InDaAZ
- Eugene, Oregon
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
Vaaks 3 point percentage should also increase with a better shot diet.
That game exposed the achilles heel of the offense when playing elite teams that have the size and athleticism to match up with Illinois.
The offense stagnated If Illinois was unable to force help defenders to come. If they could force help it created open looks and forced defenders to rotate which also left them out of rebounding position which in turn creates more open looks off offensive rebounds.
UConn did get away with being extremely physical but that is just how the NCAA tournament is called. They basically just stayed home defensively and forced Stojakovic and Wagler into a bunch of tough contested two's. Illinois did miss some bunnies that they should have made but the offense was never able to get into a rhythm or create any easy looks.
I think that Illinois will need to add some more off ball movement and sets into the offense to create some open looks if it wants to truly be an elite team that's capable of winning a national championship and beating the likes of Duke, Florida, etc. on the way to doing so. I just don't think you're going to consistently have success against those other elite teams if you're relying on converting contested 2s and off the dribble 3s.
The other hope is that Coleman adds some quickness to the roster and blow by guys and forcing defenses to help. Stojakovic can do this a bit but didn't really look to pass while attacking the basket and a lot of his game was simply finishing tough 2s over defenders.
so in an effort to show that it wasn’t limiting to mostly elite players, you chose elite players from an elite team to back that? hmm
I'd be a bit more skeptical about 3 point percentage increasing.
Here's our last 9 transfers - their 3 point percentage the season before transferring to Illinois, and their 3 point percentage the season after transferring to Illinois:
Domask: 34.8% before / 29.7% after
Gurrier: 34.7% before / 37.5% after
Harmon: 34.0% before / 30.6% after
Humrichous: 41.4% before / 34.3% after
Davis: 38.7% before / 34.4% after
Tre White: 29.9% before / 32.9% after
Boswell: 37.9% before / 24.5% after
Big Z: 37.6% before / 28.0% after
Andrej: 31.8% before / 24.4% after
So, 7 of our last 9 transfers shot a worse percentage after transferring here (at least in their first season, which will be the situation for Vaaks as well).
Would caveat by saying all offenses do not perform as well vs longer more athletic defenses. Thats not a thing that’s somehow just limited to Illinois’ elite offense.
The offense wasn’t as good as usual vs Houston either (better defense than UConn) but was good enough to win the game fairly comfortably.
I also watched that game vs UConn and the amount of shots that barely missed / rolled around the rim / rattled in and out was soul crushing in a way lol.
Do you understand how miniscule a sample size of 9 guys is? Also this has been covered multiple times in depth previously and the Illinois transfer 3 point shooting hex has been disproven each time.
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Is there anything you’re actually optimistic on?
I buy this the first tournament game against UCONN.
I can’t get too riled up with the looks in the final four game. Just make 3 more layups and we’re playing in a title game. That game was so cheeks - I legitimately think if that was a 7-game series we win in 6 or 5.
Houston had the size and athleticism with us and they got whalloped. We just missed so many bunnies and they hit like 4 or 5 just pure garbage, and WE still were in a 4 point game with a minute (and then Mullins moonwalked that wasn’t called.)
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Great take. While Andrej made 2's at an excellent rate, a lot of his shots are not analytically friendly and become much tougher against top teams with rim protection.
UConn has been top 5-10 nationally in Assist rate for the last 4 years. Not sure why we can't pick off a couple of their actions and employ. One of the wilder aspects of their last 4 years is that they've covered 19 of their last 20 tournament games. Think about that. Easy money on them in the tourney.
But that's my point with Houston.
They didn't really have the size to match up. 3 6'3 guards and an undersized big in Tugler alongside Cenac.
Also, Houstons defensive style and insistence on trapping actually played into the Illini's hands.
Illinois was big enough and skilled enough to simply pass over the double which then constantly put Houston into rotations and created open looks and good ball movement for Illinois.
UConn just played straight up and basically dared Wagler and company to beat them by making contested 2s.
Iowa actually employed the same game plan and it worked for a lot of that game but in the end they just weren't big or talented enough(that game turned a bit with Tomi scoring a few baskets in the post).
Yes, obviously offenses will perform worse against good defenses, but Illinois could really benefit from adding a few wrinkles that can create some open looks and easy baskets. Off balls movement/screens and some different sets designed to create an open look when you need it(close games, end scoring droughts, etc.)
