Hi!
I got back from the game real late last night, and didn't feel like making my run-down post. So here it is. Just some observations:
1) Ayo is the real deal. But he's not perfect. In the 2nd half after we became tired, he went into hero-ball mode on a couple of possessions and just played some real ugly basketball. However, when his body is ready to go and his mind with it, he clearly lives up to his hype. We will not have Ayo for all 4 years, no sirree.
2) We miss Trent badly. Exactly what Trent brings to the table is what we missed the most tonight. We missed a speedy guard with great lateral quickness to contain Maclung. We missed a body to give Ayo a blow. We missed scoring output. We missed another potent scorer to keep the defense honest. Get better soon, TF!
3) Giorgi is a straight upgrade over Michael Finke. He's got Finke's skillset, is faster, and plays with fire. Still commits some freshman mistakes. I think he had 2 moving screens, and those really hurt. But in general, he played with poise, he played with intensity, and he rebounded. He will never be able to be a lane banger to hang with the true centers of the NCAA, but he is more than serviceable and will be a stellar 4-year player for us.
4) Da'monte Williams is explosive. I starkly saw last night what we've been hearing from practice reports, etc. Williams clearly feels much better about his knee, and is making explosive drives to the basket. It's exactly the dimension he needed to add from his game. Williams was incredible last night with tons of hustle plays and some offensive output to boot.
5) Feliz is good, but short. Feliz is an all-around good player, but airmailed a few very easy, open 3's, and in the process of trying to drive to the basket, got badly overwhelmed by height. He has limitations, and the sooner he learns to play around them (especially for the conference season), the better. Feliz is tremendous in transition and only made 1 poor transition decision last night (tried to give it to de la Rosa at the last second - he should have just finished with contact for an and-one).
6) De la Rosa shouldn't have played last night. I question his playtime over Samba. We could have used Samba's quickness in the lane last night, and with his knee still clearly not 100% ready, De la Rosa looked like he was walking through molasses. At one point he got knocked down going after a rebound and was very slow getting up. He favored his knee and limped a few steps. I stopped breathing for a bit.
7) I'm about ready to give up on Kipper. We saw some Good Kipper and some Bad Kipper last night. The Good Kipper was a huge boon to the team. The Bad Kipper gave away the game, as has been extensively discussed here. I'm about ready to pull the plug on Kipper altogether and get Griffin and Jones some quality minutes. By the way, Kipper has permanently lost his role as technical foul free throw shooter, in my book. He went 1/2 again last night. Give it to Ayo or Da'monte instead, Coach.
8) Griffin is better than advertised. I know his box score isn't too flashy, but while out on the floor, he looked like the game was moving at a comfortable pace for him, whereas Tevian was a little bit all over the place yet. Griffin is just really controlled and doesn't have the typical deer-in-headlights look about him. Eager to see him break out of his shell. He's gonna be a good Illini.
9) We are not a good FT shooting team. And it wasn't just one player. Kipper had costly misses. So did Feliz. Even AJ got bit by the bug. I hope they were shooting free throws after the media had emptied out last night.
10) SFC was rockin' last night. If Illinois basketball truly comes back, we are going to pack that house every night. On a random Tuesday night, the place was darn near full, and it was loud. We had ample occasion to speak up to the stripes (but I will emphasize that the team, not the officiating crew, cost us the game).
11) Underwood wore a KSU tie on accident last night.