Illini Basketball 2026-2027
Michigan just won the national championship. They played very fast:
Average number of seconds per offensive possession: 12th (Illinois was 319th)
Percentage of FGA in transition: 29th (Illinois was 346th)
Percentage of shots in the first 0-10 seconds: 26th (Illinois was 338th)
Possessions per 40 minutes: 33rd (Illinois was 306th)
In your fairness, it sounds like your skepticism isn't about playing fast, but rather the lack of ball-screen usage. Time will tell whether it's a correct point (and it might be).
Tomi and Mirk have feasted on pick and pop threes in previous seasons. But if you watch our exhibitions, very few (if any) ball screens are being utilized, and our approach has shifted to: sprinting up the court ----> Andrej / Coleman / Vaaks getting the ball in an attacking position ---> beating their man off the bounce, and playing from there.
Sometimes its paid off, other times its looked sloppy. Andrej had 1ast and 4 TOs last game; a few of the turnovers felt outrageous in the moment (especially considering Illinois had the 8th lowest turnover rate in the country last year).
All things considered, defense and rebounding would still be higher up on my concern list, than anything to do with the offense. It's undeniably a greater struggle to clean the defensive glass without Mirkovic, and we've given up way too many points in the paint / at the rim because we're lacking our usual size. Thru two exhibitions, we've scored 91 and 105 offensively, and our ppp numbers are pretty decent. Brad and Tyler have earned the benefit of the doubt.
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Agree. Said i was concerned about not seeing Vaaks in ball screens (amongst other concerns) and got roasted for it. With his height and quick, high release he and Tomi should be unstoppable in PnR, even if Vaaks is only half the processor that Keaton was.
I think Miami was probably a mediocre team last season more so because of their personnel than a system.
They were 21-20 in the 1H of the season, 22-19 in the 2H of the season, so not sure I can buy the 'progressive fatigue' or 'declined after being scouted' angles.
An extremely frenetic paced offense does leave you vulnerable as a defense, so I agree wholeheartedly there.
They were 21-20 in the 1H of the season, 22-19 in the 2H of the season, so not sure I can buy the 'progressive fatigue' or 'declined after being scouted' angles.
An extremely frenetic paced offense does leave you vulnerable as a defense, so I agree wholeheartedly there.
There does seem to be a negative relationship between increased pace, and points per possession allowed defensively:
But there seems to be a positive relationship between increased tempo, and points per possession scored offensively:
The more baby-hooks they shoot, the better. However, against Houston, Tomi had some nice baby-hooks, in addition to some big 3-pointers down the stretch to dismantle them. I'll take a nice balance knowing BU wants his bigs to shoot 3-pointers.
"Last season, the Illini scored 1.25 points per possession. Ken Pomeroy has the oldest database in college basketball for tracking scoring on a per-possession basis; it goes back to the 1996-97 season, and the Illini’s points per possession was the highest in that time."
This is correct, right? Because on Torvik it says:
2026 Illinois: 1.24973 (rounded to 1.250)
2026 Purdue: 1.2479 (rounded to 1.248)
2025 Duke: 1.25059 (rounded to 1.251)
Either way we're #1 or #2, variance of a few decimals.
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Brad literally said January or March with regard to Mirk being back to a full 100. Not everything is a Freudian slip. But still very concerning.
Brad keeps talking about his long term basketball career and health. I think we need to very realistically consider the possibility that Mirk could play a very abbreviated stretch of the season (if at all).
It’s very clear they attempted a fairly aggressive timetable by getting Mirk out of the boot by September less than 2 months post-surgery.
He was in the boot for 7 weeks initially. If we apply those same 7 weeks again now that takes you through mid-December before he’s out of it again. You then have to ramp him up through many levels of intensity. I’d say at least a month. So we might be fortunate to get him back by January.
And at any point in that rehab journey there could be another setback if the foot doesn’t respond well to a 250lb human being running, pivoting, bodying other players, jumping, landing, etc. That's clearly what happened in the last 10 days.
It would serve the team to completely recalibrate expectations. This will be a team that will have to dig deep and battle to beat any top 25 opponent (see: Baylor). And is susceptible to a let-down conference game against anyone not named Northwestern or Penn State.
I studied and work in finance. If we were to apply the concept that the value of a stock is based on its future expected cash flows. Our 26’-27’ stock has only been declining since August 1st with major dead cat bounces when Mirk got out of the boot (Sep) and finished an oop (Oct). I don’t think the stock has found its floor / lower resistance level. This recent Black Friday pushed the stock to its lowest level of the preseason.
The stock could recover with a win @ TTU. But for it to return to the price level of July 31st we would need to pull off a miraculous heist at Cameron.
I only present this stock metaphor to encapsulate the feelings that I imagine have been lurking in the corners of peoples’ minds since early August.
