That we had trouble competing in the B1G after losing one of our front court players doesn't show that we were unlucky. It shows poor roster construction, poor player evaluation, and poor planning on our coaches' part. Michigan suffered key player injuries too. Their season is still going. There are plenty of other examples of teams that dealt with injuries to key players who managed to perform better than we did through these injuries. Injuries are a part of college basketball and a part of competing in a physical conference.
Kentucky 84, Illinois 75 Postgame
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That is why we need to move away from the 5 out and run a motion offense that feeds the post for kick outs or getting the defense out of position to where we can drive the lane.
This is somewhat outside the perimeters of what you’re talking about. But this team at least felt like a team that mostly cared about one another…although there was some drama but nothing like the outright mutiny that was 22-23. I think Will definitely gave a damn. I think Kaspar was a bit of a Hessian…that acting and flopping and lying on the end of the court when they’re going the other way completely infuriated me.
…but nothing like the “I’m gonna get mine” nature of Mayer or a Skyy or Epps.
Strangely, I think this team sorta thought they played hard but really didn’t. I think over half the team played soft…over half the time. But by that, mean a lack of focus and killer instinct more than anything else really. The lack of fundamental stuff was perplexing at times too.
Kylan, Tomi, and Morez played hard and had a will to win. Tomi was more finesse but not soft. Morez was not soft but inexperienced.
Same as it ever was
/s
Anyone remember in the 1980s when after a tough loss WPGU would play a song like Phil Collins I Missed Again or Pat Benatar Too Little Too Late and dedicate it to the team?
Just horrible.
Imagine if we landed Storr. What a disaster he turned out to be
So happy for Kylan. Seemed like he was about to disappear like he did last year at Arizona and the he turned it on and was one of our best players at the end of the year. Hopefully gets his shot figured out next year and becomes the next Trent.
Making the tourney and winning a game makes it a C+ or B- in my book. Knock it down to a C+ or C based on having the worst loss in program history.
This year's team, though very talented, was way too soft. Unforced inexplicable lazy turnovers, OOB play struggles, settling for poor 3 point shots, and long defensive lapses plagued the Illini repeatedly throughout the season, even when we were healthy. It was the most bipolar Illini squad I can remember, you never knew if Good Illini or their evil twin Bad Illini came to play on any given day. We saw both versions in the first and second round of the tournament. I would like to see next year's team built around toughness and consistency. A core of players including Boswell, Johnson, White, Rodgers, and Ivisic would be a great start, but keeping all of them from entering the portal is probably too much to hope for.
Lmao, I'm old enough to remember when everyone and their grandmother was claiming that motion offense was dead and we needed to move onto the bright and shiny PnR only offense of Groce. Glad to see things come full circle!
Watching other teams blow up our pick and roll with hard hedging while our drop coverage continued to get torched was so frustrating. The answer was right in front of us. The whole point of drop coverage is to avoid mismatches that switching creates and avoid rotations that leave 3 point shooters open, but our 3 point defense was terrible anyway. So what the hell good was it? With our !!!!!! drop teams got into the paint any time they want and get open looks from 3 anyway.
We did it against Iowa for a game and then did it here and there but never really committed to it. Brad has show over multiple seasons and assistants that he prefers this scheme and I don't think getting rid of Hamer will change that. I wish we had more flexibility at defense so we could change things up a bit depending on the opponent, but that's just not how he runs things.
Oh god, that’s cheesy!
The fact that we don't ever run simple pin down screens to mix it up is maddening.
His minutes dried up because he didn't play well when he got healthy again.
Those are all very fair and reasonable takes. With Rutgers, I agree, we definitely don't want to go down that rabbit hole again.We won 20-plus again…but we were middle to lower in the pack of the Bigten. We made the tourney. We had some nice victories AND a slew of disappointing losses. I think most reasonable people would say that is a C-grade, so-so, average/somewhat decent…yet ultimately disappointing season…I think that’s pretty straight forward.
But this whole, citing the failure of Rutgers as evidence of success is weak sauce. If Pikiell has another season like this one he’ll be gone. (Yes, I think
quite possibly …even at Rutgers.) Right now some of them are somewhere having conversations about how they $quandered primo talent…and the nutzos are calling for Pikiell’s head on a pike…because they’re nutzos.
