Alabama 90, Illinois 86 Postgame

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#405      
Illini in Italy
Second place is 1st loser said:
I don't see eye to eye with ESPN on just about anything......ever, but if you get a chance, take a look at their top 25. We come in at #10 following last night. There is a blurb on each team and I think the one on us is spot on. They have Boswell his flowers for being a terrific defender, but then they were pretty rough on our team D and it being something to watch out for down the road. I try to criticize all things related to ESPN, but this was pretty spot on IMO.

I was there last night and I 100% agree that the free throw shooting was absolutely ridiculous. The numbers don't even take into account missing the front end, which drives me nuts.

That was definitely frustrating, but my biggest frustration came from the fact that we'd score, cut the lead to one possession, the crowd would get on their feet and it got LOUD.....and we continuously couldn't get a stop. They sat us down darn near every time.

One of those most frustrating playing was Z getting an open three down 2 points, missed, then Bama beat us down the floor for an uncontested three. It's was a 6 point swing. Guys miss shots, that's not the issue. That happens. It was our inability to exercise any sort of transition defense to make the stops. One play, Mirk didn't even turn around while a guy blew by him for a pregame layup line finish. It was infuriating.

Bama out up 49 points in the second half. That just can't happen. Philon had 0 points at halftime and had 24 in the second half. That can't happen and that's on the heals of Toppin almost dropping a 40 burger on us.

Our interior just isn't very strong. We're tall, but that doesn't equate to much if athletically, you can't compete.

All of this said, it is WAY too early to make heads of tails out of anything. I think that we'll have a pretty good sample size after the Tennessee game.

To be clear, I'm with you on the foul shooting. They definitely assisted in Alabama's good fortune. I have no problem flushing this one. My concern is big picture and not being to hold good teams under 90.

Keep in mind, Purdue went into Tuscaloosa and won. They absolutely demolished the Tide on the boards. That was the winning formula despite Bama hitting 16 threes. How can we explain the pretty much even rebounding numbers? What can we write that off too?
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Well, there were a few multiple bad 3’s that gave very long rebounds that Bama was able to scoop up because we had all five crashing the boards. At least one sequence had three bad 3’s with those long rebounds all recovered by Bama. Regardless of how good a rebounding team you might be, those are statistical outliers you’re just not gonna get.
 
#406      
EmeraldCityIllini
Was everyone that upset about the rebounding?

Personally, I thought it could have been better. But I think we probably “missed” an extra 7-8 rebounds just on Bama fouls that didn’t technically count as a rebound. I also think Bama got some fluke long boards.

But many seem to think our toughness and hustle was lacking. I might be missing it.
 
#407      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
Really don't understand the logic of "if we made three more free throws it wouldn't have mattered because the final score was 4 points." First of all if Wagler only makes his we have the ball down two to tie or win. It was 4 points due to playing the foul game, clock circumstance.
 
#408      
Thaillini22
illiniguy24 said:
Give me a break, Tomi is arguably our best player
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Have a think on it and I believe you'll be able to come up with answers to "examples of really good players in sports who drive fans crazy." Soccer is loaded with them, NBA too, as is MLB... basically every sport. The ones who do things that make you run your hand through your hair (apologies if you don't have any) and say, "Ohhh {insert first name}."
 
#409      
BretMyBeachHouse
HailtotheChief said:
Best dunk I've seen at the Hall was by the Kate Efrem Winters when vs Minnesota the passer inbounded the ball on a lob to Efrem who was standing at the FT line. Clearly Efrem.thought he was going throw him an oop pass but he didn't and the pass was way behind him. Efrem had already jumped and reached back mid air, some how grabbed it and tomahawk dunk crap out if that dunk. After about a half second of everyone taking a deep breath and saying omg did that just happen the Assembly Hall erupted. I don't know if there is video of that but it was insane the power and hops he had. I'll never forget that dunk or the block Wayman Tisdale had vs us when he literally stacked the ball one handed out if mid air. Two greats that died too young.
That one last night was pretty sweet and I was there for both of em some 40 or so years apart.
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Ive asked about this for years. Just an incredible thunderous impossible dunk.

No one got up faster and higher from a standing position than Efrem.
 
#410      
Rebounding Dog
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
Really don't understand the logic of "if we made three more free throws it wouldn't have mattered because the final score was 4 points." First of all if Wagler only makes his we have the ball down two to tie or win. It was 4 points due to playing the foul game, clock circumstance.
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It changes how you play down the stretch! One possession game rather than trying to rush to close the gap. And you are not fowling on every inbounds pass.
 
#413      
stevej64
That dunk is forever etched in my brain. I will never, ever forget it.
 
#414      
stevej64
Except when Reny dunked over Shack. lol! lol! I was actually there for that layup over Shack.
 
