If we don't make 3s we are toast. Need a better balance with more athletic players.
Wisconsin 91, Illinois 88 OT Postgame
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100% - all of it. My biggest critique of Brad to date has ironically been adjusting too much from the TSJ / Domask team. That team might not have been as elite offensively as this one according to the metrics, but they methodically diced you up in the halfcourt, and ripped your heart out in transition.
Brad rightfully still focused on the size, length and skill - but we've given too much up in speed and twitch. Part of the reason I think we havent crushed Wisconsin on the boards as we should, is because teams are selling out on the boards now. And why not? We're not gonna punish them in transition, so they'll take their chances trying to steal a few possessions back.
I don't complain nearly as much about the halfcourt offense as some. But Newman did bring up a good point about us not shifting our style when having the lead. A big part of that is that athleticism - we get our offense setting up mismatches, getting open threes and that doesn't afford you the luxury of waiting until 10 on the shot clock to set up. With TSJ, just give it to your downhill driver and go at the end of the clock.
In hindsight, a guy like Swain would have been excellent this offseason, or if we ultimately closed on Sarr... But as much as fans wanna act like we got top ten resources, we had to pivot from Sarr, to have room for guys like Mirk. But we need to blend the two this offseason.
For the way people talk about it… he’s only had one underachieving tournament (Loyola).
And one overachieving tournament in 2024.
I think the problem is you have assistant coaches that don’t know what to do if things have to go differently than the gameplan. Basically, it’s trust analytics and don’t veer from
the gameplan. I don’t think it’s Brad isn’t listening to them.
or shannon wouldnt have gotten in foul trouble again and they would have just kept blitzing them.
But then again, if we kept blitzing them, you would say brad gets no credit because he didnt have to adjust.
healthy way to think!
Doesn't that sort of depend on how "underachieving" is defined? I suspect you mean that the teams have played to their NCAA-seed.
I haven't paid a ton of attention to the sidelines during games, but when the cameras have been on Brad, he's usually talking to Tyler and that's it? Does he talk to the other assistants much during the game? I mean OA was a head coach, he probably has some ideas about TOs and lineups?
Hate to bring this up but somebody has to say it. We are a Ty Rodgers mentality/tenacity/physicality away from being a natty caliber team. Why has this been so under the radar. This team has no identity and it’s a problem. Ty gives you that.
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
Lol...we can play defense.....I've seen it.......just not for more than about 15 minutes per game.
The coaches are not getting the most out of these players. We have spurts of greatness, followed by sleepwalking.
Getting outrebounded by that team is nothing but desire. Want. Effort. It almost seems like this team got full of itself with the "were the #1 offense in the nation" crap.
Cool. Enjoy your week off, #1 offense in the nation.
The coaches are not getting the most out of these players. We have spurts of greatness, followed by sleepwalking.
Getting outrebounded by that team is nothing but desire. Want. Effort. It almost seems like this team got full of itself with the "were the #1 offense in the nation" crap.
Cool. Enjoy your week off, #1 offense in the nation.
AyoDos11
- Southern Illinois
I remember being 9 years old playing 2k against the CPU. If I was losing by too much with too little time left, I would change the user sliders to all 99s and the cpu sliders to all zeros and proceed to easily come back and win. This year's team is the CPU in this scenario.
Noblesville Illini
- Nappanee, IN
Ball movement has to get better. Period.
I know you are an insider but is this true?
Brad Underwood has to be one of the most secure coaches in
No. Certainly not.
But the first few years he was taking over a train wreck, and it was pre-portal and NIL. And one year there was no tournament.
It’s not apples to apples and you know that
Do you want to guess what our 3-point shooting % is after halftime in all games since February 1?
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Well this last month has lessened the heartache when it inevitably ends well short of Indy. Til February I thought this team had final four potential. That was a mirage. UCLA ended my real enthusiasm for the season. I’ll watch and hope I’m wrong but just have no expectation of anything.
We did come out with impressive energy on D. UW was hitting their shots, but we were defending hard. For the first couple possessions.
And we did get 2 or 3 shot clock violations. But not much consistency.
Iirc, we WERE tied with Nebby with no time on the clock. (The winning 3 was in the air, however.)
I went to the game at Iowa City… I was excited because I was able to put bets in on Illini to make final 4 and win championship while in Iowa (we can’t bet on Illini in the state of Illinois ). I’m not feeling nearly as good about those bets now
With regard to what you said in bold…I’ll say it again: there is no analysis out there that says how you close a season is predictive of how a team will do in the tournament. Hot teams routinely underperform their seed. There are teams thought to be slumping every year that over perform.
It's hard to imagine this team getting past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. We seem very prone to not being able to stop any persistent guard penetration. It's been like this for a long time now actually. The last game we won against a good team was Feb 1 Nebraska. Hoping they figure it out before next weekend but I don't see a whole lot of evidence that these guys are going to put up a fight. It's really too bad because up until the last several weeks I would have said this is one of the best teams we've had. But now we look like a very skilled team that won't be playing past the first weekend. What the hell happened to these guys?
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