But setting Rutgers as the bar is not where we wanna be at. That sucks. I could just as easily extrapolate some other random program; that is comparable in some way…and use it to justify our failures this season. ex. BYU has foreign dudes just like us….how they doin? Michigan was picked to finish below us in pre-season polls….and how bout that first year Michigan coach that people left for dead-after we throttled em? How they doin? That kind of crap gets annoying pretty quick IMO.
Big Ten basketball preseason media poll 2024-25: Purdue, Michigan State overrated; Michigan underrated
Purdue is the favorite to win the Big Ten this seasonwww.cbssports.com
Also, Dusty May's just cannot be discounted. He's done an amazing job, that said ....look at what they brought back. They were a senior leader away from a first round KO to UC San Diego. Bringing the two bigs in, both with significant experience, helped during the late season meltdown they had. Their experience and sheer physical size was the difference.
So, while I don't disagree with you whatsoever, each team's set of circumstances is different and each roster makeup in different. If he had Golden in the paint, Williams doesn't have a field day picking us apart yesterday.
My eyes have now moved towards the portal. We'll have a really group coming back, BUT there are some glaring holes that need to be addressed. I just want them addressed with physically ready and experience US Juniors, Seniors and grad students.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I used to have a Saturday afternoon show at WPGU and would play "Rudy Can't Fail" by The Clash if Notre Dame won.
This is the easiest narrative imo. If was 20 years ago, we'd be happy with getting to the tournament and winning one knowing guys were coming back, and that freshmen become sophomores. But as a one-shot roster, this was a high level of inconsistency, made moreso by heavy use of the 3. Great ceiling, awful floor kind of team. And for that kind of team, you can usually tell if they're peaking late in the year based on how they progress. KJ oozes potential, but never seemed to get a read on how to be a floor general with these guys. And the costly turnovers, ouch! Some really nice pieces here and a lot to like, but not the kind of team that I expected to make a run (had them losing in the 2nd round). In my limited experience, teams that really tighten down the defense in crunch time are teams that make runs or survive off nights, and I never felt like they embraced that kind of identity as the season went on.
One thing that's odd to me is how we've had good interior guys and obviously massive success with Kofi, but this year we bet way more on perimeter shooting. Riley really impressed me how he worked on his body and got more physical and attacking as the season went on, but I missed TSJ. Leadership, work ethic, money in transition, and a guy who could force teams to defend inside and put guys in foul trouble. Not trying to compare the two - Riley could be that in another year anyway if he wasn't already league ready.
I think this season legitimately raises questions about why the roster wasn't more tournament ready by March. Underwood's pretty flexible and seems to learn from every season, but I'd love to hear his unfiltered views on how his roster strategy and coaching panned out, and what he might change going forward. Who did he think would be the leader in March, and how did it play out?
The good was very good this year. Left us wanting more. Not looking forward to another massive turn-over.
Statistics don't always tell the whole story, but they kinda did Sunday. Kentucky shot their average percentage from 3 (38%)...Illinois shot slightly worse (28%) than its season average of 31%. In rebound margin, the Illini came in with a 5-rebound margin over Kentucky and finished +6.
The big story was what everyone saw: turnovers with many of them leading to runouts. Coming into the game, the Illini were just 2 behind Kentucky in turnover margin...but ended up minus-9. Even worse, the turnovers led to 26 Kentucky points compared to only 8 Illini points off of turnovers. Kentucky was just too physical for KJ (6 TOs). Kylan handled that better with his strength (3 TOs).
I'm probably in the minority of those who post, but I enjoyed watching this team play. Yeah, they disappointed my expectations at times, but as Tony LaRussa often pointed out, they are (young) men, not machines (which is why statistical analysis often falls short). A season of incredible highs and painful lows. Made me cheer and made me groan. But it wasn't boring.
The big story was what everyone saw: turnovers with many of them leading to runouts. Coming into the game, the Illini were just 2 behind Kentucky in turnover margin...but ended up minus-9. Even worse, the turnovers led to 26 Kentucky points compared to only 8 Illini points off of turnovers. Kentucky was just too physical for KJ (6 TOs). Kylan handled that better with his strength (3 TOs).