#415      
Fighter of the Nightman
BretMyBeachHouse said:
I'm curious. I wasn't following closely but it seems like the folks estimating attendance here were pessimistic a couple weeks ago. Did sales ramp up late? Did the DIA put on a big push?

As others have said, I'm impressed with our fans showing up strong for a midweek game with an 800 advertised start.
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I tracked tickets for a few weeks. There was a MASSIVE rush of ticket sales in the last week.
 
#416      
derrick6
foby said:
I didn't read like 98% of this thread so forgive me...

But first it wasn't that bad of a loss. Would prefer to win but it doesn't hurt us any.

Second, if Tomi and MP had 4 games to get back in form we win this easily.
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Sure. We’d win by out gunning Alabama if all were healthy with our team, yet, we still have the glaring concern of getting a stop.

That’s going to rear its ugly head, I feel. Also, we work so hard for our shots at the rim - and get fouled - but it takes a toll on the legs, imo.

Maybe accepting the midrange shot could help?

We have our closers in Andrej, and…mostly Bam. But they need their legs in the end.
 
#418      
blackdog
derrick6 said:
Sure. We’d win by out gunning Alabama if all were healthy with our team, yet, we still have the glaring concern of getting a stop.

That’s going to rear its ugly head, I feel. Also, we work so hard for our shots at the rim - and get fouled - but it takes a toll on the legs, imo.

Maybe accepting the midrange shot could help?

We have our closers in Andrej, and…mostly Bam. But they need their legs in the end.
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Context is Alabama is again going to be one of the highest scoring teams in the country. They have talent and Nate Oats its a fantastic coach. Getting stops against them is pretty freaking hard and if it's anything like last year 90 points could be under their season average.
 
#419      
joeybcrazy13
ILL...sometimes no matter what you do, life punches you in the mouth!!! You gonna lay down and cry?? Or you get the !!!! up dust yourself off and get back in the fight!!! It aint the Crying Illini!! INI
 
#421      
WWWWRocU
I think the clock just ran out on us. It was a hard fought give and take in the second half.
They were hard to defend. I was looking for something special from our defensive coordinator, but they kept making baskets. Oh, well, on to the next one.
 
#422      
jjv0004
As a fan of both teams I thought it was an exciting game. I thought both teams struggled at times but both have so much talent. Andrej was dominant the last 5-10 minutes. Bama could not stop him and Kylan got the rim at will.

I think both have the potential to be in the final four. Illinois not fully health as is Bama. Tomi and Petrovic will add a ton to the team and that was Bristow's first game of the year for Bama and they do not have Jalil Bethea yet, who was the #7 recruit in the 24 season. He will add quite a bit to the team.

Proud of both teams and think great things to come for them both.
 
#423      
illinitiger
Illini in Italy said:
Well, there were a few multiple bad 3’s that gave very long rebounds that Bama was able to scoop up because we had all five crashing the boards. At least one sequence had three bad 3’s with those long rebounds all recovered by Bama. Regardless of how good a rebounding team you might be, those are statistical outliers you’re just not gonna get.
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I was talking to a buddy of mine who's a big Bama fan and watched the game as well as the Purdue game.
On the rebounding he was expecting Illinois to beat the pulp out of Bama after watching the Purdue game. He said Illinois surprised him at how soft we are..
ttsk...."Soft"...that hurts
 
#424      
Piotyr
blackdog said:
Context is Alabama is again going to be one of the highest scoring teams in the country. They have talent and Nate Oats its a fantastic coach. Getting stops against them is pretty freaking hard and if it's anything like last year 90 points could be under their season average.
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Also worth mentioning that Alabama had their least efficient offensive game of the season again Illinois (1.13 PPP), the game just was faster than the Purdue game (1.15 PPP) (by design, Illinois plays faster than Purdue), so they scored more.
 
#425      
Battle89
HailtotheChief said:
Best dunk I've seen at the Hall was by the Kate Efrem Winters when vs Minnesota the passer inbounded the ball on a lob to Efrem who was standing at the FT line. Clearly Efrem.thought he was going throw him an oop pass but he didn't and the pass was way behind him. Efrem had already jumped and reached back mid air, some how grabbed it and tomahawk dunk crap out if that dunk. After about a half second of everyone taking a deep breath and saying omg did that just happen the Assembly Hall erupted. I don't know if there is video of that but it was insane the power and hops he had. I'll never forget that dunk or the block Wayman Tisdale had vs us when he literally stacked the ball one handed out if mid air. Two greats that died too young.
That one last night was pretty sweet and I was there for both of em some 40 or so years apart.
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This is the play I always think about in dunk conversations - because it wasn't one. I believe Tyler thought about it for a tenth of a second on the way up but realized that time would probably expire if he held it for the dunk. He let go of the ball halfway up in a bit of an awkward layup to beat #1 Indiana. Smart smart basketball.

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