid season. Actually not worried at all about this team. It's about March, not January. Mental toughness has to be built.

 

[OrangeBlue98]

Dude, do you really read that comment as me putting “the responsibility on just 2 players”??

Good grief reading comprehension is just dead.

Yeah, reading comprehension and overreactions are pretty crazy today. That one guy dumping on everyone for supposedly being overly negative (also known as "realism") hasn't exactly covered himself in glory, either.

 

[pruman91]

KJ & KB were out quicked last night by all the twerps ballhandlers.......numerous screens and a direct path opened to the rim for them.....it looked , to me , like we were constantly 3-4 feet away from the twerps and chasing them even with no screening PnR's........we had dead feet last night , but I will hazard a guess that more than Tomi are feeling some sort of discomfort from the bug going around the team.......

If it was anyone else other than the twerps who beat us , I could move on from this , but there's something about MD that just frost's my gonads to lose to.....I still get pizzed about our loss on the road to them when dj bald head arsewipe ref called that foul on Feliz on that court floor scrum giving the twerps 2 FT's to win that game after we had led most of the game......also , their guard banked in a 30 footer to tie it up earlier.......

we owe MD a lot of revengeness and still can't get any.........ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr....argggg....

 

[OB positive]

I've said this before, but my problem with Morez's fouls is that they are soft. 80% of his fouls are body contact where he holds his hands up afterwards trying to claim he was "straight up". Even if the majority of the time he his, he's still going to get whistled for those fouls. If they're going to call them anyway, make it a hard foul and avoid the And-1.
Morez is a beast. He should be striking Lucas Johnson level fear (frustration) into the hearts and minds of his opponents. Right now he's just a big guy to bounce off of, hit a layup, and shoot free throw.

Often when Morez is called for a foul he has arms up, stays on the ground and makes minor contact with the body sometimes leaning into the shooter with his arms or he goes up with a soft contest and the shooter usually makes sure to make some sort of contact to draw a foul call. The alternative would be going up strong knocking the ball into the seats while making contact (not intentionally) avoiding an and1. More often than not it seems the refs swallow their whistles on the second option as long as the ball was blocked cleanly, no matter how much body contact there is. I know his intent is to stay out of foul trouble but it hasn't been working so far. I imagine MJ will not get as many of those calls as other players either but it is a better approach than what he has been doing.

 

[OB positive]

KJ & KB were out quicked last night by all the twerps ballhandlers.......numerous screens and a direct path opened to the rim for them.....it looked , to me , like we were constantly 3-4 feet away from the twerps and chasing them even with no screening PnR's........we had dead feet last night , but I will hazard a guess that more than Tomi are feeling some sort of discomfort from the bug going around the team.......

If it was anyone else other than the twerps who beat us , I could move on from this , but there's something about MD that just frost's my gonads to lose to.....I still get pizzed about our loss on the road to them when dj bald head arsewipe ref called that foul on Feliz on that court floor scrum giving the twerps 2 FT's to win that game after we had led most of the game......also , their guard banked in a 30 footer to tie it up earlier.......

we owe MD a lot of revengeness and still can't get any.........ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr....argggg....

Our ball handlers need to realize the defenders are not going to just sit back and wait patiently while we make up our minds what we are going to do. It's so frustrating to watch KJ or KB just standing there nonchalantly holding the ball when the defender pokes it away for an easy steal like in was a grade school game.

 

[Big Jack]

KJ & KB were out quicked last night by all the twerps ballhandlers.......numerous screens and a direct path opened to the rim for them.....it looked , to me , like we were constantly 3-4 feet away from the twerps and chasing them even with no screening PnR's........we had dead feet last night , but I will hazard a guess that more than Tomi are feeling some sort of discomfort from the bug going around the team.......

If it was anyone else other than the twerps who beat us , I could move on from this , but there's something about MD that just frost's my gonads to lose to.....I still get pizzed about our loss on the road to them when dj bald head arsewipe ref called that foul on Feliz on that court floor scrum giving the twerps 2 FT's to win that game after we had led most of the game......also , their guard banked in a 30 footer to tie it up earlier.......

we owe MD a lot of revengeness and still can't get any.........ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrr....argggg....

I still hate their whiny asss coach.. he deserves 2 T's every game for being out of the box and on the court.... but NO they let him continually get away with that!!

