Illinois at Duke, Tuesday, November 17th, 6:00pm CT, ESPN
Might lose by 20.
Excited to cross the bucket list item of seeing a game at Cameron. Not excited to watch us get smoked.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Oh quit your cowering guys
This program isn't scared of people anymore
This program isn't scared of people anymore
Probably, but anything can happen. See Kentucky squeaking out the win against N Arizona.
Guys got to come out and give it their best shot.
Duke looked bad against MSU
its so embarassing when we do this.
Illinois's chance to stay in this game are going to rest on Stojakovic and Vaaks. Going to need those two to score at a high clip to keep up with Duke.
He’s probably saving his offensive explosion and career high game against us.
Looking forward to this one. Want to be a big boy? Play with the big boys. Want to see a competitive game.
Haha
Everyone just had a field day over Vaaks vs TT but Blackwell does it vs SIU-E and we’re talking about “offensive explosion”. Peak Loyalty.
Last edited:
I hope we initiate more with Andrej giving him a high ball screen up top to get downhill. He’s our best offensive threat right now and he’s passing it well- need to get him going against Duke
Also Tomi is deadly on the corner threes - can we please get him those more than the ones on top- it seemed a conscious effort tonight to do that, he didn’t have any against TT
I also hope we have some defensive wrinkles for Duke- please stop with the token backcourt pressure- it doesn’t accomplish anything and just stretches our defense out more- if anything I think we should pack in a zone and force them to shoot threes, take away and drives and focus on the defensive glass
Also Tomi is deadly on the corner threes - can we please get him those more than the ones on top- it seemed a conscious effort tonight to do that, he didn’t have any against TT
I also hope we have some defensive wrinkles for Duke- please stop with the token backcourt pressure- it doesn’t accomplish anything and just stretches our defense out more- if anything I think we should pack in a zone and force them to shoot threes, take away and drives and focus on the defensive glass
I really don't see how we win this game as bad as we have been rebounding the ball. We don't have a true 4 and our 5's play like wussies at times around the basket. Don't misunderstand me. I love Tommy and Z but Duke plays physical and they will kill us inside unless we play tough. Sarrs will man up and take out of the game whomever he guards. They play DEFENSE. This could be a 40 point win for Puke or we could keep it close if we play physical and actually hit some shots. If we get off to a slow start, forget about coming back. Duke is not Texas Tech. On the other hand if we start out like we did in the second half at Lubbock, I think we have a chance to keep it close and maybe pull something out if they are off their game some.
It's "scared" to predict a loss to a top 10 team on the road missing 2 starters, one of whom is our best player, while playing exactly 0 defense?
We did outbound them by 10. They were averaging like a +17 rebounding advantage per game coming in, and out rebounded Alabama.
The rebounding effort at Tech was incredibly subpar though.
Tomi/Z can't be your best rebounding option up front and expect to have a chance against the best in college basketball. Sarr is a terror on ball defensively and fully expect him on Andrej.
I think this will be a slaughter by Duke on the road. I absolutely think we're gonna see Illinois at least attempt to play the twins more together out of necessity in this game. I expect in the end to see Ngongba feast on the glass.
Mirk can't come back quick enough. And if it already hasn't been exposed these last 2 games, this one will really show it.
Last edited:
I think most of us penciled this game in as a likely loss that we still had a decent chance to win before mirk went down. We lose no biggie, important game for march run experience. After mirk, we'll we probably lose but the experience is still good. Now with mirk and Jake down and our team struggling more than anticipated to find an identity and maintain their strengths from last year, a lot of us have a bit of fear.....just please dont be another Madison Square Garden incident because that benefits us in no way. We've only had a handful of games but already multiple halves that if we repeat will be MSG all over again.
Duke also looks to be searching for their identity so maybe they will also be a bit disjointed.
Well, objectively speaking, it's extremely unlikely that we win this game.
Especially considering our health situation. At full strength, we may have had a shot.
When the schedule came out, this was clearly the hardest game. Duke coming off a loss likely acts as an amplifier, IMO.
The last time we were in this situation, they beat us by 43 (I'm not saying that's going to happen again, but it's a very tough game, and it's fair for people to be recognizing that).