3/15 Polls - Illini #2 In AP & Coaches Poll

#2      

pruman91

pruman91
Paducah, Ky
pruman91
#6      

IlliniFandom

IlliniFandom
IlliniFandom
Damn...well deserved. Hottest team in the NCAA right now. We just went through a buzzsaw and hopefully we can keep up that hunger for more. The chip needs to get bigger, not smaller!
 
#10      

Ransom Stoddard

Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
Bloomington, IL
Ransom Stoddard
jrmarcus said:
I wonder when the last time a team had as brutal a run as Illinois has had - #23 Wisc, #2 Mich, #7 OSU, Rutgers, #5 Iowa, #9 OSU. I get that Gonzaga keeps #1, but I doubt Gonzaga could have done what Illinois did.
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I'm really interested to see what happens to them against non-WCC opponents. They haven't played a KenPom top 20 team since UVA on 12/26. I get that BYU's been hovering around 24 all season, but other than that the WCC is a bakery.
 
#12      

RML

R
RML
jrmarcus said:
I wonder when the last time a team had as brutal a run as Illinois has had - #23 Wisc, #2 Mich, #7 OSU, Rutgers, #5 Iowa, #9 OSU. I get that Gonzaga keeps #1, but I doubt Gonzaga could have done what Illinois did.
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Playing 4 out of 5 against top 10 teams has to be very rare.
 
#13      

Deleted member 186590

D
Guest
Deleted member 186590
RML said:
Playing 4 out of 5 against top 10 teams has to be very rare.
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Exactly, hence the love for Illinois right now - you don't have to go into the "vault" to do a bunch of analysis on how good we are - we just won 4 games against the top 10 teams in the country 2 of them on their court 2 of them on neutral - it's essentially like we just played 2 final fours the last 2 weeks and won them all!

It's really hard to find another team playing better against the best competition right now
 
#14      

pruman91

pruman91
Paducah, Ky
pruman91
Ransom Stoddard said:
I'm really interested to see what happens to them against non-WCC opponents. They haven't played a KenPom top 20 team since UVA on 12/26. I get that BYU's been hovering around 24 all season, but other than that the WCC is a bakery.
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Did not know that........interesting.................
 
#17      

Gordon Shumway

Gordon Shumway
Gordon Shumway
jrmarcus said:
I wonder when the last time a team had as brutal a run as Illinois has had - #23 Wisc, #2 Mich, #7 OSU, Rutgers, #5 Iowa, #9 OSU. I get that Gonzaga keeps #1, but I doubt Gonzaga could have done what Illinois did.
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Gonzaga has played 6 Tournament teams all season. BYU (6 seed) is the only one they've played (2x) since the calendar flipped to 2021. They played Virginia (4), Iowa (2), WVA (3) and Kansas (3) all in 2020. All at home.
Illinois just beat 6 straight Tourney teams, 3 on the road then 3 on a neutral court, in a 15 day span. Their seeds: 9,1,2,10,2,2
 
#18      

GilThorpe

GilThorpe
GilThorpe
It would not surprise me at all if "The Spartans of Michigan State presented by Rocket Mortgage" win 3 or even 4 games .


that sponsorship is so friggin ridiculous
 
#19      

PapaKvells

P
PapaKvells
This feels right. #3 would have felt right too. On the one hand, we just won 4 games against top 10 teams, none on our home court and won 13 of our last 14 games. On the other hand, we have 6 losses. So I don’t feel slighted in the least and also feel our recent play is being totally respected.
 
#20      

WhiteHorseWings

WhiteHorseWings
WhiteHorseWings
Gordon Shumway said:
Gonzaga has played 6 Tournament teams all season. BYU (6 seed) is the only one they've played (2x) since the calendar flipped to 2021. They played Virginia (4), Iowa (2), WVA (3) and Kansas (3) all in 2020. All at home.
Illinois just beat 6 straight Tourney teams, 3 on the road then 3 on a neutral court, in a 15 day span. Their seeds: 9,1,2,10,2,2
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It’s kind of outrageous that the zags get the 2/3/4 they’ve already played.
 
#21      

I11ini82

I
I11ini82
Gordon Shumway said:
Gonzaga has played 6 Tournament teams all season. BYU (6 seed) is the only one they've played (2x) since the calendar flipped to 2021. They played Virginia (4), Iowa (2), WVA (3) and Kansas (3) all in 2020. All at home.
Illinois just beat 6 straight Tourney teams, 3 on the road then 3 on a neutral court, in a 15 day span. Their seeds: 9,1,2,10,2,2
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This is incorrect.

Gonzaga played Kansas in Ft. Myers, FL, WVU in Indianapolis, Iowa in Sioux Falls, SD, and Virginia in Forth Worth ,TX.

None of the 4 games were at home.
 
#24      

jrmarcus

J
jrmarcus
Gordon Shumway said:
Gonzaga has played 6 Tournament teams all season. BYU (6 seed) is the only one they've played (2x) since the calendar flipped to 2021. They played Virginia (4), Iowa (2), WVA (3) and Kansas (3) all in 2020. All at home.
Illinois just beat 6 straight Tourney teams, 3 on the road then 3 on a neutral court, in a 15 day span. Their seeds: 9,1,2,10,2,2
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Gonzaga played those teams over a month, the seven teams they played between those games (using current kenpom) were ranked an average of #317, whereas Illinois played that gauntlet in a two-week stretch and Rutgers was the worst team in the group was still (using current kenpom) #34.
 
#25      

Gordon Shumway

Gordon Shumway
Gordon Shumway
I11ini82 said:
This is incorrect.

Gonzaga played Kansas in Ft. Myers, FL, WVU in Indianapolis, Iowa in Sioux Falls, SD, and Virginia in Forth Worth ,TX.

None of the 4 games were at home.
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Thanks. I saw "vs" and "@" on their schedule and none were "@". I should have assumed neutral courts. But none were on an opponent's home court.
I dont know how to edit my post.