Illinois 65, Houston 55 Postgame

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#527      
MULEDOG35
Illini in Italy said:
Traveling as I'm on a gig tour right now, but I was sitting at a bar in Meridian, Mississippi watching the game pretty much by myself. What a display of the defense we had all been wishing and hoping for - as Indy likes to say, "ELITE". So proud of the coaches and players, they were prepared and executed (well, except for FT's). Thank you, thank you, thank you. Salute!

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I'm too happy to go back and look for receipts for all of those on here who had no belief in the Beloved this game, but have prepared this special dish for all of you. Enjoy.

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I was three hours south of you near Long Beach, MS enjoying some Corona's in my camper while watching the victory.
 
#529      
wc_illini
One Man Fast Break said:
I’m still amazed at how well our offense played in the second half. Is there a way to see the offensive efficiency rating just for the half?
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I'm not entirely confident in the possession counts, but based on the NCAA stats page, we had 29 possessions in the 2nd half, so we scored 1.41 pts/poss. First half was 0.92 (24 on 26 possessions)

But that page also says we had 58 total possessions (to Houston's 61), and that doesn't add up.
 
#531      
GForce
WyattEarp said:
It helps that I like them as people so much. But these guys are funny/entertaining as hell. So many of them too. I mean they’re legit funny. 😄
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They're like the cast of some wacky sports movie. A desperate coach (Dabney Coleman) goes to the Balkans and signs a bunch of players who are all slightly unhinged: two 7-footers who happen to be twins, a power forward with a tattoo of Chucky and a profile pic that looks like a Bellevue patient, and a 30-year-old chainsmoking point guard. And their led by a skinny freshman that no one wanted.
 
#533      
wc_illini
number1IlliniFan said:
Question: Did that all happen while Kylan was on the bench? Anyone know what his +/- was for last night?
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He was our for most of it (their drought was from 18:06-11:20, Boswell left @17:24 and returned @9:56), but he was +6 for the game

Stojakovic replaced him during that stretch, and he was +7 for the game, so there must have been some smaller runs where Boswell was in and Stoj was out (and Houston runs with Stoj in and Bos out).
 
#535      
Fly Illini Fly!
3/26:

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#538      
sulli
Kernal12 said:
Maybe this has already been discussed, but ... how about the defensive plan to throw some hard hedging on ball screens at them? I think Houston came into the game expecting mostly drop coverage and our hedging threw them for a loop.

Hopefully we see some more of this as needed!
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I’ve been arguing for more of this all year. The first game thy really tried was vs Michigan and it didn’t go well. Maybe they shouldn’t habe started against their best opponent.

They’ve been doing a little more of it as of late and must be working on it in practice because it was great this fame.
 
#539      
sulli
FreshlySqueezed said:
Just one thing to add. While our defense generally does try to force opponents into those bad shots, we didn't need to do much convincing last night.

Houston is 364th out of 365 in average 2-point shot distance. Those mid-range/bad shot attempts are quite literally what Houston wants to take. And then they usually rebound a lot of their misses.

We are long enough to cause some additional disruption on those shots to make them fall at a below-their average rate AND we rebound so well that they couldn't get nearly as many offensive rebounds as they normally do.

A lot of people thought Houston was a bad matchup for us but we clearly saw that we were actually a terrible matchup for them in many ways too.

As another example... they typically force a ton of turnovers. We don't turn it over. They had zero fast break points last night.
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A lot of the bad matchup fear was officials based. if we had officials that were gonna call touch fouls on Illinois and let them hammer us like we’ve had a few games it would have been trouble. As it was, the officials were mostly good. They missed some fouls on Houston but we got away with a few too and, while they let it get physical in a way that probably favored Houston, they called it the same both ways at least.
 
#543      
wc_illini
the juiceman cometh said:
A lot of people knee-jerk hate on analytics but this game was such a great example of using analytics to craft a winning game plan. Our goal was to make them settle for lower percentage looks inside the 3 point arc and we succeeded.

Our goal on offense was not to settle for those looks even when it meant having to reset multiple times in one possession. And to a degree that surprised me, we eventually ended up with good looks most of the time, even when they didn't go in.

It was a great sign when Cenac kept taking those mid-range baseline twos. Even if he's typically a better shooter than that, you keep letting him have those. If you're getting layups and good looks at 3 and they're shooting mid-range jumpers, you're going to win 9/10.
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Adding on to this...

Per a similar # of possessions against top 50 opponents, Houston averaged 14 dunk/rim attempts (making 69%) but we only allowed 8 (@75%), and they averaged almost 15 FTAs (@79%) but we only allowed 2 (@100%). Then they averaged 23 3pt attempts (@33%) while we allowed 32 (@28%), and they averaged 21 mid-range attempts (@40%) while we allowed 25 (@32%).

So we allowed nine more threes (which are usually just ok shots for them unless they get some rebounds) and four more mid-range shots (which are usually bad shots for them unless they rebound really well), but allowed fewer dunks/layups, and almost no FTs.

I don't know if they usually make more tough 3s and mid-range shots, or if we contested those better than their opponents have. At their usual rates, that would've been 8-9 more points, and the end of the game could have played out differently. My guess is that they missed one or two mid-range shots they usually make, but that the lower 3pt% was because we didn't give them easy looks there.
 
#548      
WyattEarp
GForce said:
They're like the cast of some wacky sports movie. A desperate coach (Dabney Coleman) goes to the Balkans and signs a bunch of players who are all slightly unhinged: two 7-footers who happen to be twins, a power forward with a tattoo of Chucky and a profile pic that looks like a Bellevue patient, and a 30-year-old chainsmoking point guard. And their led by a skinny freshman that no one wanted.
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I can dig it!! Like a Balkan Basketball “Slapshot” of sorts with Dabney Coleman.
 
#550      
Second place is 1st loser
GForce said:
Dear Kelvin, remember that time you broke a bunch of rules and stole our recruit at the last minute? And then this year you thought you finally had the team to win it all? Well the rent just came due.
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It was 20 years ago during a time where recruiting was ugly, but beneath table. Now, it's the same nonsense, but we know it's a money grab, everyone is transparent about it and it's the haves vs have nots. I couldn't stand him two decades ago, but have to give credit where it's due.

What he's done with that Houston program is incredible. He took an afterthought who was buried in Conference USA(right) and made them a national power.

His stints at Oklahoma and IU were..... questionable, but he pretty much just found an opportunity and went wild with it.

I think Dusty May is 1000% worse. Actually, Michigan as a whole is. They bought that entire roster, ripping guys away from other programs and they put him down as a great tactician. Yeah, transfer in an NBA front court....life is easier.
 
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