6-7 is a worse slide than 4-5 is... yet they just won the BTT despite that
That's the post
Illini Basketball 2025-2026
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6-7 is a worse slide than 4-5 is... yet they just won the BTT despite that
That's the post
blackdog
- Champaign
The whole point of my post was they WERE on a worse slide and managed to turn it around and win the BTT. If they can do it there is hope for us to also turn it around despite not playing well recently.
The point is that a slide (or surge) can turn around at any time, meaning it wasn't necessarily an actual persistent change in team quality, but just a run of bad/good luck. I'm not saying there isn't any truth to be gleaned from recent games, but it shouldn't get nearly as high a weight as our emotions tell us.
I'm more concerned that we've been much worse in 2nd halves and we've never been good on defense against good teams, and that's true of the whole season. Our winning streak was because our offense went nuclear (so high it was unlikely to persist), but we still played bad defense against good teams (#59).
Here's the true context: 4 OT games against Quad 1 opponents in the last 5 weeks including giving up multiple double digit leads...all losses plus sleepwalking through a Maryland team to end the season. You don't get bonus points for beating teams you are supposed to beat. That's the relevant context for the current trend of Illini basketball. No need to sugercoat or put some liptstick on the actual problems that plague our team lately
Using all of the context instead of only the context you accept is the best way to look at this, nobody is sugarcoating anything, in fact seems the opposite when you have to skew/remove facts to come up with a position
Current trends are more relevant than what happened in December/January. We're not talking about seeding or whether they are going to make it in or not. We're talking about the current trends of this team since Boswell and Stojakovic came back from injury. We're talking about two different things clearly. This isn't the same team from January where the peak was beating Purdue on the road. But hey, maybe they catch fire and go on a run
Yeah I’m lost on what we’re talking about then, I guess haha, nobody claimed we are playing really well… pretty sure we were talking about close games
Everyone knows we’re not playing as well so you’re preaching to the choir on that particular point
Some emphasis on recent games (i.e. last 40 days) has been shown to help predict future games. Much of that is for major changes like injuries and emerging freshman rather than teams that get "figured out".
So the amount to discount early season isn't as much as our eyes and minds convince us
Bettors still give us 8th best odds to win the NCAAT. Worse than at the end of our winning streak, but we didn't forget how to play basketball
Right. This Illini team is not playing well of late. Somehow, it has over the last 5 weeks gone downhill a little here and a little there, relative to other teams.
For some reason, players other than the shooter (or top of key man) no longer all go after offensive rebounds. This is a weird change from our previously successful formula.
Because Tomi and Z are making less than 1 in 5 three-pointers over the last 5 weeks, teams have realized they can sag into the paint on defense. That has crowded Keaton badly. And when neither Kylan nor Andrej reliably make threes either, defensive help in the paint goes up as well. Meaning Keaton has, again, less room to operate. Keaton has continued doing well, but against these stacked defenses he's less able to make the plays that earlier in the season made this team deadly. I don't think the three-point shooting issues are going to be repaired at this point. But sending Kylan and Andrej to the rim might well be the best alternative (for their contributions) now. Tomi and Z? I guess: Tomi, post once or twice a game, and Z, get him a lob or two more each game. We don't need much here, just a little.
And defensively? The Illini of late have made more mistakes than earlier in the season. I think the injuries to Kylan and Andrej are the root problem: these two important players are a little out of synch, and their team mates are as well out of synch with these two players. I am talking about things like decisions on going over screens versus under. Who should pick up the cutter (not two guys! But you see this mistake more often now). These defensive lapses are things that could be fixed right now, and hopefully will be. One or two more stops a game is the goal.
Good points. I quibble, slightly, with the last phrase however: the team has not forgotten how to play basketball, true, but it has forgotten a couple of things about how they won basketball games earlier this season. Offensive rebounding activity has changed: too often, we no longer see 4 offensive rebounders, which is a keystone of the offensive plan (5-out scheme, and missed 3's aren't negatives when we collect 40+% of misses). The defensive error rate is up this last few weeks as well: Kylan has not been sharp; Andrej has made mistakes and also been on the bench; Keaton has made more mistakes on switches and picking up cutters. Fix those two things -- and they are very fixable this week -- and I predict the team gets back to its winning ways.
Here's our adjusted offense for the season. The last 4 games are undoubtedly off the peak, but the difference is surprisingly small. Our 5-game rolling average was as high as ever (excluding the first two games) after the UCLA game (the red square above 140). So while we haven't been quite as dominant as during our winning streak, it wasn't that long ago that we were playing at that level, and while we should be strive to be as good as we can on both ends, our offense certainly isn't the "problem".
