"Everyone has checked out" is quite the stretch. Illinois has lost 6 games since December 1st:
5 of them have been in overtime and/or buzzer beaters.
For a checked out team, that margin would be absurdly impressive.
Bracketology
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5 of them have been in overtime and/or buzzer beaters.
For a checked out team, that margin would be absurdly impressive.
We definitely showed toughness earlier in the year, at times. We also saw Boswell exhibit tangible leadership earlier in the season as well. Recently is a different story.
You are the reason metrics are so important. Who you play matters a lot. Miami has no business being an at large over any of the teams you don't wanna see play in the tournament. You put Miami OH in any p5 conference and you wouldn't want to watch them in the tournament either because they would have more losses then all those teams.
Fire Brad and hire Tom Crean, maybe he can get the best out of good talent.
I think St.Louis will be painted with the red blood of the Illini losing again
I think St.Louis will be painted with the red blood of the Illini losing again
The two metrics that are really not in our favor right now are SOR (17th) and WAB (16th).
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I would have two comments regarding this.
1) I made a post yesterday touching on your point, and I think what is undeniably true about this team is that they have tended not to get rattled. In hostile gyms in Iowa City, West Lafayette and Lincoln, that is a great thing ... but this "calmness" also seems to put a definitive ceiling on how "fired up" we ever get. Just a subjective, armchair fan observation obviously, but you never really see our collective demeanor change when things are going badly, either. We just have a casual affect, and that can serve us well sometimes (e.g., not getting rattled on the road) and it can be a negative other times (e.g., not looking up into the crowd at the UC and getting a bit of a second wind from seeing all of the orange shirts that came out to support you).
2) I do think it's fair to say at this point that the OT issues aren't just "breaks," and the problem is us. Six straight OT losses can't be chalked up to bad luck. If those were 50/50 scenarios, there would literally be a 1% chance that we'd lose all six ... and that's something we can't reasonably believe is chalked up to chance or luck. The problem appears to be how we (whether the players, staff or both) handle OT situations at some point.
All stats and metrics that say this is a good team demonstrates the flaws in stats verses eyeball focus on actual talent.
Oh no... Purdue all of a sudden right on our doorstep for the top offense.
I believe in the years prior to this year and last year we were 5 – 1 in overtime games under Brad. So is the coaching staff doing something different now? I doubt they forgot how to coach overtime. And the players have all been different each year. So I think a lot of it is just who we happen to be playing and bad luck.
I think there’s a lot of truth in what you said for item one. I have wondered for some sometime whether we would be better off getting shipped away from St. Louis and Chicago. I don’t think we want a home court advantage.
Illini in Indiana
- Indiana
IDK, if it was that easy I think Indiana, Texas, Oregon, USC, Maryland, Baylor, LSU, OK, Syracuse, ...would disagree. Heck Kentucky, Kansas, Arkansas, and other major programs are looking up at us right now.
IMO, it is nice to be in the top 20% of P5 programs with a punchers chance than be the team always looking for the next guy to take us there. Curt Cignetti was a unicorn, and I don't think we'll find the basketball version of him.
But hey lets get to the final 4, and we can go in there with a punchers chance.
No reason we can't be 2016 Notre Dame...so let's dispense with the negative vibes baby!!! ILL
I think 1 is largely the nature of our program these days. We don’t get guys who “bleed orange and blue”. We get transfers and guys passing through. Who are the guys that stay multiple years that only ever play for just Illinois in college basketball? That’s not to say we get necessarily bad character players or guys that don’t do their best or buy into a team concept. Just that the fire and passion may not be the same in those moments you identify.
We are losing St. Louis. Really really sad but also funny. This team will always be remembered as one step too slow unless they do something next week.
Watch Miami get in tomorrow and you will see that you were wrong. Going undefeated in the regular season is an accomplishment rarely seen in the modern era of college basketball. I honestly don't care what conference they are in. Even if it was in the SWAC or MEAC, I'd be totally for the program getting a chance.
It's funny how you have no problem allowing a team into the tournament based on winning 3 or 4 games in a row in their conference tournament but your mind cannot be opened to the idea of letting in a team that won all 31 of its regular season games and rewarding that kind of an accomplishment.
