Getting a 3rd assistant with high level defensive and recruiting abilities is what we need to fill out this staff to replace Kwa Jones and dump Hamer. It is pertinent to our sucesss. If we can see this surely Josh can and if Brad can’t then Josh needs to override him if we get one more big fish like WR or DS we will be Final Four material. I can’t imagine how PO’ed this board will be if we are allowing 80-83 pts per game defensively next season.
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If we average 90 on offense though, would you really be that mad about giving up 80-83? That's the argument many here are making and it's not really a bad one.
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
As long as we score at least 4 points more than our opponent, every game, I am not worried. (note: 4 points, to protect my heart during their half court launch at the buzzer).
I am even fine with a good defensive X&O guy who is not a top recruiter but not vice versus.
That's essentially what we did in the 2023-2024 season so you already know how that worked. First, due to the fact it is fairly difficult to find a TSJ these days (I really don't know if this team is as good), I don't know how easy or hard to put together a team CONSISTENTLY scoring 85+. More importantly, this type of team has potentials to make final four but it is a lot more difficult to win it all because at that stage you run into teams with both high offense and defense efficiencies.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
Sounds like a Diary entry
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
At the end of the day, defense is still more of a constant in basketball. You can have off-shooting nights, but defense is about effort and communication. Fewer variables to control than offensively.
One of the best defensive teams in the country and the team most known for defense by culture and reputation gave up a double digit lead in the national championship game.
Good offense beats good defense every time.
To the other poster who commented on my top 40/top 10 split. Others have chimed in with the data to show it’s correct. AND I EVEN SAID, the closer you get both to 1, the better.
If you look back further, I believe I read the recipe was top 20 defense and top 10 offense. Now it’s top 10 offense and top 40 defense.
Good offense is more important than good defense. Defense is still important obviously. But there is a clear measuring of which one is more important.
I don't think in that tournament anyone besides UCONN was beating us. "so you already know how that worked"? I'd take that season ANY year....
Purdue could have very well beaten us since they have done it twice. And UConn beat us by 25 points and only 15 points to Purdue so do your math. I also tend to believe with now everybody fully invested with NIL the final four field are going to be more competitive than that year and this past year was a good example.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Many on this board would likely want to move on while some will defend Brad (I could actually be in either bucket depending on how the season plays out). It would ultimately come down to what the mega donors think. If they start to tighten their wallets, then it might be game over. It really stinks, because the long term regular season success from Brad has been very good. I truly hope it translates over to a second deep run in the tourney. We have more roster continuity going into next season than we did last season, so I am very hopeful.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
I’m firmly in favor of Underwood. The only real issue with him is easy to fix, and he won’t do it for some unknown reason.
Is this part of the "new math" ?
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
Good defense leads to turnovers and easy fast break baskets.
We had none of the three last season. Our guards walked the ball up the court and let other team set up their defense.
TSJ was our one man fast break in 2024 and lived at the free throw line.
We should go 9-10 deep and play max effort defense to get turnovers. Our guys should sprint out and try to fast break at every opportunity.
We had none of the three last season. Our guards walked the ball up the court and let other team set up their defense.
TSJ was our one man fast break in 2024 and lived at the free throw line.
We should go 9-10 deep and play max effort defense to get turnovers. Our guys should sprint out and try to fast break at every opportunity.
Not a direct comment on this post but the 2023-24 team is so interesting because it is undeniably our best tournament result since the 2005 season, and is also one of our worst defensive seasons in the Kenpom era (compare vs the 2008-09 team that crashed out vs Western Kentucky - #4 defense in the country!).
Just kind of really puts question marks all over the "have to do better in the tournament" and "defense is the key" opinion combination.
Could have said that about the 2022 team or any team for that matter. Along with skill, there is a bit of luck when it comes to March.
I am not sure why I need to argue that defense is important. Not rocket science. Underwood has obviously been an offense mind coach and that's why I can accept a roster geared toward offense rather than defense and Tyler is the offense coach. I mostly trust Underwood's offense system and that gives us a good floor. But imagine if we hire a real defense coach and put our defense in the top 20 at the same time. Doesn't have to be top 5 like ISU but just good to a point it is not leaky. That will raise our floor and ceiling so much at the same time!
