There have been a few posters acting like those of us acting like the Nebraska loss is a VERY big deal that speaks to systemic issues with this team are overreacting - overly emotional in the wake of a loss, and we'll ~regain our senses~ after a good night's sleep. Well, I would like to show what concerns me so much about this team. I posted
this in the Nebraska pregame thread of our overall shooting and three-point shooting. Well, here's the new list with Nebraska. Averages are pre-Nebraska, since I didn't redo the whole thing. Orange wins and blue losses, like last time.
FIELD GOALS
57.5% at #16 Oregon
52.6% vs. Arkansas (Kansas City, MO)
47.0% at Washington
46.5% in average win
45.1% vs. #4 Alabama (Birmingham, AL)
44.6% vs. Northwestern
44.2% vs. Penn State
43.9% vs. #20 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
42.9% in average game
42.4% at #7 Michigan State
42.2% vs. #17 Wisconsin
40.0% at Indiana
38.2% in average loss
37.7% vs. Maryland
37.3% at Northwestern
37.1% vs. USC
35.6% at Nebraska
29.4% vs. #8 Tennessee
THREE-POINTERS
55.2% at #16 Oregon
48.4% vs. Arkansas (Kansas City, MO)
34.8% in average win (obviously driven up by Oregon!)
34.4% at Indiana
33.3% vs. #4 Alabama (Birmingham, AL)
32.3% vs. Penn State
30.8% vs. #20 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
30.3% vs. #17 Wisconsin
30.0% in average game
28.1% vs. Northwestern
26.5% at Northwestern
23.8% at Nebraska
23.6% in average loss
21.9% vs. USC
21.4% vs. Maryland
20.8% at #7 Michigan State
19.2% at Washington
17.4% vs. #8 Tennessee
So yeah ... you can't shoot 35.6% from the field and win most days. And giving up 17 points off of 17 turnovers is a recipe for losing. And blown defensive assignments on top of any other issues are going to make it impossible to win. However, what scares me to DEATH about this team is that they don't seem to have that "grind it out" mode to adjust when the shots aren't falling. When we started off like 2-20 from three or something so ridiculously bad, what changed about our game plan, our effort, how careful we were with the ball, etc.? Literally nothing.
I would wager the reason many people have become terribly pessimistic going forward is the answer to this question: How do we respond if our shots aren't falling while our opponent's are, digging us an 8-point deficit or so in the first half? That is literally bound to happen to every team. If the answer isn't to sharpen up mentally and step up the overall effort, we will lose every game where that happens, because we lack any hope of staging a comeback if that is the case! And guess what? That is exactly what has happened. Here are our Big Ten wins this year and the largest deficits we faced in each...
W 86-80 vs. Wisconsin ... trailed by 4 with 8:57 in first half
W 109-77 at Oregon ... trailed by 5 with 16:05 in first half
W 81-77 at Washington ... never trailed once
W 91-52 vs. Penn State ... trailed by 6 with 14:29 in first half
W 94-69 at Indiana ... trailed by 1 with 18:05 in first half
W 83-74 vs. Northwestern ... trailed by 1 with 18:20 in first half
Obviously there is nothing wrong with blowing teams out, but we clearly aren't doing that very often ... or we wouldn't be just 6-5 in conference play. So what worries me about not trailing by any material amount in any of our wins?? Well, we haven't had a game where we were seemingly off and got it together. And if that is your MO as a team, you will not go far. If we are having a good shooting day and everyone is feeling it, we will simply beat the other team the vast majority of the time, hardly ever trailing besides earlier in the first half. But if we have an off day like EVERY TEAM DOES?? It seems like we just fold. MSU was a bit of an anomaly given the fouls on KJ, but look at our last 3 Big Ten losses:
L 72-82 vs. USC ... we never led again after 17:32 in the second half and spent the vast majority of the game trailing by 5-8
L 70-91 vs. Maryland ... last lead was by 1 with 12:29 left in the first half and then Maryland methodically expanded its lead until it got to embarrassing territory
L 74-80 at Nebraska ... never led once and sent it to OT because Nebraska had NO business ever being up in the first place (at which point we got outscored 8-0 before a garbage time layup made it 8-2...)
So there you have it visually ... so far, you pretty much know if we are going to win or lose a couple minutes in, and that is VERY frustrating and alarming as a fan. We have not shown one ounce of grit to respond to adversity and tough out a win when our pretty three pointers end up as bricks or our dazzling moves to the basket twirl off of the rim for misses. Our response to "our game" not going well ... is to keep playing our game in the exact same way, thinking that eventually the shots will fall. And teams like that, more often than not, end up as a 7-10 seed and in the Second Round on a good day. That's not good enough for Illinois Basketball. And, of course, the cherry on top is that the body language from this group (with a couple exceptions like DGL, bless his soul!) and the decision making of this staff just frankly seem to indicate that THEY don't see what's going on as unacceptable. They might be bummed out, they obviously want to win, they know they can play better, etc .... but they're not angry. They're not disgusted. Or they're at least not enough of either one to flip a switch and improve things. And we the fans rightfully are both angry and disgusted, so there's your disconnect.
the bed. Unfortunately, that happens. It's happened almost every year we've had a great team ('21, '24). Plenty of games where we barely scrape out a win solely on the back of Ayo or TSJ. We don't have an upperclass version of Ayo or TSJ on this team. Guys are going to have bad games. It is what it is. It's not enjoyable, but please stop acting like the season is over on January 31st -- there's a lot more to go and a lot more still to fight for.
