Pregame: Illinois at USC, Wednesday, February 18th, 9:00pm CT, BTN

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#52      
BoiseBaller
First off, we owe these jerks one. The USC game in SFC was the only one I made it back to last season. I left that game mad as hell.

Secondly, high ankle sprains are awful. They can be worse than a break. I'm sure Andrej is doing all he can to get back. I didn't have access to all the treatment/recovery tools he has but when I had one of these it took forever to get better. Swelling was unreal.
 
#53      
Second place is 1st loser
Is it really?? Wow, I didn't know that gap was the significant north to south. It's like Texas West to East. That's an outstanding point. With that compacted schedule, seems like it really makes more sense to stay back. Louisville thinks there's a chance that he plays on the back end. If that's true and he really isn't that far off....tough decision. I still would lean to the side of caution and let's make sure he's 100% for the last few regular season games, then both tournament runs.
 
#54      
illiniguy24
GoodePodzMelendez said:
USC is deep with some size. Baker-Mazara is their 3 point shooter. We need to lock him down. Let’s win 2 this week. They do turn the ball over a lot. Around 13 turnovers a game. If we are locked in like we were today, we should handle them.
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If we just yelled “LinkedIn” and “9-5” at Baker-Mazara every time he went to shoot I bet he’d have a bad game
 
#56      
aaeismacgychel
Second place is 1st loser said:
Just looking at it game by game....

Wednesday, no way. They probably have one prep/practice for the game. Assuming the majority of tomorrow is a travel day, their run through is on Tuesday, game on Wednesday.

The thought of enough physical improvement happening before Saturday seems unlikely as well. Going from "out" to available in 6 days, with that specific type of injury, with no legitimate practice time...it's extremely unlikely.

What makes this injury so tough is that everyone reacts differently to treatment and you just have to wait until the swelling goes down. Until that happens, you're not going to get very far in rehab.

How far away is the Michigan game? 10 days? Even that's a stretch. Let's say the swelling has gone down and he can resume basketball related activities next weekend. He wouldn't have played a live game in 2 1/2 weeks. There's going to be a conditioning aspect to this.

During Brad's interview, he specifically said IF and when he gets back, then followed it up with deciding if he should even go on the trip That's probably the right answer, but telling the kid he can't go on this trip back West, where there's a ton of family....that would be rough.

Brad's right in playing the long game here. Let him heal, get it right and hopefully be ready for the stretch run in March. It's just a crummy, extremely painful injury that has its own timeframe. Could be 2 weeks, could be 8 weeks. Impossible the tell with any remote level of accuracy.

I wouldn't put any expectations on the timeline. Just hope that it's closer to 2 weeks and not 8.
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There's a pretty big range of severity when it comes to high ankle sprains. I think it's extremely safe to rule out that this is a severe one. If it was, he wouldn't have been able to finish the MSU game or practice and he'd be in an immediate walking boot. This one seems more minor just based on what he has been able to do. High ankle sprains can linger but would not be surprised at all to see him able to play near 100% in under 2 weeks, maybe 3 at the outside. But whatever allows him to come back healthy is the way to go here.
 
#58      
ChiefGritty
Wazababybrucedouglaskid said:
Feels like this team can only beat itself.
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It's when we get caught playing somebody else's game that we're vulnerable. Either a fistfight like MSU or a track meet like Alabama.

The only time we've really lost playing our game was Nebraska really, they were able to patiently run offense and produce points even more efficiently than us that day, just by virtue of being on a massive shooting heater.
 
#59      
jrichisamazing
I'm expecting a ton of orange at both of these games! I haven't watched much of UCLA or USC, but I know Purdue had a good amount of fans when they were in LA.
 
#60      
jrichisamazing
Sometimes a bubble team plays out of their mind when they are desperate. Right now USC is squarely on the bubble.

-10 seed on the matrix
-Projected 10 seed with a 52% chance to make the dance on Torvik

They have 2 Q1A games left, us and Nebraska. So a win here would be massive for the Trojans.

How could they knock us off? They are ranked 1st in FT Rate on Torvik. So that's scary, especially playing at their place. Rodney Rice torched us last year. Baker-Mazara is streaky, but can get hot. Arenas has played less than a month, but can put points up.
 
#61      
EmeraldCityIllini
jrichisamazing said:
Sometimes a bubble team plays out of their mind when they are desperate. Right now USC is squarely on the bubble.