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
Beet juice?
UConn wasn't big / long, range from 6'2" to 6'10"
Give ol' Brad a call and have him install your stuff on offense, man. It's obvious that #2 nationally ranked offense needs a big shot in the arm.
6'3 Ball, 6'5 Demary, 6'6 Mullins, 6'8 Karaban, and 6'10 Reed with 6'7 Ross off the bench playing most of their minutes is certainly more equipped to handle the positional size of Illinois than Houston was playing 3 6'3 guards.
Plus, UConn didn't trap a incredibly large team that arguably had the best passing bigs in the country with the trio of Mirk and the twins. Illinois was basically just taking the trap out and then playing 4 on 3 with the ball in the hands of one of those bigs in the middle of the court.
Lol and it's not my stuff. You just take a page out of what the teams in the NBA are running or crib some stuff from Hurley/Murray or Hoiberg. If you want to legitimately compete for a title then you're going to have to beat the likes of Duke, Florida, or Michigan last year and so on.
You have a veteran team with a bunch of returning guys in the system. Why not add some wrinkles and some occasional sets? But hey if Brad wants to give me a call I'll help in anyway I can. I sure could have set up a better defensive set against UCLA on the last play of the game.
Not a dog in this fight, but here’s the stats for the UCONN / Houston comparison.
Illinois offense against Houston’s defense: 1.121 points per possession
Illinois offense against UCONN’s defense: 0.986 points per possession
UCONN offense against Illinois’s defense: 1.108 points per possession
1.121 points per possession is not outstanding (perhaps against Houston it might be) — but if we replicated that same output against UConn, we probably would’ve won, since UConn only scored 1.108 against our defense.
….
Here’s how our offense faired against each defense:
TO rate vs Houston: 15.5%
TO rate vs UCONN: 12.7%
Percentage of shots taken at the rim against Houston: 33.3%
Percentage of shots taken at the rim against UConn: 23.2%
Free throw rate against Houston: 41.2%
Free throw rate against UConn: 41.2%
OREB rate against Houston: 34.2%
OREB rate against UCONN: 30.8%
Percentage of Free Throws made against Houston: 12-21 (57%)
Percentage of Free Throws made against UConn: 18-23 (78%)
Percentage of layups made against Houston: 9-17 (53%)
Percentage of layups made against UConn: 6-13 (46%)
Percentage of threes made against Houston: 9-23 (39%)
Percentage of threes made against UConn: 6-26 (23%)
…..
For me it’s about that 3pt percentage.
Other than that:
Some things we did better against UConn than against Houston — free throws, turnovers.
Some things we did better against Houston than against UConn — rim, OREBs.
You just can’t shoot threes that poorly and expect to win a F4 game.
Maybe you’d say we should’ve gotten more OREBs, but you also have to realize UConn (93) is better defensive rebounding team than Houston (172) or Iowa (119) or VCU (159) or PENN (216).
At the end of the day, you just have to shoot it better than that.
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You’re right, Houston wasn’t big and I definitely think the over the top halfcourt showed there, as well as the rebounding ofcourse. But even then, that was still the 4th ranked defense.
I don’t mean to diminish the UConn point, and they do have length and a good defense. And sure we didn’t get easy ones off a double team, but I really thought they were good looks.
Like I get the argument you want some easy buckets, but did we not have some easy buckets we just smoked somehow?
Wasn't necessarily comparing them to Houston. UConn is probably middle of the pack as far as size & length, though. Frontcourt being 6'8 and 6'10 seems a bit undersized, though the guards have decent size. The POA there, they're very athletic and get into you. But we didn't really have issues with that having only 8 turnovers, we just shot 23% on 26 attempts from 3 and that was kind of the ball game (read further below).
And I know it's not your stuff, its just that...
Random person on internet: "We really need to improve this elite offense we're running, because it doesn't perform as well against good defenses. I'm basing this off a sample size of one game vs a top 5-10 defense. Also, I can handle late game defensive plays much better than this staff as well".
Sorry if its hard for me to take that too seriously.
Very good summary / rundown here, topped off with the largest discrepancy there was between the two games (three point shooting)
Absolutely. And we only turned it over 8 times and UConn recorded only 1 block, so it seems like their athletic defenders didn't really do us in and it was more that we bricked a whole bunch of 3s and bonked a few layups / easy 2s.
