Tracy Abrams will be the best Point Guard in the Big Ten this year.
Go.
If your point is that we don't have anything realistic to get excited about right now, touche.
Just to get the conversation going a tiny bit, though, how about a comparison position-by-position between Illinois and the rest of the B1G? Where do we fit in terms of strengths and weaknesses? Here's my take (admittedly without knowing some of the other rosters inside and out):
PG - Abrams/Lucas/Tate
League Ranking: 13th
Explanation: I'd argue that only Iowa is in worse shape than we are at PG. When Abrams was at his best as a sophomore and junior, he was still an inefficient player who shot poorly and never achieved a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio. He's a great kid, good leader, good defender, and enough of an offensive threat that defenses have to guard him, so he's still a big upgrade over what we've had the past two years.
Our situation is similar to Purdue's: if Albrecht stays healthy, he'll give them an average to slightly-below-average talent at the position, but lots of leadership and experience. If Albrecht can't perform well or handle starter's minutes, they'll trot out an under-the-radar freshman. The differences for me are 1) almost no one comes back from a torn achilles and plays up to their previous standard; there's usually a big drop-off in efficiency. For an already inefficient player, that's terrifying. I'm very pessimistic about Tracy's situation this year - I'll be surprised if he can be a replacement level B1G player. And, 2) Purdue's under-the-radar freshman, Carsen Edwards, is still rated about 30 spots higher than Te'Jon and isn't coming off a season ending injury like Te'Jon is.
I think there's a 50/50 chance that Jaylon Tate ends up playing 20+ minutes per game this year. I think it's more realistic than a lot of people on this board are imagining. If Tate ends up being our main PG, we're obviously not in good shape. We have to cross our fingers that either Tracy has become a MUCH better shooter and floor general over the last two years or Te'Jon is our version of Trey Burke.
Other bad B1G teams still have much better options than we do at PG: Minnesota starts Nate Mason, who's inefficient and not an amazing player, but still averages 13.8 ppg and 4.5 apg, shoots 30% from 3 and 39% overall, and has a 2.6:1 a/to ratio. That's still better than pre-injury Tracy across the board. Rutgers has Corey Sanders, who would be our second best player. Same goes for Northwestern's Bryant McIntosh. Nebraska has Glynn Watson, who probably won't ever be a world beater, but does anyone doubt he'd start for UI this year? They also have Anton Gill and Tai Webster to handle the ball some. Penn State brings in consensus top-50ish PG Tony Carr and returns Shep Garner (14.8 ppg, 3.4 apg, 37% from 3).
Long story short: if Tate improves modestly, Te'Jon Lucas is fully recovered and plays a little better than his ranking, and Abrams gives you 90% of what he did pre-injury, this is still a bottom-4 positional rotation. Barring a miracle, PG is going to be a big time weakness. The good news is that the other positions should be pretty darn good relative to the competition. Here's my position-by-position preseason ranking:
PG - 13th out of 14
SG - 4th (behind IU, MSU, Iowa if Jok counts as SG; I'll take JCL and AJ over Zak Irvin of UM and Anton Gill of UNL; counting UNL's Andrew White and UM's Duncan Robinson as Small Forwards)
SF - 2nd (behind UW; barely ahead of MSU, UM, PU, and UNL)
PF - 5th (behind PU, OSU, IU, and MSU whether they play Nick Ward at PF or go small with Miles Bridges as a 4th G/WF; just ahead of Iowa with Uhl and frosh Tyler Cook)
C - 4th (behind PU, IU, UW counting Happ as their C; ahead of OSU with Trevor Thompson, MSU with Schilling, and UM with Donnal)
This is optimistic--you could easily put us 5th or 6th at SG, 6th at PF, and 7th or 8th at C. That said, there's not a position other than PG where we'll be overmatched this year provided everyone stays healthy. When looking over this year's B1G rosters, I was struck by how many teams will likely play small ball. An advantage we have is that we can slide Hill to the 4 when necessary against teams like UM, MSU, and Iowa, but we can also play combinations of Black, Finke, Mav, and Thorne to match up against bigger lineups. We have more lineup flexibility than a lot of teams, I think. We're definitely a top-4 squad in terms of pure size, which hasn't been the case for a long time. Our rebounding woes should be mercifully over.
Keys to the season:
-Stay healthy!
-One of the Point Guards has to play at a B1G replacement level - if any of Abrams, Lucas, or Tate can be around the 9th best PG in the league, that's more than sufficient.
-Hill has to follow up last year's breakout with a comparably excellent season.
-JCL has to take a step and become one of the league's top offensive weapons.
-Black has to stay out of foul trouble enough to play 20+ minutes per game.
-Thorne has to be well enough conditioned to play 18+ minutes per game and average something like 9 and 6 with a block (totally doable, IMO).
-Finke and at least one of Jordan and DJW have to take a significant step.
If all these things happen, it's going to be a pretty special season! Maybe a top-5 finish in the league and a 6/7 seed in the tournament. Who knows, maybe even a bit better than that.
ray:
