Illini Basketball 2026-2027

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#201      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
EmeraldCityIllini said:
Since 2015, there’s only been 2 national champions outside the top 5 in offense - and even then, both those teams were still in the top 10, and Kansas itself was 6.

I’d push back on MSU at 26th last year as proving they have an offensive ceiling good enough to win a title.
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I am NOT pushing back on the point that you need a great offense to win a natty.

However, that particular statistical analogy I just can't stand (and will never be able to stand). The "every champion since x season has been x in offense and x in defense" arguments.

OF COURSE those teams will be top whatever in offense, defense, and have such and such KenPom rating. Because those ratings are AFTER THEY WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. KenPom does not magically stop on Selection Sunday. Almost all of the top 25 teams in a given year would satisfy those requirements, had there been a national championship run in their season.

It's crazy to me how many times it gets said when filling out brackets, before the tournament. And how nintelligent minds continue to fall for it. It's the single most useless thing anyone can take stock in.
 
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#202      
NarrowJ
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
I am NOT pushing back on the point that you need a great offense to win a natty.

However, that particular statistical analogy I just can't stand (and will never be able to stand). The "every champion since x season has been x in offense and x in defense" arguments.

OF COURSE those teams will be top whatever in offense, defense, and have such and such KenPom rating. Because those ratings are AFTER THEY WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. KenPom does not magically stop on Selection Sunday. Almost all of the top 25 teams in a given year would satisfy those requirements, had there been a national championship run in their season.

It's crazy to me how many times it gets said when filling out brackets, before the tournament. And how nintelligent minds continue to fall for it. It's the single most useless thing anyone can take stock in.
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Its crazy how sure of themselves people can be, yet be so so wrong.

1. Pre-Tournament data exists: your entire premise rests on the false assumption that we are trapped using "polluted" post-tournament data. Tournament game data is still data (and also: it is the most recent data that's available... I'd actually weight it heavier, if we had a choice)

2. Champions are already elite: of the last 24 national champions, 23 entered the tournament with a top 25 offense.

3. The 6-game drop in the bucket: A 6-game tournament run cannot mathematically inflate a 35-game sample size from mediocre to elite.

And guess what? If you advance to the end of a 68 team tournament containing the best teams in the sport... you're probably indeed a very good team that is assuredly worthy of it's end-of-season KP ranking. It isn't as if a 6 game title run artificially inflates their ranking, that's nuts.
 
#203      
EmeraldCityIllini
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
I am NOT pushing back on the point that you need a great offense to win a natty.

However, that particular statistical analogy I just can't stand (and will never be able to stand). The "every champion since x season has been x in offense and x in defense" arguments.

OF COURSE those teams will be top whatever in offense, defense, and have such and such KenPom rating. Because those ratings are AFTER THEY WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. KenPom does not magically stop on Selection Sunday. Almost all of the top 25 teams in a given year would satisfy those requirements, had there been a national championship run in their season.

It's crazy to me how many times it gets said when filling out brackets, before the tournament. And how nintelligent minds continue to fall for it. It's the single most useless thing anyone can take stock in.
Click to expand...

MSU was 24th on offense going into the tournament - if you're telling us you need a great offense to win a national title, then idk what we're even talking about anyway.

This notion all the teams who make the final four rocket up the kenpom ratings from the depths of hell solely because they went 4 extra games is wild (in fact - illinois' offensive rating actually went down). They were aleady good in Kenpom 99% of the time.
 
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#204      
Fly Illini Fly!
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
I am NOT pushing back on the point that you need a great offense to win a natty.

However, that particular statistical analogy I just can't stand (and will never be able to stand). The "every champion since x season has been x in offense and x in defense" arguments.

OF COURSE those teams will be top whatever in offense, defense, and have such and such KenPom rating. Because those ratings are AFTER THEY WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. KenPom does not magically stop on Selection Sunday. Almost all of the top 25 teams in a given year would satisfy those requirements, had there been a national championship run in their season.