 

[PepeSilvia]

It's OK to be realistic. I know the Oregon game probably got me more fired up than what was probably optimal.


He needs a good 15 pounds of muscle on him if he's going to be an immediate contributor in the NBA. The physicality of guard play will be a completely different level than what he's seeing right now.

Age and projection.

TJ got put into a bad situation but if you look at other rookies in the league and what TJ is doing in the g league that it's clear he could play in the NBA.

Kasparis will need to get stronger but he's 18 so that should come naturally. Plus plenty of NBA guards really aren't that big or physical.

 

[rkarpel]

If you’ve ever had the flu (I mean the real flu, not a bad cold — the kind where you can’t get out of bed for a week) you might be more sympathetic to a team trying to play a basketball game with several players who appear to be afflicted with it. Hard to believe KJ wasn’t sick — he appeared completely gassed and just didn’t look like the same player we’ve seen in every other game this year.

Unfortunately, none of us know which players were sick (aside from Ivisic, White and Riley) or how sick they were so it’s difficult to know what to make of this performance.

 

[Illiniindian]

We are getting absolutely nothing from our bench outside of DGL …

He’s the only kid who’s got the fire …

Jake Davis tries hard but that’s not good enough to play here …

Carey Booth isn’t good enough to play here … That was a mistake in recruiting …

Morez is doing well right? I love his bulldog approach

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

If you’ve ever had the flu (I mean the real flu, not a bad cold — the kind where you can’t get out of bed for a week) you might be more sympathetic to a team trying to play a basketball game with several players who appear to be afflicted with it. Hard to believe KJ wasn’t sick — he appeared completely gassed and just didn’t look like the same player we’ve seen in every other game this year.

Unfortunately, none of us know which players were sick (aside from Ivisic, White and Riley) or how sick they were so it’s difficult to know what to make of this performance.

Theme of it for me. You can have all the "no excuses" mottos or whatever... the circumstances are the circumstances, and they're quite inevitable.

 

[TheodoreRex]

Not sure how that's your takeaway. He's turnover prone but he's the most talented player we have had overall in a long time. The things he can do on a basketball court are super impressive especially for an 18 year old kid that just moved halfway across the world

The kid can get to any spot on the court that he wants to. He makes it look easy... and in the Big Ten nonetheless.

His TO's, careless play at times, and poor shot selection/choices are chalked up to him being 18 years old. Talent is off the charts!

 

[BlabDunkAnd1]

Id like to believe that this was all just bad timing, some bug infecting the entire team, impacting some more than others, an especially unkind piece of luck after a long stretch of games. With this I can wrap myself in the warm blanket of “we are not as bad as we showed last night.” There’s truth to that.

But there’s also truth to the notion that we’re not as good as we have been (Oregon) or think we might be. There are troubling recurrent signs that our floor is lower than we think. They start with our lack of in game adjustments, our softness inside, and wildly inconsistent performances from anyone not named KJ (where once reliable players dont just have underwhelming games, they disappear entirely). What worries me is that our entire offense is predicated on shooting 3s and we have not looked close to being an average team in that area lately. What frightens me is that teams have figured out that once you get the ball out of KJs hands or get him out of the game altogether, we’re just not good offensively.

 

[Illini in Italy]

I was saying at the beginning of the season, while everyone is was so excited about last season, we have very few data points in this new era. They Mayer Sky team was a disappointment. Last year was always great, but my fear was last year was Terrence Shannon, Marcus Domask, and these other guys. And booty ball with Domask was a bit of a gimmick.

We're now in year 3 of the transfer era and we could still go either way, disappointment or success. I continue to say, the product of college basketball is worse. You look at games with top 10 teams, and it's not great basketball.

I would love to see us build a traditional team. Bring in 3-5 Fr., supplement with 1, maybe 2 transfers, and actually develop your roster. Use your NIL to keep your team as opposed to going out looking for new players. They may be a more talented player, but they do not know the system. They do not know the roster, gaps are created.

How good with this team be if we had Hansberry, Rogers, Harris, Dainja, Goode, etc and then we added KJ, Morez, Ivisic, and Riley as Fr, and Boswell and maybe 1 other transfer. We'd have old players in the system. We'd have guys that could lead and know what the Illini program is. I just do not think this revolving door line shift transfer thing works better than building a program.

