David Mirkovic suffers left foot injury

#178      
Not to fight his battles for him, but you literally said:

“WITH Mirk most of those games are 50/50 with Duke being 35/65”

So he was reply to WITH Mirk.
Well....

UCONN at the UC,

Texas Tech on the road,

Duke on the road,

UNC neutral sight(if he's not back until 1/30, we have problems)

Mizzou neutral sight

Not sure which 2 December games are conference games. Can't really comment there(hopefully not MSU, MI, UCLA, USC aren't part of it)

Outside of Mizzou(and whatever two December conference games we play)....what's not a 50/50?

With regards to 65/35, Duke will be a favorite. I'm not breaking news on how good they are at home. They are very, very rarely not a legitimate favorite at home.

Brad put a monster schedule together and a lot of that was due to having a fully loaded roster. I think most of us would have felt great about .500 in those.

Now.......?
 
#179      
Not to fight his battles for him, but you literally said:

“WITH Mirk most of those games are 50/50 with Duke being 35/65”

So he was reply to WITH Mirk.
That's how I saw it too.

But based on Torvik (doesn't account for this news), Duke would be favored by ~2.5, which corresponds to ~58-60% (between where you and NarrowJ had it). That passes the smell test when looking at the drop-off after #2 at sportsbooks (from before this news):

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#180      
I love your positivity here, but with the schedule that Brad put together, an 0-fer in those games would do a TON of damage. WITH Mirk most of those games are 50/50 with Duke being 35/65.

The silver lining for people getting more PT is true. That will help, but if go game by game now, depending on when he comes back..... we're looking at a double digit loss season. Again, the preconference is BRUTAL.

Let's hope it's November
I don't know what margin 35/65 translates to. But Duke will now be a heavy favorite in the game.

Assuming Mirk comes back strong, I think the Committee would take into consideration missing a key player in early season losses.
 
#181      
I don't know what margin 35/65 translates to. But Duke will now be a heavy favorite in the game.

Assuming Mirk comes back strong, I think the Committee would take into consideration missing a key player in early season losses.

Heavy as in 12-15 or more points? No

5-6 points? I think that's probably closer
 
#182      
That's how I saw it too.

But based on Torvik (doesn't account for this news), Duke would be favored by ~2.5, which corresponds to ~58-60% (between where you and NarrowJ had it). That passes the smell test when looking at the drop-off after #2 at sportsbooks (from before this news):

View attachment 51090
...and I completely forgot home court advantage, which is usually ~3pts. If Duke would've been favored by 5.5 with us at full strength, that's more like 70%, which seems a bit high
 
#185      
thing that scares me most about Mirk being out against top teams, is he’s so key to controlling our pace.

The games we lost were coincidentally games Mirk was bad, but because he was bad, he was out and the game became a lot more up and down - the bama game you could see in real time slipping.

Our guards this year are more capable of playing with pace, but also, I can see Vaaks and a freshmen getting way too sucked into it without david
 
#186      
I love your positivity here, but with the schedule that Brad put together, an 0-fer in those games would do a TON of damage. WITH Mirk most of those games are 50/50 with Duke being 35/65.
I would agree with this.

A lot is made about "losing those games won't hurt us" in the seeding. However, WINNING those games would really help us.

So, taking Mirk off our roster, quite possibly strips us of a few WINS we would've had otherwise.
For the next 6-8 weeks he will be in a boot then it will come off...and he can start low impact. Staff will ease him back in and we will see how his conditioning is at that point.

The game I am circling is the UConn game December 4th.
Yes, I'd hope at worst he's back by UCONN.

If we can beat Texas Tech, that'd be very good.

Duke -- it was always going to be EXTREMELY difficult, even with Mirk. Winning that one has never been my expectation as Duke should be big favorites at home (though it COULD happen, as Florida nearly won there last year).
 
#190      
Two thoughts.
1. It will be a positive for a frosh or two to get minutes if/when Mirk is sidelined. Even practice time with the first unit will be quite valuable.
2. In my mind, the biggest question to be answered when Mirk returns is at what level will he return? Also, will he be able to reach the potential this season that he could without the injury. Much depends on how engaged he remains while not able to do physical running and jumping. But that does not limit his spot shooting practice much, if at all. Or his bench press and any other conditioning/body building work he can put in.

My best guess from what we know is that his pre-season passion might even be elevated by this setback and that he will fill his physical practice downtime with many equal effort in many other ways. He could be the Mirk we want to see by Jan.....or maybe sooner.

So to my fellow Illini fans, keep your chin up and hang on to your hat. This season should still be a really good...even great...one.
 
#193      
Don't think this will be a worry barring a setback.
With the available news, I dont think the worry is he won't be physically back. Its that he will be 75% of peak mirk and team will be like 82.7 % of peak due to lost practice time with our best player. We were pretty optimistic about putting a beat down vs uconn, missouri, tt, unc, and potentially duke. Health wise now unc lines up and the rest are, let's just say.....potentially very problematic.
 
#194      
I'll say this as well-the staff is REALLY high on Ethan Brown long term so I could see them getting him more reps in practice once the team starts back up in late August until October when Mirk should hopefully be eased back in.

yep. gotta make lemons out of lemonade
 
#196      
I would agree with this.

A lot is made about "losing those games won't hurt us" in the seeding. However, WINNING those games would really help us.

So, taking Mirk off our roster, quite possibly strips us of a few WINS we would've had otherwise.

Yes, I'd hope at worst he's back by UCONN.

If we can beat Texas Tech, that'd be very good.

Duke -- it was always going to be EXTREMELY difficult, even with Mirk. Winning that one has never been my expectation as Duke should be big favorites at home (though it COULD happen, as Florida nearly won there last year).
Texas Tech got a ton better with the (likely) returns of Atwell and Darron Williams.

They're probably not as good as Duke, but will be really solid.

I don't think we'll be favored if Mirk doesnt play.
 
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#198      
I love your positivity here, but with the schedule that Brad put together, an 0-fer in those games would do a TON of damage. WITH Mirk most of those games are 50/50 with Duke being 35/65.

The silver lining for people getting more PT is true. That will help, but if go game by game now, depending on when he comes back..... we're looking at a double digit loss season. Again, the preconference is BRUTAL.

Let's hope it's November

I don't think we're going 0-fer with this group without David. He'll elevate us, but we're not going to be an easy W for anyone. And I think the games we could lose are ones that would be tough wins even with him. Duke on the road this year is a tall order --they're a National Champ level talent. UConn on a (technically) neutral court isn't far behind. Quad 1A games aren't damaging.

What games are you expecting to lose without him that we're winning with him?
 
#200      
6-8 weeks for the bone to heal.
There's nothing conflicting. He will be off his feet for about 6 weeks or so. I expect him to start building back up at the end of September. He may miss a game or two but I would be pretty surprised if he's not back for Texas Tech.
If it's going to take 6-8 weeks for the bone to heal and the boot to come off -- then there's still 5 weeks after that before the season starts (to get re-acclimated).
 
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