Nebraska 83, Illinois 80 Postgame

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#328      
PepeSilvia
foby said:
Basically, different year, same old situation with a loss at home we needed to win. Brad is an excellent coach, but we'll never be a top tier team under him unless we stop losing games we should win.
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*Excellent recruiter. Mediocre coach.

He's routinely got out coached by guys like Hoiberg, Shrewsbury, and Willard. The results haven't been pretty when playing against actually excellent coaches like Dan Hurley, Sampson, or Oats.
 
#331      
illinifan1987
fantasydaily708 said:
Kid is a lottery pick best player on the team so far this season. Dare I say he is looking better than Will Riley was at this point?? Lets see if he can keep it up in the B1G meat grinder.
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If he continues to improve, he'll be the best freshman to ever come through our program. I'm all for that!
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#332      
Curbelo Fanboy
OrangeBlue98 said:
I just can’t help but equate Brad Underwood with Matt LaFleur at Green Bay.

You’ll never be bad, and a lot of years you’ll be pretty good. But I’m starting to wonder whether 2024 was the ceiling.
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It most likely was. And that’s cause TSJ was mostly unguardable not some great bit of coaching acumen by Brad.

He wins lots of games but has some bad losses and doesn’t win the games of ultimate consequence with enough frequency.

Also when we have these bad starts at home. (USc last year as another example) it seems the die is cast in first 10 minutes of game. Dig too big of a hole and too slow to stop bleeding to be able to talent our way out of it.
 
#333      
From the cheap seats
Having had time to reflect. And shovel some snow in a passive aggressive way. This team may be too inconsistent, even within a game, to put together a long streak. But even this loss feels different to me than USC last year. Or Maryland in just about every year.
Honestly, this could have been a 15-point loss. Probably should have been. But unlike a couple earlier editions, this group fought back, more than once. It gives me hope that they’ll figure it out.
 
#334      
CleverHandle1
I am still sticking to my R2 loss prediction. Obviously, nothing today convinced me.

It's the defense that's going to hurt the Illini once again. To bad, Ty got hurt and Morez left. You need grinders out there, and I really don't see it with this team and their softness.

The "One guy's not going to beat you" mentality has to stop now; it's sending a message to the defense: "Hey, let him score 50, it's ok." I equate it to LaRussa telling his White Sox players not to hustle down the line when the players should be hustling down the line.

No damn urgency. So be it, then. Eliminate "elite" in your vocabulary, and accept the tight R1 game, then a R2 loss.
 
#335      
LouHenson
PepeSilvia said:
Hoiberg with the resources Brad has would be a problem.
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This is for sure on the money. He is a really good coach for a school that does love sports though so they are building their basketball program. They have one of the nicest arenas in the league.
 
#336      
EmeraldCityIllini
PepeSilvia said:
*Excellent recruiter. Mediocre coach.

He's routinely got out coached by guys like Hoiberg, Shrewsbury, and Willard. The results haven't been pretty when playing against actually excellent coaches like Dan Hurley, Sampson, or Oats.
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He’s 10-4 against Hoiberg - that’s not routine.

Illinois has never lost a game in the underwood era where the same reason every single time from fans is “out coached”. When they win, it’s never coaching, when they lose it’s always coaching.
 
#337      
CleverHandle1
From the cheap seats said:
Having had time to reflect. And shovel some snow in a passive aggressive way. This team may be too inconsistent, even within a game, to put together a long streak. But even this loss feels different to me than USC last year. Or Maryland in just about every year.
Honestly, this could have been a 15-point loss. Probably should have been. But unlike a couple earlier editions, this group fought back, more than once. It gives me hope that they’ll figure it out.
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It's the same old thing with the inconsistency, and it's actually getting old and exhausting.
 
#338      
FloridaMan
BU says Mirkovic had two really bad practices and "couldn't play him. Couldn't put him in the game." But he started and played 23 minutes? Like, what???? Where do these comments come from? Brandon Lee must have some streak of absolute sh!% practices going.

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#339      
Trueblue777
ImGonnaBeILL said:
Free Petro 🤣

Keaton has shown nothing to be taken off the court and our best shooter/player IMO. Boswells our best defender.

I hope Petro is able to have moments this season. But watching this game, at no point was I thinking "hey let's get Petro in there".
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Neither did I but he should see time against Southern and if he does well Missouri too
 
#340      
OB positive
CoachHooleyHoo said:
The issue with this team is that it’s just not a well-constructed team. And what well-coached teams are doing is taking advantage of our major weakness by hunting mismatches with our slower big guys which puts so much pressure on the rest of the defense. That’s something we’re gong to see all year and I think that makes us a very good team but not in the upper echelon of teams.
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The real problem is not enough emphasis on our other players being ready and able to help when they get those mismatches against us. Just step out and stop the ball or make them change direction once in or or even trap it and make them give it up all together.
 
#341      
Flyin' Illini
aveseaboy said:
Mihailo is unplayable, Mirk makes a lot of frustrating mistakes, and the twins seem to be too soft and slow at times. I could see an argument that our Euro experiment is not playing out very well
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I think it was a reasonable recruiting strategy and Brad has done a great job getting European talent, but I'm not sure the style of play is ever going to translate to being a true top tier team.
 
#342      
23674477
EmeraldCityIllini said:
He’s 10-4 against Hoiberg - that’s not routine.

Illinois has never lost a game in the underwood era where the same reason every single time from fans is “out coached”. When they win, it’s never coaching, when they lose it’s always coaching.
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That’s kind of how it though, a lot of the time in our wins it’s one player for us that takes over through pure skill. We’ve seen it through Ayo, Kofi, TJ, and even a couple times this season with Andrej. When the other team shuts them down and our mediocre defense can’t garner any stops, it’s hard to not blame coaching when failing to find a solution.
 
#343      
JJE
Brad brought us from being absolute garbage to very good and occasionally great.

To win a national championship I think you have to be consistently great and occasionally exceptional.

I don’t know what it will take for Brad to get over the hump or if he will, but it’s frustrating watching a Michigan team turn into a juggernaut overnight while we sleep walk through a very winnable and important home game.
 
#346      
Fly Illini Fly!
In hindsight, probably would’ve preferred we got Sandfort instead of Petrovic. He visited, word was Nebby came in with the bigger bag.
 
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