Unfortunately, that genie can't be put back in the bottle IMHO.

 

[Illini in Italy]

I am sick of the excuses. The flu, Tomi didn't play or KJ didn't play. Rez had a hangnail. Instead of coming together by February as Brad had said they would and hit their peak. This team is falling apart. I am 78 years old and I would rank this performance as probably the very worst effort right next to the blowout at the hands of Nebraska under John Groce. My grandson's 6th grade basketball team has never looked that bad. It seems to me that Maryland, Northwestern and Rutgers have a spell on the Illini. We just can't beat them.
Reese, Queen, Gillespie, Miguel had their way with us. The lane was like a super highway to the basket. 25 LAYUPS! This version of the Illini has no fight, they are a poor defensive unit. Beat up on the boards,. Turnovers, turnovers. Mini run turnover, mini run turnover! At the beginning of the year the hype was KJ, Tomi, Will would be one and done, off to the NBA. Well, they may very well go off to the NBA but it won't be as a player but as a fan .They have size at all positions, they can shoot 3's [not make them] Brad will chew on their !!!, and they may beat N.W. only to lay another egg at Nebraska and Rutgers. Over the years the Illini have had several games where they lack focus, have no energy, play like they have never seen each other before like last night.
KJ is a poor ball handler, turnover prone, struggles when pressured.
Will is just lost, very soft even weak physically. D1 opponents just manhandle him.
Tomi is not physical enough, goes long stretches where he just disappears.
Ben-is a no show most nights. I just don't know what he contributes period. Dra brings energy, hustles, he forces his way to basket, rebounds and Ben runs up and down the floor doing nothing.

Hyperbole much? Good emotional response . . .

 

[Ryllini]

Promise you guys, this team will be totally fine. The bumps suck right now but it will be worth it come March. Winning streak starts Sunday

I agree. I don't buy the thought that this team isn't that tight knit. They can't be thick as thieves while they are housing Oregon and Indiana and barely losing to MSU with your star sitting in foul trouble. And then just aren't that close of a team in a bad loss.
I concede that a 21 point loss to Maryland at home is unacceptable. The run starts on Sunday.
I think KJ has learned some valuable lessons these past couple of games. I hope he has.

 

[fightingducks]

Agree. So, so frustrating. Probably the one team that we couldn’t play missing Tomi and battling the flu. Worst possible matchup and the worst possible time.

That said, color me officially concerned about 3 things:
1. Our shooting- for a team full of good shooters we have far too many sub 30 and sub 25 percent shooting nights. The oregons and Penn states when we shoot 40% are a blast, but we need to consistently be around 33-34%. Overall I like our looks. But we have to find some consistency. We desperately needed a solid shooting tonight and didn’t get it.

2. Finishing at the rim- we are smoking far too many layups and bunnies. Team wide problem.

3. Kylan- I think we can officially say he’s in a funk. Smoking layups. Shooting some ill advised 3’s. And careless turnovers. I think it started when KJ was out and he started trying to do too much. He needs to calm down and focus on being a killer on ball defender and chipping in other areas.

I actually thought we battled hard for 30 minutes but looked like a team that had the flu and ran out of gas.

Winning the conference is a lot like winning a nascar race. You need to be good but you need to have some luck too or at least avoid bad luck. The first half of conference season we haven’t avoided it.

Still plenty of Q1 opportunities. Let’s get well and regroup.

I'd say Michigan is a worse matchup than MD for us without Tomi - but that is really splitting hairs. We are dead in the water without Tomi + Morez healthy. Booth is useless at this point.

 

[Illini in Italy]

I think we underestimate how much Tomi brings to the offense. The pick and pop was taken away from us before the first tip. I watched KJ penetrate multiple times into a mass of Maryland defenders and Morez hang around the extended free throw line with no one on him because Maryland knew Morez was no threat from three. They could clog the middle because they knew that we were playing four on five.

Defensively, Humrichhous and Booth were giving up 6 (?) inches to Reece and maybe 30-40#, and everyone was giving up 40-50# to Queen. They abused us inside, and we had no way of countering. It would have been a challenge at best with Tomi in, but we had zero chance to match up with Reece and Queen. Our guards did not do a good job either offensively or defensively. All in all, a pretty bad result, but not unexpected with Tomi being out and White and Riley not being 100%.