It's crazy to me how many times it gets said when filling out brackets, before the tournament. And how nintelligent minds continue to fall for it. It's the single most useless thing anyone can take stock in.
Click to expand...
NarrowJ said:
Its crazy how sure of themselves people can be, yet be so so wrong.

1. Pre-Tournament data exists: your entire premise rests on the false assumption that we are trapped using "polluted" post-tournament data. Tournament game data is still data (and also: it is the most recent data that's available... I'd actually weight it heavier, if we had a choice)
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Just go on Torvik, and set the "end" date at Selection Sunday of the year you're investigating.

You'll be able to see all ADJ-OE and ADJ-DE ratings.
 
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#205      
skyIdub
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
I am NOT pushing back on the point that you need a great offense to win a natty.

However, that particular statistical analogy I just can't stand (and will never be able to stand). The "every champion since x season has been x in offense and x in defense" arguments.

OF COURSE those teams will be top whatever in offense, defense, and have such and such KenPom rating. Because those ratings are AFTER THEY WON THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. KenPom does not magically stop on Selection Sunday. Almost all of the top 25 teams in a given year would satisfy those requirements, had there been a national championship run in their season.

It's crazy to me how many times it gets said when filling out brackets, before the tournament. And how nintelligent minds continue to fall for it. It's the single most useless thing anyone can take stock in.
Click to expand...

What in the third level of circle logic is this?🤣
 
#206      
NarrowJ
EmeraldCityIllini said:
MSU was 24th on offense going into the tournament - if you're telling us you need a great offense to win a national title, then idk what we're even talking about anyway.

This notion all the teams who make the final four rocket up the kenpom ratings from the depths of hell solely because they went 4 extra games is wild (in fact - illinois' offensive rating actually went down). They were aleady good in Kenpom 99% of the time.
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Crazy how Michigan tricked everyone into thinking they were good last year just by winning the title... those darn stat junkies fall for that stuff every time. Weren't they like 312th in efficiency going into the tourney?

*scribbles notes on pad*
 
#207      
Fly Illini Fly!
Fly Illini Fly! said:
Just go on Torvik, and set the "end" date at Selection Sunday of the year you're investigating.

You'll be able to see all ADJ-OE and ADJ-DE ratings.
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These were the top 5 offenses going into the tournament:

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.....

These were the top 5 offenses after the tournament:

2283.jpg
 
#210      
WhereDoWeStandWithStorr?
illini0440 said:
Just saying…I’d much rather have to figure out how to try and stop people from scoring than try to figure out how to score….
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At the end of the day, it's about your net value.

A team with the #1 offense and #15 defense will be the same quality of team as someone with the #1 defense and #15 offense.

Who wins if the two teams face off is about marchups.

Recently, we've beaten ISU and Houston - two teams with inverse strengths and weaknesses when compared to Illinois.
 
#212      
NarrowJ
WhereDoWeStandWithStorr? said:
At the end of the day, it's about your net value.

A team with the #1 offense and #15 defense will be the same quality of team as someone with the #1 defense and #15 offense.

Who wins if the two teams face off is about marchups.

Recently, we've beaten ISU and Houston - two teams with inverse strengths and weaknesses when compared to Illinois.
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Go ahead and patent this now, the committee wants a cut
 
#214      
Fly Illini Fly!
Torvik keeps track of FT% defense, which basically means how well your opponents shoot free throws against you. Illinois ranked 256th in this statistic.

In FT RATE defense, which means how often your opponents get to the FT line, Illinois ranked #1.

Penn had the #3 FT% defense in the country, holding teams to just 67.4% from the free throw stripe against them.

Illinois however, shot a pretty efficient 16/21 against them in the tournament (76%).
 
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#215      
HoopsterMan
EmeraldCityIllini said:
Since 2015, there’s only been 2 national champions outside the top 5 in offense - and even then, both those teams were still in the top 10, and Kansas itself was 6.

