Bigtex
- DFW
Lot to be said that our pace has slowed down significantly and our defense numbers are MUCH better
Illini Basketball 2025-2026
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Believe those defensive metrics are also pace-adjusted (someone correct me if that's wrong)
But, we are 261 in pace
Prior to Misery we were 215 in pace
Others had said this a couple of days ago, but the offensive rebounding is limiting our # of possessions
87ppg with the 261st pace is wild
The UConn and Tennessee games had 66 and 62 possessions, respectively. The Nebraska game had 63.
Our last 4 games are 62, 65, 67, and 64.
I don't see a significant slow down in that sample.
And that results in a top 3 offense in the country, as you know.
But we lost to Nebraska, only beat PSU by 8, and lost the 2nd half to Rutgers so fire Tyler, shoot less 3's and throw it into the post more, gosh darn it!
I wouldn't say the offensive rebounding is limiting possessions so much as extending them. Not a lot of fast break going on with the Illini style of play both offensively and defensively so far this year.
Tevo
- Wilmette, IL
Does an offensive rebound count as a second possession, or just a continuation of the first? Seems like if you launch shots every seven seconds, miss them all, but get all the offensive rebounds, it should still count as a very high "pace".
That's one of the more arbitrarily separated efficiency charts I've ever seen. Makes it hard to read and somehow less meaningful.
Here's a more standard efficiency comparison chart, B1G teams only (to reduce team clutter):
A possession lasts until the possession changes, so an offensive rebound extends a possession.
Offensive rebounds by game:
UConn - 13
Tennessee - 11
Nebraska - 13
Missouri - 15
Southern - 16
Penn State - 13
Rutgers - 12
I'm still not seeing anything that suggests a significant slowdown. We have a similar number of possessions and a similar number of offensive rebounds in each "sample".
Almost every efficiency metric has us somewhere in the 7-10 range in the country.
If people aren't enjoying this, they should just say, "I don't like Brad's style" because most of their attempts at critiques fall flat when presented with actual data.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Final Four potential? Not good enough. Wake me up when we’re title contenders.
Bigtex
- DFW
scoring isn't really down but pace is significantly lower Nice adjustment coaches/players
what's your schedule like next week? we win Sunday... then by end of next week we will be there
If you look at the possessions per game, first 7 games 72, last 8 games 65.
Looking deeper, the first 3 cup cakes and the Alabama game skew the numbers to a much higher possessions per game early in the season.
But I think also having Keaton maturing at the point has also slowed the pace.
I agree but the original post was looking at only the last 8 games where the first four of those were bad defensively and the most recent 4 were good.
And the suggestion was our defense got better *because* we slowed it down but my point was that we had already slowed it down so the data doesn't support a slower pace being the reason our defense improved.
I seem to recall this being the case last year too. Shortly after, KJ fell off completely and the mono bug hit.
FWIW, Torvik doesn't fully agree with that trend, and has our performance against Tennessee being roughly equal to our performance against Southern (slightly better actually) and in the normal range compared to our early November outings, but it does look like we had a bit of a defensive lull around Thanksgiving that lasted about 2-3 weeks and ended after the Nebraska game, which looks like a major outlier even compared against the weaker of our other performances.
I do think there's something to the idea that the offense has adapted to fit Keaton's (and to a lesser but also important degree Mirk's) strengths, as a lot of the offense is now based on what he does well.
But then again that would suggest that the coaching staff is making adjustments and we all know they're incapable of that, so nevermind.
We are playing at a surprisingly slow pace this year, which is fine by me. The downside is the lack of scoring explosion and you need to rely on defense more. We lost a couple games which we scored ok but couldn't clamp our opponents. While we work on our defense, shouldn't we have more transition offenses like we used to have? Correct me if I am wrong.
This really illustrates the danger of putting too much stock in efficiency stats before the games are played. Nebraska has beaten teams in better spots and similarly we've lost to teams in worse spots.
Counterpoint.
10 straight years the efficiency stats have correctly identified where you need to be in order to win a title.
there is a difference between predictive analytics and a resume. a resume is what you have done and predictive analytics takes what you have done to help project what you can do. at the end of March, the committee looks at both to get a sense of how good a team is. they are all just pieces of information..... incomplete on their own.
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