Arizona 90, Illinois 69 POSTGAME

#126      

skyIdub

Winged Warrior
I hope you aren't expecting Curbelo to be Mannion, though. The skill level is not equal.

Oh no...just a true PG with athleticism. Thinking about how much better our O would be with a gifted true PG. Curbelo is definitely that.

Ginger guard looks like he's from Planet NBA.
 
#127      

danielb927

Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
I think the reason why they outrebounded was because we didn't make most of our shots and they made most of theirs

Rebound-eligible missed shots were actually 31 for us to 30 for Arizona, so it was pretty even.
 
#129      
The second half was frustrating to watch — Illini went cold and UA was hot. But as others have pointed out, the lazy passes were really frustrating. Need to clean that up.

Glad the team has a little break. Gives them time to collect themselves and work on things.
 
#130      

mattcoldagelli

The Transfer Portal
Granted, I am a novice message board fan, but would we not be better served to have one of Giorgi/Kofi come off the bench? That would theoretically allow both more time at their most comfortable positions and give us a bit more ammunition for substitutions (although not much, since presumably Griffin takes that starting spot)
 
#131      
Granted, I am a novice message board fan, but would we not be better served to have one of Giorgi/Kofi come off the bench? That would theoretically allow both more time at their most comfortable positions and give us a bit more ammunition for substitutions (although not much, since presumably Griffin takes that starting spot)
I had been against this, but now it seems like we have 1 guy who can come off the bench and contribute (Griffin). I would consider letting Feliz come off the bench as well. Would give some more balanced lineups.
 
#132      
I do feel for Giorgi. He has shown that he is a good player and for the first few games this season, he has struggled. The one bright spot is his 3-pt shot seems to be falling right now. I really hope he figures it out.

That being said, we need Kofi at the 5 and playing where he is at (where Giorgi was last year). Luckily, there is plenty of time this year to figure it out.
He will, he started slow last season too. I’m confident he will become comfortable in his new role by the time the Big 10 season starts full time.
 
#133      
Arizona is the second best team I've seen this year. Memphis being #1 and Kentucky #3. Interesting thing is, all those teams are led by freshmen...
 
#134      
Rebound-eligible missed shots were actually 31 for us to 30 for Arizona, so it was pretty even.
Copy all. In the 2d half, I think it tipped in their favor though. I listened on radio and seemed 2d half they were making 70% of shots and we were missing 70% of ours.
 
#136      
An OT loss to a supposedly nobody team, ...
Perhaps this is why they were not more focused. I don't think any team that you don't follow should be judged by anything other than the way they play and that was only just established. We are not playing well to be sure but I dont buy that a team is bad because the dont have winning history. We have lots of thingz to work out but we are 2-1 after three games including 2 on the road, pretty much where I thought we'd be. How Giorgi and Kofi play together is a major thing as is reducing the number of turnovers. Mannion is a special player! We have time to work out the kinks...
 
#137      
We have missed far too many lay ups. Ayo, in particular, has underperformed so far this year. This team operates so timidly...it’s infuriating. Seemed like Frazier was the only guard who came to make a name for himself, although Dre showed himself later. I think we could have won this game if everyone came to play, but sadly we didn’t...
 
#138      
I was able to watch the whole game by clearing browser cache and refreshing the page every 5 minutes on pac-12.com :).

From what I saw it really seemed to come down to turnovers and not having an answer to the double team on Kofi. We handed the ball to Arizona a LOT. I mean there were times it looked like we were a sixth man for their offense :(. Seems like if we could reduce our turnovers and get the ball into the paint more, we would have been in this game til the end.
 
#139      
It was clear which team had more 5 star talent on the floor regardless of class. I do think Illinois has enough talent and experience to beat any team, but right now they look a mess on both offense and defense.
At the moment I am still waiting for BU’s coaching abilities and schemes to help showcase Illinois’s talent, but am still unimpressed. Maybe now that Gentry is on the staff (which in my opinion should have been day 1) he can help.
I am still optimistic and excited for the season. Illinois are only 3 games in the season coming off a 2 games in 3 days away series and are 2-1. Illinois is were they should be record wise and plenty of time to improve before big 10 play.
 
#140      
We're where I expected us to be record-wise, but I've got concerns.

- Turnovers. My god. And this is with our pressure ratcheted down, so we're not even offsetting it with as many forced TOs.
- We have exactly one guy who can contribute off the bench.
- Giorgi is out of position.
- Our offense has yet to really run smoothly. Our rebounding has covered up some of that, but obviously on display tonight.

His close-outs have been ghastly --it's night and day how good he looked as a center, and how clueless he is as a four. Not sure what isn't clicking, but he's lost out there IMO. I *really* hope the coaching staff gets together and thinks long and hard how they use him. Coaching Giorgi for the 4 may not be the best option this season. On paper, they may think he's the answer, but I'm not convinced we wouldn't do better with someone who can chase down perimeter looks on defense. He looks really uncomfortable there. Problem is we don't have a good answer, and you have to bank on someone getting better. Who?

We've looked bad at the start of every season, which worries me. Still young, so I'll give BU another pass. Road game, top-25, not much rest, hot gym, I get it. The good news is it's just 1 loss, and we have time to work with a soft schedule while we figure some of this stuff out. Bad news is we *need* to figure this stuff out or I'm not convinced we win enough games against other tournament teams to go dancing :(
 
#143      
Arizona is the second best team I've seen this year. Memphis being #1 and Kentucky #3. Interesting thing is, all those teams are led by freshmen...
What other historically noticeable things can be drawn from these three things? ie: for example, Derrick Rose, Anthony Daviis, Sean Miller
...seems to me there is a link but I just cannot put my finger on it...I...L...L...
 
#144      
i hope Ayo play or the fact that he not NBA ready hurt us with getting Miller
 
#146      
Granted, I am a novice message board fan, but would we not be better served to have one of Giorgi/Kofi come off the bench? That would theoretically allow both more time at their most comfortable positions and give us a bit more ammunition for substitutions (although not much, since presumably Griffin takes that starting spot)
IMO, starting/coming off the bench isn't really the problem. We still have a hole at the 4 that we need to fill somewhere, we need to find 40 minutes between Kipper, DaMonte, Griffin, Verdonk, Jones, and Giorgi's minutes not at the 5. There are obvious problems with all of those options and we really need a couple to come through. Giorgi/Kofi are the best bigs, there is an upside that we need if we can get it figured out, to date we haven't figured it out.
 
#147      

3DegreeIllini

Chicago,IL
The ‘05 team was amaaaaazing. This is not the ‘05 team. We might never have a team like that again no matter what coach we have. We, as a fan base, need to stop living in the past. It isn’t fair to the current players or coach to use the ‘05 team as the litmus test.

There I said it.

I’m with you. I cringed every time someone referenced the 05 Arizona/Illinois game last night. Obviously a big moment for us and in college basketball history. But it’s now been 14 years. A brief look at Arizona’s success since then in terms of tourney appearances, conference championships, recruiting, etc. is proof that the sting of that has completely worn off for them while we are still clinging to it. I like to imagine that each team watched those 05 game highlights to get pumped for last night, but I imagine it was just one team— and it’s the team that lost. For Arizona’s players, it wouldn’t even register a response—anger or otherwise.

I’m sure it’s been asked before of other teams, but would we give up that 05 game if it meant we could swap trajectories with them? (Potentially Impending vacated wins and sanctions aside).
 
#150      

Deleted member 4960

D
Guest
I will agree are passing has something to be desired but Kofi lost at least four bowls that were on him he should’ve corralled and been able to finish with