Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
You'd have more opt-outs than a mid-tier bowl game. And even if they played, most wouldn't (and shouldn't) give a darn. Season's over.
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
I think he's well informed. However, he enjoys being a troll more than giving an honest opinion. Nothing he says is credible.
I believe the kids now would call that cringe
80'sIllini
- Arizona
If there is one thing I'd like BU to do differently this year, relative to the past, is to play the 9-11 th guys 5-8 minutes in games against lower level competition in which we are firmly in control by the second half. Getting at least some PT for those guys may make them more likely to stay for a second year and all our freshmen in this upcoming year have the potential to be really good players down the road. Would hate to see them transfer out after this upcoming season if they don't get in any games other than the last minute of a total blowout.
And if somehow due to injury we need any of those guys during the later half of the season, maybe they would be better prepared to provide a meaningful contribution to winning.
It'd quickly become a non CFP bowl game scenario.
No one slotted as a first round pick would play in it.
Well, it can’t FIX that, but it definitely can HELP that.
A team like USC that has stacked up on their depth - and essentially has a five star as their 9th man - is a lot better equipped to handle those injuries. The dropoff in quality just isn’t that severe.
Let’s say Illinois loses 2 of their top 8 players. And let’s say USC loses 2 of their top 8 players.
USC playing a 7 man rotation would still have a top 30 guy as their 7th man.
Illinois meanwhile, if they were to play 7, would consist of Lincoln Williams as their 7th man.
One team’s dropoff in talent, after those injuries, is just significantly less severe than the other.
Not sure wher3e to put this....but I suspect our staff is doing something like this....perhaps mostI staffs are??
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Quantifying the Unmeasured Parts of Basketball with The Invisible Game | Ben Krakow posted on the topic | LinkedIn
Basketball box scores only capture 10% of a basketball possession: when a player has the ball in their hands. What about the other 90%? I recently built a demo called The Invisible Game—a basketball tracking intelligence engine that quantifies the unmeasured parts of the sport: the cuts that...
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lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
And then, as we saw in the Arizona/Duke/Nebraska examples of teams under injury duress -- that 7th man barely plays anyway
Its just a lot of mental masturbation to post 6-8x every day about the same scenario, one that's not only highly unlikely to happen, but even on the off chance that it does, is largely a nothing burger anyhow... we lost an OT game vs a decent Wisconsin team while shorthanded (it happens)
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The drop off is less severe because their starters are nearly as good.
We’re dying to be USC now? Why would I even trust musselman to coach up his 5 star to be as good as who Brad identifies - we had 2 freshmen significantly lower than Arenas in the rankings last year who cleaned his clock.
Since when did this board get so up tight about “well if god forbid mirk and Vaaks get hurt I wanna finish 7th instead of 9th”
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
This has single handedly made USC one of my least favorite teams in the B1G
USC isn’t as good as Illinois. I know of one person on the planet that thinks differently.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
In non-USC related news, the Sleepers guys have heard from their Illinois sources that Mirk has played this summer like the best player of the Underwood Era:
14 minute mark.
14 minute mark.
I'd probably agree to USC, by definition, having a deeper team.
BUT:
PG: Vaaks or Rice? Vaaks
SG: Coleman or Arenas? Arenas
SF: Stojakovic or Lewis? Stojakovic
PF: Mirkovic or Cofie? Mirkovic
C: Tomislav or Reibe? Tomislav
Not sure it's logical to sacrifice having 4 out of 5 better starters, just to have a better #9thMan.
BUT:
PG: Vaaks or Rice? Vaaks
SG: Coleman or Arenas? Arenas
SF: Stojakovic or Lewis? Stojakovic
PF: Mirkovic or Cofie? Mirkovic
C: Tomislav or Reibe? Tomislav
Not sure it's logical to sacrifice having 4 out of 5 better starters, just to have a better #9thMan.
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I don't see how you give Whitman anything but an A+ for what he's done. I'm not a fan of super-long contracts, but if he wants a 10 year deal, then I'm good with it. $5mil in retention also seems reasonable. Not that you asked, but I don't understand and can't predict the arms race that is college athletics. The AD getting a contract that is roughly 1.3% of revenue seems crazy to me, but no doubt he's made a difference bigger than that so 
Good for him. Good for the fans. Good for the University.
Good for him. Good for the fans. Good for the University.
I'm measuring depth by the players who are actually projected to play. Big Z and Jake might be the 2 best backups in the entire country, and they are on the same team. Z is certainly the best backup center (can anyone name someone better? would be difficult). Jake isn't a dynamic scorer or lock down defender but I think he was 1st nationally in ORtg at 149.0 (beat Cluff by 0.6) because of his shooting and lack of turnovers, and he's serviceable on defense.
That's depth. Having elite backups at multiple positions. Not this notion 'we have a guy at the end of our bench that plays 4 minutes in 18 games but was a top 20 recruit'. That isn't depth.
If y'all want to measure depth by who has the highest rated guy that doesn't even play... then, cool, I guess? Like others said: nobody cares.
And I realize I'm reiterating against a point you're not really making. I think everyone pretty much agrees that our top 7-8 is much better than their top 7-8.
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I agree, I feel like thats why we don't have Brandon Lee this year. He could've been that good strong defensive guard off the bench people were asking for.
Are you sniffing the wrong stuff? Another poster already said it. When you take away each team's best 3 players, Illinois is still significantly stronger than USC according to the torvic rankings. Move to southern LA dude.
We're definitely beating this one to death now haha, but if we're accepting this definition of depth, then the deepest team in college basketball was Coppin St., who played 49.8% of their minutes off the bench. they went 7-24 and were the third-worst team in college basketball.
The Power 5 school with the most depth by this definition last year was, you guessed it, USC, who played 40.8% of their minutes off the bench last year. They barely maintained a winning record and finished the season ranked 77 on KP. We can blame injury on USC being bad last year, but this is a team that barely beat Boise St. and Seton Hall, and took Troy (ranked 150) to 3OT, with all of their best players.
The drop off is less severe because their starters are nearly as good.
We’re dying to be USC now? Why would I even trust musselman to coach up his 5 star to be as good as who Brad identifies - we had 2 freshmen significantly lower than Arenas in the rankings last year who cleaned his clock.
Since when did this board get so up tight about “well if god forbid mirk and Vaaks get hurt I wanna finish 7th instead of 9th”
Which honestly, because of the changing landscape of College Athletics and how Whitman has proven himself, I’m more confident having him at the helm than anyone else. Let him be the consistency we need at the moment, while everything changes. He’s shown at great lengths that he’s able to be flexible and adapt to the changing landscape; being competitive with less and but also helping go out and get the bigger items we need when necessary as well.I don't see how you give Whitman anything but an A+ for what he's done. I'm not a fan of super-long contracts, but if he wants a 10 year deal, then I'm good with it. $5mil in retention also seems reasonable. Not that you asked, but I don't understand and can't predict the arms race that is college athletics. The AD getting a contract that is roughly 1.3% of revenue seems crazy to me, but no doubt he's made a difference bigger than that so
Good for him. Good for the fans. Good for the University.
I’m a big Whitman Stan. I think with any team or program, success starts at the top with leadership and direction. I’m out of state now, deep in Wolverine and Spartan territory, but it’s clear that since he took over, our branding has jumped tenfold. The respect we now are getting is apparent. I’ll keep buying merch and wearing it proudly to show Illinois belongs at the top with the best of them. Whitman’s hire was undoubtedly the spark of this new age of Illini.
My favorite thing about those graphs is that it suggests the ILLINI can lose 2 of their starters and would still project to be better than USC's current full squad.