-10 seed on the matrix
-Projected 10 seed with a 52% chance to make the dance on Torvik

They have 2 Q1A games left, us and Nebraska. So a win here would be massive for the Trojans.

How could they knock us off? They are ranked 1st in FT Rate on Torvik. So that's scary, especially playing at their place. Rodney Rice torched us last year. Baker-Mazara is streaky, but can get hot. Arenas has played less than a month, but can put points up.
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Rice done for year
 
#62      
Altuve27
jrichisamazing said:
Sometimes a bubble team plays out of their mind when they are desperate. Right now USC is squarely on the bubble.

-10 seed on the matrix
-Projected 10 seed with a 52% chance to make the dance on Torvik

They have 2 Q1A games left, us and Nebraska. So a win here would be massive for the Trojans.

How could they knock us off? They are ranked 1st in FT Rate on Torvik. So that's scary, especially playing at their place. Rodney Rice torched us last year. Baker-Mazara is streaky, but can get hot. Arenas has played less than a month, but can put points up.
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Just adding that Baker-Mazara has been dealing with an injury. He’s missed their last two games. I’m guessing he’ll do everything possible to play because they need this one badly, but we’ll see.
 
#63      
fatt lacosse
Wagler is currently producing the highest single-season box plus-minus (13.2) of any Illini since that stat has been tracked starting in '10-11. Second is Shannon's 23-24 season with 11.5

Big Z is also in the process of setting a school record for block percentage. Going back to '02-03, the single season record is Egwu's 13-14 at 8.3%

Zvonimir is blocking an absurd 13.7% of opponent 2-pointers when on the floor.
 
#65      
NarrowJ
Altuve27 said:
Just adding that Baker-Mazara has been dealing with an injury. He’s missed their last two games. I’m guessing he’ll do everything possible to play because they need this one badly, but we’ll see.
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Yeah CBM has a knee strain, they said was grade 1 on Feb 5th... unsure if he'll be able to go or 100% if he does
 
#67      
Trueblue777
How many games have we been 100% healthy not counting Ty Rodgers and what is our record in those games?
 
#68      
CoalCity
I want to beat the livin snot out of UCLA just to see what that little grubworm beetches about in the post game presser.
 
#69      
AirTran
Trueblue777 said:
How many games have we been 100% healthy not counting Ty Rodgers and what is our record in those games?
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What difference does it make? The 1989 team got better without Kendall Gill. And they beat the daylights out of Michigan in both regular season games. We litterally have 5 players (when healthy) that can step up and carry this team when need be without any jealousy. How often does that happen? We have 3 others that would start on any other team. We just have to keep improving.

Kylan really tampered the dribble drive, staggered screens that Purdue, Washington, Nebraska, MSU, Wisconsin and Indiana threw at us.

USC is going to run the dribble drive offense at us 75% of the time and we are going to get whistled for more fouls on Wednesday than we have all season (we're on the road). I am confident that the team and coaches are already aware of that. The key is how we handle it.
 
#73      
ptgrd23
IllinitripleJ said:
Musselman seems to have Brad's number. Hopefully this year we beat them.
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We lost to USC last year at home 72-82.
we lost in 2022 to arkansas 73-63 in Des Moines Iowa in NCAA Musselman was coach

I think those were only 2 times Brad went against Musselman.
 
#74      
Kernal12
DeonThomas said:
I can distinctly recall the Kevin Turner game vs UCLA in 1997. That was the game KT emerged from nowhere to suddenly become a dead-eye long range shooter.
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Yep, have the same memory. Turner lit it up that game, and from then on that season he basically was given the green light to shoot anytime open from 25 feet or closer -- really propelled that team to overachieve the way it did.
 
#75      
illinibbcz
AirTran said:
What difference does it make? The 1989 team got better without Kendall Gill. And they beat the daylights out of Michigan in both regular season games. We litterally have 5 players (when healthy) that can step up and carry this team when need be without any jealousy. How often does that happen? We have 3 others that would start on any other team. We just have to keep improving.

Kylan really tampered the dribble drive, staggered screens that Purdue, Washington, Nebraska, MSU, Wisconsin and Indiana threw at us.

USC is going to run the dribble drive offense at us 75% of the time and we are going to get whistled for more fouls on Wednesday than we have all season (we're on the road). I am confident that the team and coaches are already aware of that. The key is how we handle it.
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I agree with most of what you said, however the 1989 DID NOT get better without Kendal Gill. We lost four games in his absence and were not the team without him that we were with him.
 
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