Illinois 91, Missouri 48 Postgame

[lstewart53x3]

Haha, they just dropped from #67 to #92 in the NET after what we did to them, so that seems unlikely! I'm guessing this one ends up as Quad 3 (i.e., Mizzou falls out of the top 100), but that is okay ... we have more opportunities for resume-building wins, and it's ALWAYS nice to beat Missouri before Christmas no matter how bad they are!

Wouldn’t be surprised to see them finish Q2.

Like you said, outside of our game, they’re #67 in NET. Even after our game, they’re #63 in KenPom. And they have 3 guards returning from injury before conference play begins.

 

[band camp]

The over/under as to how many people make this joke in this thread is 3.5. We’re at two already.

 

[sacraig]

You’re supposed to cook the pasta

 

[1m4tr]

https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/s/gQ3A2D7Lsw

Okay who’s SwedishLovePump on here? He couldn’t have been more wrong.

 

[EmeraldCityIllini]

The mizzou thing aside, I’ve always liked Dennis Gates. Every press conference he’s highly complimentary and it seems like players like him and he can recruit…

If Mizzou ever moved on, with his Chicago ties, I’d love him on staff.

 

[jumpingjack]

Ben got intentionally slapped in eye by a Miz player and he said he was faking it.
And we couldn't even escape him during the pre-taped halftime show !!
At the end of the 1st half he said he believed Missouri was going to come back.

Producer was probably in his ear begging him to find some way to spin what was clearly turning into a bloodbath.

 

[Red77sng]

Boy is he full of crap

 

[I-L-L]

I thought he played well. He made some tough shots, pressured on defense. He also lets his teammates cook rather than trying to assert himself when they are playing well.

Hopefully big z can play this well against better competition but from what I've seen so far this year, Tomi is more effective when we play actual good teams.

Tomi has tremendous skills. All I was saying is Big Z needs to play more than he has thus far. He has additional length to disrupt in the paint and seems to play with more emotion/passion/fire. Great teams play with emotion and passion. Like I've said here on several occasions. I think we're a thick big paint protector/rebounder away from being a Final 4 team. If Big Z can help fill that role in a different way b/c of this length/height it will come in very handy. This is where we miss Morez. I just think Big Z is the closest thing we have to a paint/rim protecting big man who can make the kind of difference that could give us a deep run. He doesn't have to be our best or second best player or anything like that. He just needs to make the opposing offenses think twice about how they'll get their shot off in and near the paint, block a few, and gather rebounds.

 

[jumpingjack]

So, you're a star freshman and go off for 16 points in the 1st half. What does the 2nd half look like?

How about this line:

1-1 from the field (3 ptr)
3-4 from the line
4 reb
3 ast
2 stl
1blk
0 turnovers while running the point.

That's more impressive to me than another 10+ points.

And the drawn fouls, the charges taken, lack of foul trouble in 30+minutes played.

 

[FromTheLogo]

I lost track of time during dinner because I somehow chipped a tooth eating lasagna. Explain that one.

Chef Hamer must have prepared it. We blame him for everything .

 

[80'sIllini]

I really like the fact that the ball in Wagler's hands can allow Boswell to let the offensive game come to him rather than force it, and also have extra energy on D!

So key that KW has shown he can run the point very effectively including in the half court which is not Kylan's strength and where the offense tended to stagnate. KW only had 1 TO with the ball in his hands on almost every offensive possession- incredible. Our offense truly is multifaceted with KW now running point and KB off the ball a lot more. And with KB's strength and defensive chops and KW length and incredible savvy for a frosh, we have backcourt defensive covered as well. We keep playing team D with that same intensity and attention to the scouting report and we are gonna be hard to beat. Will still need to see how we do against better competition as Missouri not that good- especially with their current injuries.

 

[Fighter of the Nightman]

Wouldn’t be surprised to see them finish Q2.

Like you said, outside of our game, they’re #67 in NET. Even after our game, they’re #63 in KenPom. And they have 3 guards returning from injury before conference play begins.

That's fair. I guess I was looking at it from the angle that they have one of the worst SOS rankings in the country so far, and both decent teams they've played (Illini and Kansas) whooped them ... I could see them stacking losses in SEC play and really tanking, too, but I obviously hope they don't!

 

[jjv0004]

I've never been a fan of Casey Jacobsen, but I heard he was extra annoying last night lol

He was extremely complimentary of Illinois the entire game. Not sure what was annoying about him.

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

But do you remember the stretch he was out?

We beat Northwestern by 30, beat Michigan St and then went on the road and beat Michigan by 15... I think we lost to #1 Purdue by 5 and there may have been another buy game in there where we murdered that team as well... unsure analytics were hurt during that stretch much (would like to see what the adjEff was just for those games)

We did lose to MD at home… which may have been our worst loss that season.

 

[NarrowJ]

We did lose to MD at home… which may have been our worst loss that season.