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UConn had the 8th best 3 pt FG% defense in the country last year at around 30%. They were at the top of the sport in their 3 recent runs, between 29-31%. They were the best high D1 program, Michigan next at 18th. It's not only about length, it's about rotations, close outs, extension, discipline, etc.
Houston has been ridiculously good in this stat in past years, but had a drop off this past year. They were at 26% in 23. Their system is a lot of high hedging with long mobile guys like Tugler and Roberts, who could disrupt the perimeter and then quickly rotate back to defend the paint. The drop off was mainly due to Cenac not being all that great at this aspect of Sampson's system.
When you get to the F4, you can expect the defensive quality to go up, hence you need to be able to make adjustments and show different looks. Brad kept looking to pound Clingan in 24, and how did that turn out? Being a one trick pony and sticking to your system stubbornly isn't a great counter when you are going up against top coaches, even if mashing the math seems like the odds would work out 6/7 games. When you go into the half, if what you're doing isn't working, having a counter is key.
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Let's say we don't use 3 PRPG as the limiting factor then (if you think that's such a big deal and it's ruining the data).
On Torvik -- Vaaks is listed as a combo guard, with a PRPG of 3.7, and a usage of 23.4.
Here's the same graph with the only constraints being:
- combo guard (Vaaks's positon)
- at least 20 games played
- at least 2 PRPG (down from the previous example of 3)
- at least 20 usage (usually very attainable for a starting guard who has the ball in his hands)
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That's pretty confident when we lost to them earlier in the same year on a neutral floor and they held us to the two lowest offensive outputs for the year. Reed and Mullins were also banged up in the first one. They were also up 14 under 10 in the F4 game, we were playing catchup the entire time. Brad could use a new wrinkles or two on offense. Need to learn from these experiences.
That's kind of my point though. 3pt shooting doesn't happen in a vacuum. The quality of the attempts has a ton to do with how well teams shoot it from 3, which is why you see guys/teams often shooting it really well against low major competition.
It's not surprising that they shot better in the Houston game when you go back and watch the offensive possessions. The ball movement was fantastic and they constantly had Houston scrambling to close out on open shooters(which also opens up the glass). Then you watch UConn and the offense is a lot more stagnant and the ball sticks more even running late into the shot clock without really pressuring the defense. Though some of the final four shooting can also likely be explained by the weird shooting background from playing in a football stadium.
Illinois is a tremendously talented team and they are going to have a ton of offensive success regardless of what they run. However, I think McCollum kind of laid the blueprint for how to defend against them last year in the elite 8. Hurley then basically defended the same way but with a better team than Mccollum.
If you watch Hurley or Hoiberg, they put a ton of pressure on defenses by forcing them to defend the entire floor and chase through screens. That wears defenses out and creates some easy open looks.
Now I don't expect Illinois to all of sudden start running those offenses but I defenses will adjust and I think they can pretty easily add some wrinkles to the offense that will give defenses different looks and create some easy opportunities which can be the difference in a close game.
I think Brad even knows this when you look at his comments about wanting to play faster. I don't think he wants to see the ball stick as much at the start of possessions.
It does though. It takes 750 attempts for 3 point shooting to fully normalize (ref: see Darryl Blackport's 2014 study on this). Single game sample is smaller than miniscule. It literally does not matter at all and I couldn't force myself to keep reading after the first sentence, sorry.
Looks like exactly what I have been saying: a lot more FTr below 30 than there are above it until the usage rate climbs to 26-28 then you start seeing a lot more with FTr above 30.
too soon
this is still extremely contextual though, you added 4 filters to your data set
if i want to know a players ability in a certain area i dont compare him solely against above average players because that skews what im looking at
dont know what was originally said at this point but feels like goal posts got moved when filters started being added to data set so it would show what you want it to show
now looking back it appears someone had said .295 was poor and someone else said it wasnt poor and you guys are arguing in favor of the former? .295 isn't poor for his archetype, its not great or elite, but not poor either unless you start increasing the quality of the players you are comparing him to, which is seen in the graph how ft rate increases as usage increases
i remember the other day you were saying how vastly different a player with a usage rate of 23 (vaaks) is to a player with a usage rate of 30, and that very same point applies here too