Illini Basketball 2026-2027

#178      
Gravy Train

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#191      
Fly Illini Fly!
What do we project Vaaks’s 3pt attempts to be?

He shot 8.4 threes/game at Providence, which was 5th amongst all Power Conference Players.

For context:
Plummer was 7.3
Shannon was 6.7
Keaton was 5.9

(A lot of this does have to do with pace: more possessions = more shots. Providence was top 20 in pace last season)
 
#192      
lstewart53x3
Fly Illini Fly! said:
What do we project Vaaks’s 3pt attempts to be?

He shot 8.4 threes/game at Providence, which was 5th amongst all Power Conference Players.

For context:
Plummer was 7.3
Shannon was 6.7
Keaton was 5.9

(A lot of this does have to do with pace: more possessions = more shots. Providence was top 20 in pace last season)
Click to expand...
He’ll play the Keaton role. Responsible for both scoring and playmaking. So I imagine he’ll be in the Keaton range. I’ll say 6.something.
 
#195      
Fly Illini Fly!
lstewart53x3 said:
He’ll play the Keaton role. Responsible for both scoring and playmaking. So I imagine he’ll be in the Keaton range. I’ll say 6.something.
Click to expand...
Keaton was at 6.5 3pt/attempts from the TENN game onward, and only 3.8 in the first 8 games before that.

…..

What’s funny to me is that in the media, the Nebraska loss is what became exclusively known as the “turning point of the season” because we rattled off 12 in a row after that.

But anyone who truly paid attention, knows the real “turning point” was Tennessee. I mean sure you could claim Nebraska was the “motivation” to lock in defensively (although all it really was is a team going out of their minds from 3 paired with an egregious call in the last 30 seconds)…

but Tennessee is the game that saw our new look offense in full effect. It was Keaton’s first game as the full time lead guard, and from that game onward he averaged 19.3 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists while shooting 45 percent from the field, 41 percent from 3 and 79 percent from the line. That, in contrast with 13.3 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists on 43/33/81 splits (and those numbers are honestly inflated playing cupcakes; in our three T25 games of TTU / BAMA / UCONN they weren’t near as strong).

He went on to have a historic season, and Illinois was the #1 offense in history all the way up until the UCONN tourney loss (as Purdue marginally inched ahead, because we scored under 1pt per possession in that game).

I remember right before we had the putrid showing against UCONN at MSG (worst offensive performance of the season), but had a full 7 or 8 days to prepare for Tennessee. BU has always earned the trust to prepare for the next game, coming off a loss with a week’s time in between (especially if it’s against a quality opponent).
 
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#198      
BTM33
I'll keep beating the drum with Vaaks...I think he's gonna be terrific this year, exceeding expectations.

He'll obviously be different then Keaton...Vaaks is definitely more of a gunslinger, where as Keaton was more passive for the right reasons. I think there will be games where Vaaks may wear us out as far as shot selection...but when he's on....he's going to light some teams up.

Keaton was a master in the pick and roll, I think Vaaks can be just as good...also, he's walking around at a legit 6'7. I guarantee there will be more then zero dunks. I can't wait to see it....

Bonafide lottery pick IMO.
 
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