Yessir, corrections were made

Illinois 91, Missouri 48 Postgame

Awesome win and still floored with how consistently good Wagler is, he might be the best Illini freshman I've ever seen. For the criticism of "all Underwood does is recruit" well, Wagler is what that looks like. Virtually nobody but Underwood was in on this guy.

www.illinoisloyalty.com

 

[EmeraldCityIllini]

But do you remember the stretch he was out?

We beat Northwestern by 30, beat Michigan St and then went on the road and beat Michigan by 15... I think we lost to #1 Purdue by 5 and there may have been another buy game in there where we murdered that team as well... unsure analytics were hurt during that stretch much (would like to see what the adjEff was just for those games)

I’ve gone back and forth on this - we did lose our worst loss of the year to Maryland. And while the Purdue final outcome was admirable, we were behind pretty big most of that game before a furious late run. But did have those AWESOME wins you mentioned.

A case could probably be made that stretch made us better in the long run to because Domask hit another level. A lot of interesting what ifs that year

 

[jrichisamazing]

When it was 21-18 with around 9 mins left in the 1H, just before that long run that took the lead to 16 at half, I turned to @Retro62 and asked: "How are we allowing these clowns to stick this close to us?"

And then: game over.

Does anyone know who started that run?

Wagler
Jake
Ben
Mirk
Big Z

That lineup played the rest of the half, except for Tomi subbing in for his brother with a couple minutes left.

I said in the pregame thread, playing Ben or Jake significant minutes at the 3 isn't a recipe for success. A lot of people here said they never want to see Ben and Jake on the floor at the same time. Well it definitely worked this game.

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

Keaton Wagler now officially team’s leading scorer:

 

[jumpingjack]

Not Illini but Wagler’s size, skill, and game reminds me of Jason Preston of the Ohio University Bobcats.

Check out his game against us. All his shots and moves:

Oh that's a good comp, stylistically. Preston was a TOUGH assignment.

 

[kyillinifan]

Would Keaton be a freshman All American? He is playing better than a lot of the 5 stars playing now. If he continues this during the BT season be first team BT. What freshman in the BT is playing better? No one.

 

[ejam21]

Does anyone know who started that run?

Wagler
Jake
Ben
Mirk
Big Z

That lineup played the rest of the half, except for Tomi subbing in for his brother with a couple minutes left.

I said in the pregame thread, playing Ben or Jake significant minutes at the 3 isn't a recipe for success. A lot of people here said they never want to see Ben and Jake on the floor at the same time. Well it definitely worked this game.

pretty sure they were on the floor a good amt of the time together during hte first half comeback against nebraska too

 

[Cary67]

Defensive intensity impressive. Especially rim protection by Z. The lopsided victory seemed to be a combination of us shooting well from 3 but also reestablishing the rebounding edge. Lots of offensive rebounds leads to increased confidence in shooting. Somewhat surprising since Missouri has size and we haven't dominated on the glass in awhile. Will see if this uptick in defense is sustained going into Big 10 play. Missouri was missing some pieces and looked to give up in the 2nd half.

 

[NarrowJ]

I’ve gone back and forth on this - we did lose our worst loss of the year to Maryland. And while the Purdue final outcome was admirable, we were behind pretty big most of that game before a furious late run. But did have those AWESOME wins you mentioned.

A case could probably be made that stretch made us better in the long run to because Domask hit another level. A lot of interesting what ifs that year

Yep, totally agree with all of the counterpoints being made

My original statement was just that those 6 games did not hurt our analytics a ton

 

[Battle89]

Think Mizzou is not an NIT team, Big Conference NIT teams are typically bubble NCAA teams....this team is not.

Best thing I saw from Illinois today defensively was collapsing to their big (Mitchell). Allowed Mirk to body him and Z to come in for the block. Also saw better rotations and close outs to cover their shooters. Illinois also defining their roles for better teamwork. Kylan Boswell deferring but going at the basket when needed.

One of my biggest concern is ball handling, especially against athletic and long teams. Keaton will be a strong ball handler but he still worries me a bit. Certain line-ups will be more prone to being picked up full court and high in the half court. In the NCAA, we have had some trick defenses in the BU era that we haven't done well (Loyola, Iowa State, ). Andrej and Kylan are good ball handlers, but having MIrk bring it up is what the other team will want.

Not for nothing related to the above was the refs mostly letting them play. What a refreshing change from the usual give-me-TV-time crews.

 

[NarrowJ]

Does anyone know who started that run?

Wagler
Jake
Ben
Mirk
Big Z

That lineup played the rest of the half, except for Tomi subbing in for his brother with a couple minutes left.

I said in the pregame thread, playing Ben or Jake significant minutes at the 3 isn't a recipe for success. A lot of people here said they never want to see Ben and Jake on the floor at the same time. Well it definitely worked this game.

I believe we had a Jake + Ben lineup during good stretch in the Texas Tech game as well as the Tennessee game in the 2nd half

Would like to see some more analysis on this, its something we've had to go to a few times... while its been successful, it certainly shouldn't be something we are trying to line up deliberately