Even prior to Mirk’s injury there was a questions on this team’s defensive capabilities, Andrej’s shooting, Tomi / Z effectiveness vs. premier 5-men (Z could barely stay on the court vs. Mara and Tarris late last year and Tomi can barely play 30min let alone more), etc.
We’ve seen preseason rankings mean jack all. UNC few years ago and Purdue recently come to mind of overrated #1s.
Losses away to TTU and Duke and unconvincing home wins vs. minnows could see us fall to being a fringe top 25 team entering the game vs. UConn.
Different philosophies for people in life. Pessimists get a bad rap. But some of us are just embodying the formula of: Happiness = Reality minus Expectations.
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The program’s rarely had this much offseason coverage in an April - October timeframe. Many of us are observant and possess critical thinking skills. I would delicately posit that it may be wise to severely lower expectations for the year till proven otherwise at Duke or vs. UConn.
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I took the January or March “slip” in context as in when he’s playing during those months he doesn’t want to rush Mirk through his healing process and reinjur the foot. As the insiders have continually stated. Late November-December return
What you're saying is that Brad is lying about the "no setback" commentary. Normally, I don't use strong terms like that, but in this case, he's full of it. Lol
In no world is going from practicing with the team to not practicing, being back in a boot and using a scooter not a setback and a major one.
I'm not sure why he's acting like this was the initial plan. The media, the fans, other coaches, etc don't believe this for a second because it's ridiculous. Maybe he doesn't want our national ranking to drop, which ig unequivocally will(and should)?
Now, I don't want to go over the edge and say that it won't be until 2027, but mid December seems like a very real possibility.
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Yeah, starting to get the feeling we may not see Mirk this year. Feels like Jayshon Platt on the football side. Heal up and he can still come back next year.
This is so disappointing....
Bret was pretty straightforward and transparent about Jayshon Platt, and the “setback” he suffered.
I’m not sure why Brad’s so hesitant to do the same. Clearly no one believes him, nor should they. It’s absurd to somehow claim that going from: practicing, dunking, walking completely normal at media days —> in a boot and on a scooter, isn’t some form of a setback and everything’s gone according to plan.
It is. Now that I listen to his actual quote vs just read it..... we're not seeing Mirk for a long while.
IMO, I think he's trying to stay away from questions asking if they tried rushing him back because that would be an absolutely awful look. I think he practiced, he was feeling a good amount of pain and the clock reset. There's no additional injury, it's just not ready because he's right, the body does what it's supposed to do. I think they tried for October and Mirk's foot said no thank you.
This is 100% about perception. THEORETICALLY, he's right, they don't want to bring him back too soon and put his future in jeopardy. That hasn't changed. The "no setback" is word salad for Mirk tested it, it didn't respond well, nothing structurally is worse off, but he's not close, he's back in the boot and will be until he's ready to try it out again. This process will repeat until there's no pain and absolutely nobody knows when that will be.
Hmm I didn’t read Brad’s quote that way. It sounded like he was identifying January and March as key points in the season when he needs to be 100%. Being 100% in January, when the gauntlet is going would imply being in game shape by then
I don’t think it’s absurd. There’s nothing wrong with a doctor wanting to see more evidence of healing post surgery, even after Mirk’s already been out of the boot doing Mirk things. The dude was dunking! He looks to be recovering really well. If going back in the boot and on the scooter allows for more healing and adds an extra layer of caution, sweet! Do it!
Eh I don't think it's either really, I took it as he's saying they don't want to ramp him up fully now since he's showing signs that it's not bothering him, have him play half or the full season, just to find out in January or March (when it's crunch time) that the screw is messed up and he would need surgery again, all because they jumped the gun during the healing process.
Have there been confirmations that he hasn't been practicing? Is it possible that they're trying to give it as much rest as possible outside of practice/conditioning based on the doctor's suggestions?
Or are we just assuming that Brad is weaving a diversion in order to save face? I don't think we've known him to be a coach who outright lies, but some are suggesting he is in this case...
My gut tells me that this will be looked back on as one of those cases of this board getting too ginned up on the slightest bit of doomerism (e.g., when the sky was falling in 2025 when we were ranked in the mid-teens and it was time to make some drastic coaching changes, or last year when we had a couple heart-breaking OT losses and we were a 2nd-round team at best...)
We're 6 days out from the season officially starting, natty or bust baby let it rip. Can't wait to see what Mirk does when he's back, and can't wait to see everything come together and guys progress before that.
Have been impressed with Vaaks. Ultra talented shooter and passer at 6”7.
Cincinnati: 19pts in 19 minutes.
Baylor: 18pts, 5 ast, 0 TOs.
Both he and Coleman have shown PG ability without being turnover prone.
That is my concern. He was dunking on Oct. 16th and a week later he is back in a boot almost 3 months after the original injury. Unless a good explanation is given, which has yet to occur, people are going to assume the worst.
BU used a lot of words and I have no idea what any of it meant. All I could do is laugh at how much he danced around saying anything direct or specific.