You cannot say how Miami would or would not do against Power 5 Conference programs b/c they weren't given the opportunity. So, now their opportunity will come tomorrow. All bracketologists have them squarely in and the MAC commissioner is confident the MAC will get 2 teams in, so I guess you'll be proven wrong tomorrow.
If you actually watched Indiana, Auburn, New Mexico, Stanford, Cal(lately) play, you'd realize all of these teams have been playing like garbage. How you play now matters and it can impact how those teams are looked at relative to a team that went 31-0 in the regular season. It will be an excellent litmus test for sure. Those power conference teams got their shot to get enough wins and they all laid an egg. So, time to give the smaller school a shot that it has EARNED. You may not think much of 31-0 but a whole lot of other people do
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We only need to be ahead of Purdue, Nebraska, and Kansas. Is this really a forgone conclusion?
Well, clearly, homecourt advantage has not helped them vs Kentucky last year in MIL, vs Alabama and Wisconsin at the United Center, so maybe it doesn't matter where they get placed when it comes to wins/losses. It only matters for the fans. The team fumbled on 4 opportunities to win overtime games in the last 5 weeks. I see them getting dropped down to the 3 seed. Maybe they'll still get St Louis but you can say bye bye to Chicago Midwest regional
Purdue's resume is significantly better than ours now. The only hope we have is the H2H and maybe the fact the committee does not care about games after Thursday this week.
We're definitely ahead of Kansas and Nebraska. Those aren't questions. Purdue....that's a bit murky. That said, both Purdue and Illinois can get St. Louis and Iowa State heads to OKC. My guess is that's how it plays out.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
We remain the last #2 seed on today's Bracket Matrix, but I will be conservative and assume we are a #3 seed just to be safe, switching us (last #2) and Iowa State (top #3). I would love to be wrong, obviously, but I'm just rolling with my gut prediction for this exercise.
With that in mind, our path through the NCAA Tournament would be (1) a #14 seed, (2) a #6 or #11 seed, (3) likely a #2, #7 or #10 seed and (4) very likely a #1 seed (making this assumption for simplicity's sake and due to how good the top four teams look). Here are those seeds on today's Bracket Matrix by KenPom ranking:
#1 Seeds - #1 Duke, #2 Michigan, #3 Arizona, #4 Florida
#2 Seeds - #5 Houston, #6 Iowa State, #9 UConn, #10 Michigan State
#6 Seeds - #18 Louisville, #22 BYU, #24 Wisconsin, #29 North Carolina
#7 Seeds - #23 St. Mary's (CA), #28 Kentucky, #30 Miami (FL), #36 Clemson
#10 Seeds - #34 NC State, #35 Santa Clara, #39 Texas A&M, #54 UCF
#11 Seeds - #37 Texas, #42 SMU, #47 VCU, #51 Missouri, #52 USF, #93 Miami (OH)
#14 Seeds - #113 North Dakota State, #140 Wright State, #143 Troy, #186 Tennessee State
And here are our results vs. teams in similar ranges of rankings this year, potentially giving an idea of what our final test could look like. I'm putting these results in chronological order to try to get a picture of a trend, and actual results vs. those projected seeds are italicized.
First Round
#14 Seeds | #113 - #186
March 8 - W 78-72 at #120 Maryland
Jan. 21 - W 89-70 vs. #120 Maryland
Jan. 8 - W 81-55 vs. #124 Rutgers
Jan. 3 - W 73-65 at #138 Penn State (Philadelphia, PA)
Nov. 24 - W 87-73 vs. #116 UTRGV
Second Round
(A) #6 Seeds | #18 - #29
March 13 - L 88-91 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin (Chicago, IL)
Feb. 21 - L 94-95 in OT at #27 UCLA
Feb. 10 - L 90-92 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin
Jan. 11 - W 75-69 at #25 Iowa
Dec. 9 - W 88-80 at #26 Ohio State
Nov. 11 - W 81-77 vs. #19 Texas Tech
(B) #11 Seeds | #37 - #93
Feb. 18 - W 101-65 at #79 USC
Feb. 15 - W 71-51 vs. #45 Indiana
Feb. 4 - W 84-44 vs. #59 Northwestern
Jan. 29 - W 75-66 vs. #53 Washington
Jan. 17 - W 77-67 vs. #78 Minnesota
Jan. 14 - W 79-68 at #59 Northwestern
Dec. 22 - W 91-48 vs. #51 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
Sweet Sixteen
(A) #2 Seeds | #5 - #10
Feb. 7 - L 82-85 in OT at #10 Michigan State
Nov. 28 - L 61-74 vs. #9 UConn (New York, NY)
(B) #7 Seeds | #23 - #36
March 13 - L 88-91 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin (Chicago, IL)
Feb. 21 - L 94-95 in OT at #27 UCLA
Feb. 10 - L 90-92 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin
Jan. 11 - W 75-69 at #25 Iowa
Dec. 9 - W 88-80 at #26 Ohio State
(C) #10 Seeds | #34 - #54
Feb. 15 - W 71-51 vs. #45 Indiana
Jan. 29 - W 75-66 vs. #53 Washington
Dec. 22 - W 91-48 vs. #51 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
Elite Eight
#1 Seeds | #1 - #4
Feb. 27 - L 70-84 vs. #2 Michigan
So, I think this sort of jives with most fans' "vibe test" lately, and I will attempt to explain why...
