Illinois unranked in AP Poll

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#5      
the juiceman cometh
Illini2010-11 said:
At this stage of the season, who cares?

At the end of the season: definitely want to be ranked, as it means the team made a run into at least the second week of the tourney.
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Yep. Pretty sure tournament game broadcasts don't even show AP ranking - just seeding. Any benefit of having that number next to your game is neutralized this time of year anyway.
 
#7      
illini80
Reasonable. Top 15 team one night, Top 50 the next. It would sure be nice to get hot (from 3) and stay that way for 3 weeks, but recent history is not on our side.
 
#9      
Fighter of the Nightman
illini80 said:
Reasonable. Top 15 team one night, Top 50 the next. It would sure be nice to get hot (from 3) and stay that way for 3 weeks, but recent history is not on our side.
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At this point, I am almost hoping we do NOT get hot from three in our First Round game and still manage to win, lol ... I don't want to waste that shooting when we will need it for Kentucky or beyond! :ROFLMAO: In all seriousness, though, since we got our full team back, we are on this trend (with the opponents blinded) of 3-point shooting in chronological order:

2/5 - 21.4% in loss
2/8 - 56.3% in win
2/11 - 39.3% in win
2/15 - 21.2% in loss
2/18 - 33.3% in loss
2/22 - 7.7% in loss :sick:
2/25 - 31.0% in win
3/2 - 37.8% in win
3/7 - 36.7% in win
3/13 - 46.2% in win
3/14 - 22.2% in loss

So after Duke, it seemed like we had settled in to being able to at least hit 30% of our threes and often get in that mid- or upper 30s range. However, Maryland was our worst outing in a month from 3-point land, to go along with all of the other issues. I have come to peace with the fact that our game plan either cannot or will not be changed too drastically, and we will indeed live by the three or die by the three. However, I am cautiously optimistic of the following still...

(1) Even if we are shooting 30% or so from three, we can still beat good teams if we just play with the appropriate effort and focus. A great example is our home win against Iowa, where we only shot 31.0% from three, but we won by 20 because we played good defense and made 32 of our 63 FGs overall (50.8%). I am entirely prepared for a scenario in our First Round game where we have a bit of nerves and we are not exactly raining threes ... we NEED to persevere past that and not let the other team get hot.

(2) If we ARE hitting our threes at 35%+, we will be a very, very tough out. A performance like our win at Michigan (37.8% from three and 46.6% overall) is more than capable of knocking off a Kentucky or even Tennessee ... if we can get there.

Pretty much my fantasy scenario is we can grind out a win vs. Xavier or Texas, and then we have a "feelin' it" game at the exact right time vs. what I assume will be #3 Kentucky.
 
#10      
Roundball Sage
illini80 said:
Reasonable. Top 15 team one night, Top 50 the next. It would sure be nice to get hot (from 3) and stay that way for 3 weeks, but recent history is not on our side.
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This Illini team truly has a split personality. You literally did not know which Illini team was going to appear on the floor on any given night. At times looking like they can beat anybody... and then another night looking like they’d have trouble against guys at the local ‘Y’ or playing streetball on the blacktop.

That’s why this Tournament is so hard to anticipate. One or two top guys on The Beloved have been fairly consistent lately while the others games’ have been all over the place.

Overall this would seem to temper the hopes of Illini Nation. We start with that famous condition of ‘Cautiously Optimist’ (what does that really mean – we’ve ‘optimistic’ but ‘not very so’?).

Coach and staff will no doubt do everything they can to ready the guys. Many of these Illini players won’t be around after this Tournament so they need to step up and seize the day and maximize what this group is capable of.

Since this group of Beloved is built around the Long Range game... let’s hope that their shots are free and loose and released with confidence and purpose and the ball frequently finds the loving open space that exists within the hoop and tournament twine.

Tournament Ball rewards the courageous -- not the timid.
 
#11      
Captain 14
Roundball Sage said:
This Illini team truly has a split personality. You literally did not know which Illini team was going to appear on the floor on any given night. At times looking like they can beat anybody... and then another night looking like they’d have trouble against guys at the local ‘Y’ or playing streetball on the blacktop.

That’s why this Tournament is so hard to anticipate. One or two top guys on The Beloved have been fairly consistent lately while the others games’ have been all over the place.

Overall this would seem to temper the hopes of Illini Nation. We start with that famous condition of ‘Cautiously Optimist’ (what does that really mean – we’ve ‘optimistic’ but ‘not very so’?).

Coach and staff will no doubt do everything they can to ready the guys. Many of these Illini players won’t be around after this Tournament so they need to step up and seize the day and maximize what this group is capable of.

Since this group of Beloved is built around the Long Range game... let’s hope that their shots are free and loose and released with confidence and purpose and the ball frequently finds the loving open space that exists within the hoop and tournament twine.

Tournament Ball rewards the courageous -- not the timid.
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Right now I prefer being cautiously pessimistic, with hopes of an upside surprise
 
#12      
Vinegarben
The only thing this team has settled into is mediocrity and who in the heck knows which team will show up any night?
 
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