I'm probably in the minority of those who post, but I enjoyed watching this team play. Yeah, they disappointed my expectations at times, but as Tony LaRussa often pointed out, they are (young) men, not machines (which is why statistical analysis often falls short). A season of incredible highs and painful lows. Made me cheer and made me groan. But it wasn't boring.
I understand why you would give it a C. Not making the tournament is a F now though based on the new portal era where you can bring in players and now completely rebuild. I considered a C but gave it a D because we beat ourselves tonight more than Kentucky beat us. We were -18 in the first 6 min of the first half and first 3 min of the second half combined with about 7 turnovers in those 2 stretches. We averaged 11 turnovers per game. Just frustrating to watch. 12/19 at the free throw line after going perfect on Friday. And then of course, some of our defensive scheming.
Simple fact is that this team would've been much better with Dain + Goode + Hansberry vs. Hummer + Booth + Davis. With Brickhouse not on our roster, have to think Ty doesn't redshirt either. That Sencire Harris dude at WVU made the Big12 All Defensive team, he probably would've helped our dog-poop defense a bit too I'd reckon?
I shudder to think at how much NIL we allocated to Brickhouse and Booth..... really need to self-identify as a program how we made such terrible evaluations on some of these guys we brought in.
I shudder to think at how much NIL we allocated to Brickhouse and Booth..... really need to self-identify as a program how we made such terrible evaluations on some of these guys we brought in.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
This year’s Illinois team:
- Replaced 11 players from the previous season.
- Replaced an All-American and an All B1G guy off an Elite Eight.
- Had 4 freshman in our top 6 rotational players
- Dealt with sickness and injury (at least one starter missed 38% of games)
Yet our offense finished 14th in the nation.
Illinois fans: “BrAd cAn’t coAcH OffEnSe”
- Replaced 11 players from the previous season.
- Replaced an All-American and an All B1G guy off an Elite Eight.
- Had 4 freshman in our top 6 rotational players
- Dealt with sickness and injury (at least one starter missed 38% of games)
Yet our offense finished 14th in the nation.
Illinois fans: “BrAd cAn’t coAcH OffEnSe”
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Just as a bit of contrast though, I think it's fair to say our additions last offseason were a whole raft of speculative assets.
So you don't just judge the guys that missed, you have to look at the whole package, which includes the Euro experiment, Tre White who was laughably inefficient on a terrible team last year, Jake Davis pulled from low-major obscurity, etc.
You're preaching to the choir, especially on my dude Dain of course, but the big re-creation of the roster flowed from a philosophical breakup with Chester Frazier, and I think the impact of that is best understood and appreciated as a comprehensive whole.
But where I stand with you is that there was a lot of value in the returning players after last season despite all the insider apple-polishing to the contrary around here. That will also be true this year, and I hope it doesn't come to that again.
If this team were coming back intact next year, I would be extremely excited about the possibilities. But alas that will not be the case. I determined last fall for my self- sanity not to get too high after big wins and not to fall off to the depths of despair after disappointing losses. Inconsistency was the hallmark of this team. I simply detest "Big Blue". I live south of I 64 and there are a lot of Kentucky fans around. If I were to run to the local Walmart, I would probaly see at least one car with a UK sticker on their back window with Illinois liscence plates. As a longtime fan I hope the necessary changes are made internally to get this program to the next level. I agree with many on here that Illinois should be a consistent second weekend program in the NCAA tournament and beyond. Unfortunately, they are not there YET.
LouHenson
- Naples Florida
Indy, what about Wil? Is it even possible?
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
I mean we can all discount Barkley ragging on it (not that he was wrong) because we know he had some control-room analyst talking into his earpiece with what to say. But when John Beilein calls it "the worst Brad Underwood defense I've ever seen" that carries some weight with me.
I'm not capable of giving a single overall unifying grade for the season, just too many variables. Preseason is an A. A nearly-complete rebuild which includes two potential first-rounders cannot be anything else. In-season results C-. Post-season results B-.
Flexibility, adaptability, parking ego and stubbornness, doing the same things over and over despite their not working, D-.
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