1) It would take a real stinker for us to go down in the First Round. We are 5-0 against teams in that KenPom range, and as long as we bring an even somewhat appropriate effort and level of execution, we should find ourselves in the First Round. While I guess it's worth noting that our only game vs. a #14-seed-like team in the last month was WAY too close for comfort, we still won. Simply put, we should expect to get to watch these guys in at least two NCAA Tournament games, because Illinois should win its First Round game.
2) The picture for the Second Round gets a little murkier. In the event that the #11 seed wins like our situation in 2024, we SHOULD find ourselves in the Sweet Sixteen. We are 7-0 vs. teams in the #11 seed KenPom range, and all of these were somewhat comfortable wins, with two being blowouts occurring in the last month. However, I think a lot of fans will be on edge for a matchup vs. a #6 seed, as we are trending in the wrong direction there. If we show up and play our game like we did in the OSU and Iowa road games, I am quite confident we will be moving on. However, it unfortunately just is not that difficult to imagine an absolute nail biter in the Second Round vs. a #6 seed that gets hot shooting or something, and we find ourselves in the final seconds of regulation or OT needing defensive stops or clutch shots. Will we execute? Our record in such scenarios definitely doesn't inspire optimism for me. Still, if Illinois brings its A game, we can beat any #6 seed, much less any #11 seed. To sum up, it's a worrying mentality to be hoping for some #11 seed to be our opponent, and we will need to improve our play over what it has been lately to get out of the Second Round, period. We absolutely CAN do this, but it remains to be seen if we will.
3) At this point, with the current iteration of the Illini we've been seeing, getting past the Sweet Sixteen seems quite unlikely. The odds are very high we would be facing off against a #2 seed, and we have mostly lost those games ... having those games be really close or in OT doesn't really count for much in March Madness. Don't get me wrong, if we can get back to our level of defensive intensity and effort that we saw before this recent stretch, I'm honestly not sure there is ANY team we can't beat with a couple breaks and if we are hot shooting. However, the teams that avoid getting bounced in the NCAA Tournament's Second Weekend often have some extra intangible stuff in the tank when their backs are against the wall, and we need to rediscover that. I posted in another thread that our win at Nebraska was our single most impressive moment as a team for me. We didn't shoot particularly well that game, and we actually allowed Nebraska to shoot quite well ... but there was something about our gutsy performance that a stat sheet sometimes cannot capture, and I think it can best be described as what I perceived to be our refusal to lose that game. We played with intensity and great focus and toughness, and we just outlasted a very good team in their gym. We looked like title contenders that day, and those intangibles have seemed sorely missing in recent losses. My final thoughts are that this team still has the TOOLS to go past the Sweet Sixteen, but the energy and focus right now will absolutely prevent that if they don't improve.
With that in mind, our path through the NCAA Tournament would be (1) a #14 seed, (2) a #6 or #11 seed, (3) likely a #2, #7 or #10 seed and (4) very likely a #1 seed (making this assumption for simplicity's sake and due to how good the top four teams look). Here are those seeds on today's Bracket Matrix by KenPom ranking:
#1 Seeds - #1 Duke, #2 Michigan, #3 Arizona, #4 Florida
#2 Seeds - #5 Houston, #6 Iowa State, #9 UConn, #10 Michigan State
#6 Seeds - #18 Louisville, #22 BYU, #24 Wisconsin, #29 North Carolina
#7 Seeds - #23 St. Mary's (CA), #28 Kentucky, #30 Miami (FL), #36 Clemson
#10 Seeds - #34 NC State, #35 Santa Clara, #39 Texas A&M, #54 UCF
#11 Seeds - #37 Texas, #42 SMU, #47 VCU, #51 Missouri, #52 USF, #93 Miami (OH)
#14 Seeds - #113 North Dakota State, #140 Wright State, #143 Troy, #186 Tennessee State
And here are our results vs. teams in similar ranges of rankings this year, potentially giving an idea of what our final test could look like. I'm putting these results in chronological order to try to get a picture of a trend, and actual results vs. those projected seeds are italicized.
First Round
#14 Seeds | #113 - #186
March 8 - W 78-72 at #120 Maryland
Jan. 21 - W 89-70 vs. #120 Maryland
Jan. 8 - W 81-55 vs. #124 Rutgers
Jan. 3 - W 73-65 at #138 Penn State (Philadelphia, PA)
Nov. 24 - W 87-73 vs. #116 UTRGV
Second Round
(A) #6 Seeds | #18 - #29
March 13 - L 88-91 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin (Chicago, IL)
Feb. 21 - L 94-95 in OT at #27 UCLA
Feb. 10 - L 90-92 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin
Jan. 11 - W 75-69 at #25 Iowa
Dec. 9 - W 88-80 at #26 Ohio State
Nov. 11 - W 81-77 vs. #19 Texas Tech
(B) #11 Seeds | #37 - #93
Feb. 18 - W 101-65 at #79 USC
Feb. 15 - W 71-51 vs. #45 Indiana
Feb. 4 - W 84-44 vs. #59 Northwestern
Jan. 29 - W 75-66 vs. #53 Washington
Jan. 17 - W 77-67 vs. #78 Minnesota
Jan. 14 - W 79-68 at #59 Northwestern
Dec. 22 - W 91-48 vs. #51 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
Sweet Sixteen
(A) #2 Seeds | #5 - #10
Feb. 7 - L 82-85 in OT at #10 Michigan State
Nov. 28 - L 61-74 vs. #9 UConn (New York, NY)
(B) #7 Seeds | #23 - #36
March 13 - L 88-91 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin (Chicago, IL)
Feb. 21 - L 94-95 in OT at #27 UCLA
Feb. 10 - L 90-92 in OT vs. #24 Wisconsin
Jan. 11 - W 75-69 at #25 Iowa
Dec. 9 - W 88-80 at #26 Ohio State
(C) #10 Seeds | #34 - #54
Feb. 15 - W 71-51 vs. #45 Indiana
Jan. 29 - W 75-66 vs. #53 Washington
Dec. 22 - W 91-48 vs. #51 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
Elite Eight
#1 Seeds | #1 - #4
Feb. 27 - L 70-84 vs. #2 Michigan
So, I think this sort of jives with most fans' "vibe test" lately, and I will attempt to explain why...
1) It would take a real stinker for us to go down in the First Round. We are 5-0 against teams in that KenPom range, and as long as we bring an even somewhat appropriate effort and level of execution, we should find ourselves in the First Round. While I guess it's worth noting that our only game vs. a #14-seed-like team in the last month was WAY too close for comfort, we still won. Simply put, we should expect to get to watch these guys in at least two NCAA Tournament games, because Illinois should win its First Round game.
2) The picture for the Second Round gets a little murkier. In the event that the #11 seed wins like our situation in 2024, we SHOULD find ourselves in the Sweet Sixteen. We are 7-0 vs. teams in the #11 seed KenPom range, and all of these were somewhat comfortable wins, with two being blowouts occurring in the last month. However, I think a lot of fans will be on edge for a matchup vs. a #6 seed, as we are trending in the wrong direction there. If we show up and play our game like we did in the OSU and Iowa road games, I am quite confident we will be moving on. However, it unfortunately just is not that difficult to imagine an absolute nail biter in the Second Round vs. a #6 seed that gets hot shooting or something, and we find ourselves in the final seconds of regulation or OT needing defensive stops or clutch shots. Will we execute? Our record in such scenarios definitely doesn't inspire optimism for me. Still, if Illinois brings its A game, we can beat any #6 seed, much less any #11 seed. To sum up, it's a worrying mentality to be hoping for some #11 seed to be our opponent, and we will need to improve our play over what it has been lately to get out of the Second Round, period. We absolutely CAN do this, but it remains to be seen if we will.
