Joel Goodson
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Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
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Yeah I shouldn’t have presented it that way. Didn’t mean he was replacing him in the lineup necessarily, just trying to show what they had vs bringing in. But this definitely also illustrates they won’t be nearly as big/long as last year too.
G/F RaSheed Jones (Coastal Carolina) commits to Rutgers
G Tristan Devers (HS, Australia) commits to Washington
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G Tristan Devers (HS, Australia) commits to Washington
B1G Roster Tracker
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Yaxel/Mara/Morez were so good they made other insane frontcourts like Peat/Krivas/Kharchenkov/Awaka and Haugh/Condon/Chinyelu look pedestrian.
Obviously Michigan 2026 grinds my gears. But that team, like 2024 UConn and Brunson’s Nova teams, was generational.
2025 Duke was pretty generational too. Just didn't win it all.
Fact is, due to NIL, the time has come that we accept there will be a super team every year. Just look at the recent KenPom ratings for the top teams.
The recent rise in metrics is more due to coaching actively working to engineer the analytics scores now than it is NIL.
NIL has allowed teams to buy some success, but has also resulted in a lot of teams spending tons of money and getting not a lot out of it (eg, Kentucky). We know from history of massive spend 'super teams' that they tend to flop just as often as they succeed, it seems.
But, like... is Duke's success due to NIL? They were pretty good before...
I wouldn't even call Michigan last year a 'super team'... lost to an unranked Wisconsin team, squeaked by a bunch of horrible-to-okay teams like Wake Forest, TCU, Penn State, Oregon... even Northwestern and Minnesota tested them. Nearly lost to Iowa and Ohio State. Nearly lost to that same Wisconsin team again.
An argument might be that they played to the level of competition. When lights shined brightest, they excelled because they knew the competition has harsher. When they played easier teams they used it as opportunities to try rotations and schematics out. Which could be why they destroyed the better teams they played, but as you point out squeaked by teams like Minnesota, Penn State, and Oregon.
I think there was even a metric passed around that displayed if you played better/worse against top level teams or bottom level teams, and Michigan trended to struggle against easier teams, but showed strength against the tougher teams. Illinois on the other hand I think was neutral on harder teams but was very strong on easy teams. As demonstrated in our late season skid before the tournament. Now I think factors were at play for us, like injuries, etc. but dominating the elite teams and sometimes struggling but still winning against lesser ones can get you in trouble by messing with fire at the wrong time (like in March), or can get you places like the winners podium.
There is indeed. Michigan was #3 in "opponent adjustment" and UConn was #14. Wisconsin (#12) was the only other decent team in the top ~50 for that metric. Illinois was #330 (meaning we generally did worse against top teams). I don't know if there's enough of a sample size in a CBB season to say how robust this metric is though.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
The sucky thing about us at #330 is that if even 1-3 of our close OT/single possession losses flipped to wins, I imagine we look a lot stronger. Especially since they were also all against what, top 50 teams? In a world where we build our stats for the metrics, it’s one that despite how close we were, it didn’t translate to paper and we didn’t do ourselves any favors.
That all said, I hope to all that is holy that we improve our late game close outs and win some OT games. There’s not much I’m asking for improvements next year over last year, but wins in OT, and beating MSU and UConn are at the very top for me personally.
Freakin' UConn!
I think you could do the same exercise with just about any National Champion in the last 30 years and come up with similar results. Very few teams with only 3 losses. Very few teams rolled to the Tournament Final with the ease they did.
The only ones I can find who didn’t have a loss to an unranked opponent are 2019 Virginia and 2021 Baylor.
Virginia was in a few very close games in the tournament. (One of them decided in OT) I don’t think they many people consider them to have been a super team…
Baylor had 10 games canceled due to COVID outbreaks within the team, though they did steamroll through the tournament similarly to Michigan last year.
There were 4 teams just last season with only 3 losses... and 16 teams with 3 or less losses just since covid
My definition of super team is like the Fab 5... multiple HOF level players on that team, 96' Kentucky team had 9 future NBA players, Duke has had a few of what I'd call 'super teams'. I see 'super team' as a bunch of stars on the same team, but maybe that's the way the term was coined back when NBA free agency led to failed 'super teams' over the years in the mid-to-late 90s with the Blazers & Rockets trying to do it and further evolved with Golden State and Miami in the 2010s having much more success doing it.
Everyone's definition is probably different because 'super team' is very subjective. If you just mean 'really good team' (though I think that waters it down, personally) then Michigan certainly was one.
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I agree/ while their KenPom end of year metrics were all time good that seems to be the case every year. Duke beat them and seemed to be the better team, but it is true that Michigan didn’t face anyone in the tourny that gave them trouble so it certainly makes their team all the more dominate when you aren’t that tested on the way to a NC
I think the other thing causing the rise of metrics is hollowing out mid majors which makes that average opponent worse.
Mid major teams used to made up of a ton of 3-4 year players that all played together in the same system while power conference programs were losing their best players to the draft(guys were leaving early to go in the 2nd round or undrafted).
Now the best mid major players are poached by power conference schools and those guys that used to go pro are staying around.
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pruman91
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