I’d push back on MSU at 26th last year as proving they have an offensive ceiling good enough to win a title.

Now, while the past 10+ years defensive rating hasn’t corresponded as strongly as offense (there’s a few teams who won outside the top 15, and 5 outside the top ten altogether), it’s still pretty clear you wanna firmly be inside the top 15 - and think that should be the goal for us and I don’t think at true “ceiling” that’s impossible.
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The only outliers if you go back all the way to 2002 are those two weird UConn teams and the Syracuse team that hopped on Anthony's back.
 
#216      
Sedino
Fly Illini Fly! said:
Torvik keeps track of FT% defense, which basically means how well your opponents shoot free throws against you. Illinois ranked 256th in this statistic.

In FT RATE defense, which means how often your opponents get to the FT line, Illinois ranked #1.

Penn had the #3 FT% defense in the country, holding teams to just 67.4% from the free throw stripe against them.

Illinois however, shot a pretty efficient 16/21 against them in the tournament (76%).
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That might be one of the most pointless stats I’ve ever seen when your example is a neutral site game. However, your first statement of us being 256th does somewhat back up the argument that our home court advantage is not great.
 
#217      
NarrowJ
Sedino said:
That might be one of the most pointless stats I’ve ever seen when your example is a neutral site game. However, your first statement of us being 256th does somewhat back up the argument that our home court advantage is not great.
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I’m coming into this with an open mind, it’s interesting to me. Does FT% defense correlate more with home crowd or more with quality of opponents? For example, if Penn was 3rd nationally, where was Purdue/Duke/Kansas/Kentucky ranked in the stat?

Here’s the top teams nationally:

IMG_1291.jpeg


You have to scroll way way down below 100 to find Duke, Purdue.
 
#218      
BWA
NarrowJ said:
I’m coming into this with an open mind, it’s interesting to me. Does FT% defense correlate more with home crowd or more with quality of opponents? For example, if Penn was 3rd nationally, where was Purdue/Duke/Kansas/Kentucky ranked in the stat?
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They really need to weight it against the free throw % the opponents average for the season to determine how good a team is at stopping the free throw
 
#219      
Fly Illini Fly!
NarrowJ said:
Does FT% defense correlate more with home crowd or more with quality of opponents? For example, if Penn was 3rd nationally, where was Purdue/Duke/Kansas/Kentucky ranked in the stat?
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Kansas was 13th.
Purdue was 186th.
Kentucky was 236th
Duke was 111th.

I will say -- Houston was 32nd (4th in Power 5) and Alabama was 35th (5th in Power 5). IIRC, those were our two worst FT shooting games last season.
 
#220      
wc_illini
I've been more curious about opponent free throw attempts per team foul. Duke was an outlier there at 0.86 followed by us at 0.92 then Yale and Iowa St at 0.96.

I'd expect to find teams that don't foul much at the top of that list since opponents spend less time in the bonus, but that wasn't the case- except for Illinois, the rest of the top 8 in fewest opponent FTs per foul were outside the top 35 in fouls per game (and an average rank of ~70). So there's something unique about these teams' style of play.

Was Duke really intentional to avoid fouling shooters but otherwise played very physical, perhaps backing off a bit if the other team was in the bonus? If so, is there something to that strategy? Our low-foul approach certainly reduced the stress of fouling out, but could our defense benefit from playing more aggressively?
 
#221      
Fly Illini Fly!
BWA said:
They really need to weight it against the free throw % the opponents average for the season to determine how good a team is at stopping the free throw
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Which is why I like to look at it amongst power 5 teams (problem is you'll kinda need to count all the way down).

Of the top 50 nationally, there were only 7 teams who were from the P5. Though #1 was Cal and #2 was Boston College (both from the ACC).

.....

Here's the free throw percentage defenses of every BIG TEN team, ranked. Illinois was 8th:

1000016032.jpg
 
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