Nobody is arguing defense isn’t important. The argument is that offense is MORE important.
Our defense certainly wasn't perfect, but I think the "leakiness" of it is a little overstated. Teams with worse defenses than ours made it further in the tourney. I think it makes more sense to think of the entire game rather than boil things down to offense/defense anyway. A team with a top notch offense can afford a worse defense. If you look at Torvik, our loss to Northwestern was one of our best defensive performances of the season (by AdjD), and our 21-point win over Minnesota was actually our single worst (worse even than Duke). I'll take the bad defense and drubbing of Minnesota over the good defense and loss to Northwestern.
I do think our defense trended in the wrong direction, but it's also hard to say whether that's because it got worse, got figured out, or competition got tougher (and perhaps the algorithms don't adequately adjust for opponent strength).
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
That was such a difficult year to gauge. TSJ (our first round talent) was out for an extended period of time, but by March, the team was arguably playing much better defense than what the overall defensive metrics would show. And outside of being in UCONN's bracket (even a perfect game from Illinois still likely results in a loss), the Illini were very fortunate in the tourney draw. They played two double-digit seeds (avoided a very good offensive team in BYU) to get to the S16 and faced an Iowa State squad who had their own difficulties scoring in the S16.
You can argue whatever you want, but Torvik allows you to filter by date, and when you filter February 1st through March 28 (Iowa St. game - I left out UConn to make it a little more fair), Torvik has us as the #144 defense in the country. Significantly worse than the already bad #91 Torvik gives us for the entire season. Our win over Wisconsin in the BTT Championship game was our 2nd worst defensive performance of the season. Our worst was our win on 2/28 vs Minnesota (we always suck defensively against Minnesota lol). Every single game in the BTT was worse than our season average.
On the other hand, for that Feb. - just before UConn time frame, Torvik has us as the #1 offense in the nation. And then in that UConn game, we actually did play pretty good defense, but had our worst offensive performance of the season.
If anything, it looks like we played worse defense, but phenomenal offense, at the end of the season, and our E8 run was fueled entirely by offense. The run ended when our offense petered out.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
I knew the defense was bad, but did not remember how bad it was down the stretch from a metric standpoint (I guess I just remember the late game defensive stops when needed and Coleman/Dainja diving for loose balls). In the tourney, I thought the Illini actually played pretty good defense relatively speaking (it helped that Iowa State put up a clunker). However, you are absolutely correct in the offense carrying the team (and that is not a bad thing).
But the bolded is my fear moving forward. In one game elimination formats, if the offense is off (or stagnates against an elite defensive team), I do not have confidence in the defense being able to get the job done to keep us in the game. We obviously do not need a top 10 defense, but we still need something better than what we saw the last two seasons.
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That's just kind of the deal with single-elimination tournaments though. Not just for bad defenses. Good defenses have off nights too.
In 2022-23, UCLA, haver of the #2 defense in the country, had their run ended in the S16 by Gonzaga, haver of the #73 defense in the country. They gave up 79 points, a total they had not given up since November 20. Their elite defense stagnated. The next year Auburn, a 2-seed and #9 defense in the country, gave up 79 points (magic number!) to Miami (#99 defense) and crashed out in the second round. Another elite defense stagnating at the wrong time. What's interesting in both those scenarios is the team the elite defense lost to was an elite offense, and terrible defense.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
No doubt about that. I am looking at the current needs assessment of the Illinois team. I would obviously prefer the elite offense to elite defense. There is a much larger room for error with great offensive teams, as good defensive teams still need to score the ball for success (and they are in huge trouble if they have bad defensive games).
Right now we look like a team that will have a very good offense. The question mark is the defense, and if there is any way to get any improvement there. We want the best chance of making a deep run in the tourney, and therefore, the defense has to get better to maximize those odds if we have an off offensive night (we don't need a top 10 or 15 defense). Last year specifically, when the offense got in major ruts, there was the potential of blowout losses. We had way too many of those last year.
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Regardless of whether Brad makes any staff changes, which I pray he does. There has to be a different defensive plan for the pick/roll play. Even teams that don't use it very often will make it their go to play if we continue to drop back and let the gaurds drive into the lane unimpeded. That was the dumbest s#%t I have ever seen. I don't care what the analytics are on that.
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