Illinois 105, Penn 70 Postgame

[Combo]

As a follow-up, I reacted most to your claim that there are 8 teams in a tier above us (because that sounds like unwarranted negativism). If you had just said there are 3 in that top tier with one or two more in between us and them, I would have responded:

I agree we aren't in the top tier. I think the analytics also agree (especially our bad defense against good teams). And it is a let-down after being top 2 or 3 in metrics during our winning streak.

I also agree that it's concerning that we have only one win against a top team in the tournament under Brad, but the sample size is small, and we've done well against the bad teams, so I definitely wouldn't say "this season is likely going to end sleepwalking into yet another loss [they] should have [won]"

If your standard for a season is judging it by the best week (whether in rankings or metrics), then you will very often be disappointed. Yes it would be nice to peak in early April, but most teams peak at other weeks of a long season.

It's like the posters that say we should play at our very best for 40 min/game. Mathematically it just doesn't work like that. There are peaks and troughs throughout virtually every game and likewise peaks and troughs during the season.

 

[HouTexIllini]

Interesting that as I did a rewatch (sipping a good bourbon of course) I noticed no one flopped. Crazy but is that a big ten thing? Kind of nice not to see that! March is good!

And a Miami Ohio thing.

 

[HouTexIllini]

We were only supposed to beat them by 25.5, so we did a good amount better than we were supposed to

If that’s the case, I guess you have a point for that stat. If that floats your boat who am I to argue with that.

 

[wc_illini]

If your standard for a season is judging it by the best week (whether in rankings or metrics), then you will very often be disappointed. Yes it would be nice to peak in early April, but most teams peak at other weeks of a long season.

It's like the posters that say we should play at our very best for 40 min/game. Mathematically it just doesn't work like that. There are peaks and troughs throughout virtually every game and likewise peaks and troughs during the season.

Oh, I agree that rationally we shouldn't usually judge a season that way, and I certainly don't with this season. I was just acknowledging that the ebb and flow of this season's results affect our emotions.

I actually think most peaks and valleys are a mirage. There's a lot of game-to-game variance (stdev around the line is 10-12pts, even for the second meeting between teams so it isn't just surprises in how teams match up), so even a random simulation would likely have streaks of good & bad games. During these inevitable streaks, there are things the team did both right and wrong, but we single out the things that fit the narrative of the streak we're on when it was likely just driven by lucky/unlucky shooting or rebounding or officiating or whatever.

Even though I think this way, it was still my human nature to emotionally feel extra excitement during our good streak, then feel a bit bummed when the team came back down to earth.

Edit: regarding streaks during games, there's reasonable evidence that those are also based on luck/variance, and that calling a timeout to stop a run likely won't make a difference (I bought into the idea that it would before reading more about it recently)

 

[lstewart53x3]

Because we “only” scored 105, I don’t think ppl fully realize how nuts 1.97 points per possession in the second half is.

For context:

Michigan scored 101 points on 72 possessions.

If we would’ve scored 1.97 points per possession for the full game and had 72 possessions, we would’ve scored 142.

Here’s another way to look at it based on the analogy in Robert’s article:

We had 33 second half possessions. If Penn would’ve played zero defense in the second half. Literally just stayed on their side of the court. And we scored an uncontested layup on every possession, we would’ve scored 66. We scored 65.

 

[nmillini]

Oh, I agree that rationally we shouldn't usually judge a season that way, and I certainly don't with this season. I was just acknowledging that the ebb and flow of this season's results affect our emotions.

I actually think most peaks and valleys are a mirage. There's a lot of game-to-game variance (stdev around the line is 10-12pts, even for the second meeting between teams so it isn't just surprises in how teams match up), so even a random simulation would likely have streaks of good & bad games. During these inevitable streaks, there are things the team did both right and wrong, but we single out the things that fit the narrative of the streak we're on when it was likely just driven by lucky/unlucky shooting or rebounding or officiating or whatever.

Even though I think this way, it was still my human nature to emotionally feel extra excitement during our good streak, then feel a bit bummed when the team came back down to earth.

Edit: regarding streaks during games, there's reasonable evidence that those are also based on luck/variance, and that calling a timeout to stop a run likely won't make a difference (I bought into the idea that it would before reading more about it recently)

You are correct. We do not allow randomness to be random.

 

[Piotyr]

Because we “only” scored 105, I don’t think ppl fully realize how nuts 1.97 points per possession in the second half is.

For context:

Michigan scored 101 points on 72 possessions.

If we would’ve scored 1.97 points per possession for the full game and had 72 possessions, we would’ve scored 142.

Here’s another way to look at it based on the analogy in Robert’s article:

We had 33 second half possessions. If Penn would’ve played zero defense in the second half. Literally just stayed on their side of the court. And we scored an uncontested layup on every possession, we would’ve scored 66. We scored 65.

Even crazier, you can break the game down into 3 parts:

After the first 30 possessions, with 2 minutes left in the first half, it was 30-25. Illinois scored at a clip of 1 point per possession (and were still winning)

With 3 minutes left in the game, they put in the scrubs, who ended the game with 7 points on 6 possessions, or 1.16 PPP.

In that middle 19 minutes, though? 68 points in 32 possessions, or 2.12 PPP. Meaning if there would have been no defense and automatic layups each time down the floor, it would have been less efficient than what Illinois did during that time.