Here's our adjusted defense for the season. There's a general downtrend throughout the entire season, but with tons of game-to-game variation, and it was just as bad (or worse) during the last half of our winning streak, so it isn't like the last month has been different from that. And (not shown in this graph, but I've mentioned it several times in the last couple days) we have played bad defense against good teams all season (and all of BU's tenure). To me, that's my biggest concern going into the tournament and in general.
Here's our offensive rebounding for the season. It's been flat since the first month of the season, so although the last game was bad, I wouldn't think anything is broken lately.
So I think of it more that the stars kind of aligned in our favor during the winning streak, as our best offensive games happened to occur against some tough opponents and masked our bad defense (our only good defensive game against a good opponent during our winning streak was Iowa). That gave us some unrealistic hopes about what this team could do, and we've come back down to earth a bit with our defense more exposed for what it's always been.
Man alive, data! Good!
The team's 12-game winning streak was incredibly welcome (after last year's win 2 lose 1, win 1 lose 1, league season). In summary, I think: Illinois' schedule since New Year's Day of 2026 has been very much backloaded: lots more winnable games early (certainly not all: Purdue, Nebraska, even Iowa), and a far tougher schedule towards the back end (MSU, Whisky, UCLA, Michigan, Whisky in the BTT). That's what the graphs, above, show. My fuzzy words capture the same, with less precision.
Yep, the difference is small. But I wouldn't say "surprisingly" small. A small decrease in offensive efficiency coupled with a non-dramatic decrease in defensive efficienty can readily translate into a string of close, close losses. Which is what in 4-out-of-5 cases of late been what has happened: a clear defeat by the best team in the conference by a big margin, and 4 OT losses.
You just outlined why, for me, the offense is more of a concern. The defense has been suspect all year.. at times passable at others kinda bad. But our offense has been so good that it can cover up those deficiencies.
Lately, our offense hasn't been good enough to cover them up. I think it's more reasonable to ask that we return our offense back to our previous high level than it is to suddenly decide to start being something we haven't been all year.
Note: To be clear, my point certainly isn't that our offense is "weaker" than our defense. It's that improving our offense slightly to get back to where it was is the easier / more realistic lever to pull vs learning how to play better defense in mid-March.
Yeah, there probably isn't a right or wrong answer here. To make a deep run, one way or another we have to play better against Q1 opponents than we have.
But we're 2-2 against Q1 opponents when our AdjO is >140. Neb and UCLA were the two losses despite great offense, and those could have gone the other way, but our Purdue win came down to the last 2 minutes also. The point is that our absolute best offense hasn't brought the success I'd expect.
We're 3-1 when our AdjD is <96, and 3-0 when it's <94. Those victories weren't blowouts (except maybe Tenn), but they were comfortable at the end and not just a lucky bounce. But the last of these was Jan 11 @ Iowa, so maybe that's a pipe dream.
Long term, defense is clearly the side BU needs to figure out. It's unrealistic to think we can have an AdjO of 138, and that's what it would take with our defense (103) to be top 4 against Q1
Losing in regulation at the buzzer and in OT in games in which we led at various stages makes me more confident going into the tourney with 24 wins than losing a bunch of "fake rally" games with 24 wins. Plus, metrics.
I think it’s to our advantage to play a team we have not played before. I know Fran knows the Illini, but this is not the same Illini scheme. I also think it’s our advantage to only have a day for teams to prepare for Round 2. I say that because we have so many weapons on offense and can attack teams a number of ways.
damn purdue got number 1 offense at the end in both kenpom and torvik. honestly what I would have predicted going into the season but this last stretch killed us. need to regroup and move forward. we got these next 2 games. start there
I'd like to see Z and Tomi both wear masks...full masks featuring Mirk's diabolical grin.
I wish there was a thread to go back and look at our predictions for the season, now that the tournament is upon us! Here is mine. It aged.....ok. not great, but ok.
Oct 28, 2025
wyckles
I think we go 25-6 with losses to Uconn, Texas Tech, UCLA, and three others we shouldn't lose to. Yes, I think we can beat Purdue. I think they are overrated this year. I dont have a good reason for that.
Probably play well in the big ten tournament but lose in the championship to a team who needs it more. I think we get a 3 seed and end up in the sweet sixteen and miss a three to move on.
Oct 28, 2025
wyckles
I think we go 25-6 with losses to Uconn, Texas Tech, UCLA, and three others we shouldn't lose to. Yes, I think we can beat Purdue. I think they are overrated this year. I dont have a good reason for that.
Probably play well in the big ten tournament but lose in the championship to a team who needs it more. I think we get a 3 seed and end up in the sweet sixteen and miss a three to move on.
band camp
- STL City
Would be a dream scenario for me, but no way we lose to MSU in a semi.
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