3) At this point, with the current iteration of the Illini we've been seeing, getting past the Sweet Sixteen seems quite unlikely. The odds are very high we would be facing off against a #2 seed, and we have mostly lost those games ... having those games be really close or in OT doesn't really count for much in March Madness. Don't get me wrong, if we can get back to our level of defensive intensity and effort that we saw before this recent stretch, I'm honestly not sure there is ANY team we can't beat with a couple breaks and if we are hot shooting. However, the teams that avoid getting bounced in the NCAA Tournament's Second Weekend often have some extra intangible stuff in the tank when their backs are against the wall, and we need to rediscover that. I posted in another thread that our win at Nebraska was our single most impressive moment as a team for me. We didn't shoot particularly well that game, and we actually allowed Nebraska to shoot quite well ... but there was something about our gutsy performance that a stat sheet sometimes cannot capture, and I think it can best be described as what I perceived to be our refusal to lose that game. We played with intensity and great focus and toughness, and we just outlasted a very good team in their gym. We looked like title contenders that day, and those intangibles have seemed sorely missing in recent losses. My final thoughts are that this team still has the TOOLS to go past the Sweet Sixteen, but the energy and focus right now will absolutely prevent that if they don't improve.
And I wouldn't trade it for anything!
The weird thing about fandom is great success almost makes you even more miserable. For example, when I lived in Ohio it boggled my mind hearing Buckeye fans complain all the time. Anything less than a natty is a complete disaster to them. Same thing with Kentucky fans in basketball. It's kind of sad, really.
Let me put it this way...just embrace where we are and where we've been, no matter how frustrating it feels sometimes. Because when we do finally make it to the top, it will make it that much sweeter.
Pls just win 2 games so we don’t waste yet another year with All Big / AA talent.
I don't think you are alone.
After watching some of the non-P5 conference tourneys and seeing all these little guards that can knock down threes and get points driving to the rim, you have to wonder how anybody additional games are going to go. I'm hoping we draw a first round opponent that is slow-footed and plays multiple guys at the same time that don't shoot well.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I do think some of the blame needs to fall on the staff for this, though, and I don't just mean recruiting such guys. If Brad and Co. aren't educating our players on the history of Braggin' Rights and our feuds with Iowa in the 2020-2023 stretch and how we are possibly the best program to never win a National Championship and how our fans travel with the best of them ... the staff is FAILING. I'm not saying they aren't doing that, but it isn't difficult at all to imagine that Brad and Co. don't play that stuff up and don't really see it as an essential part of team building. I can easily imagine an outlook where they feel like they are promoting a "business-like approach" and try not to get caught up in the fanfare or pageantry of things, and that is a mistake. These guys should be more pissed about losing a BTT game in the United Center in front of a home town crowd than a BTT in Vegas, and I HIGHLY doubt they would be ... they'd just see both as an isolated game.
I remember a quote from Dee Brown once about how there are few programs he just truly doesn't care for because of the rivalry and that one was Missouri, and he always tells the freshmen that "they don't know what they're getting into" before they take the court at Braggin' Rights. We all remember Ayo saying about Iowa (paraphrased), "We don't like them, and they don't like us." I can't imagine anyone on this squad saying something like that, not even Boswell who literally grew up in Champaign.
I'm of course not saying that the quotes themselves are important, but we need our players to have SOME level of understanding for where they fit in the legacy of Illini Basketball ... it lends extra importance to finding that extra little bit of fight when our backs are against the wall and we are facing elimination in March Madness. And the staff needs to indoctrinate players on that stuff when they get here, if they aren't. (And if they are ... we might need to reconsider roster construction...)
That scenario scares the hell out of me, if favorable matchups fall the Illini's way, I fully expect a Sweet 16 appearance and we'll let the chips fall where they may after that.
But doesn't only one team end up a happy ending to the ncaa tournament?
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