Well, this is a good example of how a.season can turn without proper roster cinstruction and depth. Trying to say that no one will get hurt and iif it does we will be ok. I dont think next years team is in that type of situation but i pray Mirk stays healthy at the 4. He is the only banger we have
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
You said it. Role changed. As a team, we were more perimeter oriented. Played through the post even less than last year (which already wasn't much). And when we did play inside out, we played through the 4 more than we did last year. That's why Tomi's assist numbers were down, too.
But I do think that in the very rare instances when we were going through a prolonged drought, a designed Tomi post up could've been implemented more often.
What I find slightly more mystifying though is his rebound numbers. Down 2 rebounds per game vs last year. I suppose this too, could be attributed to Mirk's emergence.
Coaching Carousel (Basketball)
Probably the biggest news drop of the offseason. This seems significant.
www.illinoisloyalty.com
@thefalcon5 's post in the Coaching Carousel thread alluded to this, but Dusty May's departure leaves the door wide open for us to be the runaway favorite for the B1G regular season title. As it currently stands, Michigan was set to be our toughest test on the road this year, and with Dusty out, we should be going into the season favored in every single one of our away games.
If you look at the pre-season Torvik rankings, 5 of the top 6 teams we play in the B1G this year are home only (see next season's schedule vs. pre-season rank below). Even though we had Michigan at home last year, our away schedule was much more challenging on balance. A case can be easily made for us being a 1 or 2 loss team in the B1G this year. If you remove Michigan from the equation, MSU is the other team who can be considered in the top tier, and they have to travel to UCLA, USC, OSU, and Iowa this year (and have a home/away with UM).
I hate nitpicking our offense this season. Because, why would I?
But I’d have to agree with that. When we finally got him a few more post touches. His confidence went up as well. Then his perimeter #s went up. I’m nor sure why we we waited so long to make a point to do that.
RichardKeenesCousin
Richard Keene's Cousin
Of course, he has. It looks as though BU and staff know what they're doing.
He’s so versatile. Seems like the type of player you can pretty much plug in 1-4
He's in the Justin Harmon role for next year's team. Needs to be solid if he plays 15-18 minutes.
He's the natural point guard for the Illini-- Tall, great distributor, gets to the basket, can shoot from the outside, gets the ball up-court quickly, plays defense,,, CAN'T WAIT!!
hes not a point guard. at least at the big ten level.
He definitely needs to look for it more. I think there are a few explanations for it.
Mirk is such a good facilitator that I think it cut into his opportunities a bit, as he was the primary option on the block.
We were also very Keaton-centric from an attack standpoint. They didn't want to clog up the lanes looking for post up position. He seemed to have better synergy with KJ in pick and roll situations...
Tomi just never looked right physically until the end of the year last year. I think that knee injury in November nagged him for a long time, which could have also contributed to his being less assertive down low, also explains his decrease in rebounding. (Along with Mirk being a beast)