Illini Basketball 2016-2017

#726      

Joel Goodson

Joel Goodson
respect my decision™
Joel Goodson
Very encouraging: Abrams leadership and offense. So happy for him. Black stepping up offensively. His jumper is VG. Foul trouble and playing out of control appear to be behind him. The team is so much better not relying on Hill for scoring,

Glad to see DJW getting some tick.
 
#727      

Calvin

C
Calvin
FeelYourPaign said:
Another interesting KenPom stat is "Continuity".
He defines it as basically a comparison between the minutes played this year and last year by the same guys. The Illini are actually pretty high nationally, at #35, in continuity. I find that interesting because it has been bandied about on here that this roster does not have much together time, with TA and LB and MT, Jr. all having missed big parts of last year. And Kendrick Nunn is gone. And of course Alex Austin is gone and Te'jon is new. I'm not sure how we can be measured at 66.6% when so many of our current players were not big contributors last year.

So, I did the math. Its his formula, but the result is that we show up with 66.6% continuity and the national average is 49.5%. Sort of shocking, I think.
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Good post. I never bought the bolded --seemed like just another excuse as to why we looked so disorganized. And that national average is good to know. Every team has turnover, but it's just a natural occurrence that your most experienced guys are the ones you lose, making that turnover higher than might be expected.
 
#728      

Greensboro

Greensboro
Greensboro
Joel Goodson said:
Very encouraging: Abrams leadership and offense. So happy for him. Black stepping up offensively. His jumper is VG. Foul trouble and playing out of control appear to be behind him. The team is so much better not relying on Hill for scoring,

Glad to see DJW getting some tick.
Click to expand...


Absolutely.

When you look at preseason, we had large question marks at every position other than Malcolm at the 3.

We are getting upper orange kool-aid level predictions for both Black & Abrams, shouldn't have expected more.

Find a couple more players to play at that level and we could be quite good.
 
#729      

Greensboro

Greensboro
Greensboro
FeelYourPaign said:
Another interesting KenPom stat is "Continuity".
He defines it as basically a comparison between the minutes played this year and last year by the same guys. The Illini are actually pretty high nationally, at #35, in continuity. I find that interesting because it has been bandied about on here that this roster does not have much together time, with TA and LB and MT, Jr. all having missed big parts of last year. And Kendrick Nunn is gone. And of course Alex Austin is gone and Te'jon is new. I'm not sure how we can be measured at 66.6% when so many of our current players were not big contributors last year.

So, I did the math. Its his formula, but the result is that we show up with 66.6% continuity and the national average is 49.5%. Sort of shocking, I think.
Click to expand...

Calvin said:
Good post. I never bought the bolded --seemed like just another excuse as to why we looked so disorganized. And that national average is good to know. Every team has turnover, but it's just a natural occurrence that your most experienced guys are the ones you lose, making that turnover higher than might be expected.
Click to expand...

When you think about it this isn't quite the right measurement for what we went through last year, because it compares to last year. We do have everyone back except Nunn & Lewis, our problem was we were forced to play a lot of guys more minutes than they were ready for last year, but makes no distinction for how many minutes they should have played.

At the end of the day, look how many minutes Black, Thorne, Abrams TJL, & Kipper play this year & in reality none of those guys have really been able to play with any of the sophomore class or each other. So I think it is fair to say these guys haven't played together, but it isn't fair to regress on our ability to play together...so that excuse needs to end going forward & we need to keep showing signs of improvement.
 
#730      

blackdog

blackdog
Champaign
blackdog
Something that really popped into my head during the CMU game was that I am more confident now that Abrams is going to hit a 3 than JCL. Never would have dreamed that could be true.
 
#732      

TriCityBurbs

T
TriCityBurbs
Went to the Mizzou Arizona game on Saturday (Arizona looks very good, their freshman center is HUGE), and during the game got into a heated debate with my Michigan fan roommate on who's the better PG TA or Walton. I obviously argued for Tracy, but Tracy also hasn't had nearly as much talent around him and he made a case that Waltons numbers aren't as high because he wasn't the go-to-guy. Now that he is one of the top options on the team his numbers still aren't too great, and I think he's personally pretty overrated.

So does my roommate have a point, or is Tracy the better player?

FWIW: he also thought that Irvin was on the same level as Hill...
 
#733      

combes

C
combes
What are you doing rooming with a Michigan fan? Some kind of punishment? ��
 
#734      

TriCityBurbs

T
TriCityBurbs
combes said:
What are you doing rooming with a Michigan fan? Some kind of punishment? ��
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LOL. My roommate is a Michigan, Packers and White Sox fan. Only thing we agree on is the Bulls. Also, I go to mizzou, so being swarmed by mizzou and cardinals fans is punishment in itself.
 
#735      

ChiefIllini

C
ChiefIllini
While a lot of our deficiencies seem to be leveling themselves out, a few are starting to become more alarming.

I think moving forward, throwing out the fact our defense will probably be up and down all year, our biggest issue is our bench production. Our starting 5 are strong--scorers at every level, average to above average rebounding, and seem to be a well developed 5 man team. Our bench may be deep in terms of potential talent, but when guys come off the bench (sans maybe Mav and sometimes TJL), things on both ends tend towards chaos. Regardless of who's coming off, whether it be Finke, Tate, DJW, or AJ things, or lack of a better term, just seem off. Something that all great teams have is a 6th or 7th guy who comes in and adds something to a team. Right now, we have guys coming in that take away from on court efficiency.

As for now, our best hope seems to be DJW or Kipper, they are guys who can play a couple of positions, though not sure if Groce will be playing him in different spots.

As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to see AJ step up. He's got the makings of a perfect 6th man--aggressive rebounding, 3 pt shooting, and defending. Kipper is also a great option, just more of an inside threat and probably a more shutdown defender.

I also think that this is less of an if and more of a when question. Someone will become that Bertrand type guy. Sadly, Tate and TJL aren't our solution at the one right now, I'd like to see AJ steal all but maybe 5 minutes from TA at the 2 and have JCL play 25 or 30 there. That leaves 15 minutes (ish) for Tate and TJL, which I'm fine with them splitting though I'd rather have TJL play 10 and Tate 5.

Black will be the reason we make the tourney this year. I know he hasn't faced stingy D yet, but I think he ends the season average 16 to Hill's 18.

Also, people need to understand that even if NCST and VCU are bubble teams or even less than that, we really handed them decisive losses. Just because neither is a top 25, or even a top 50 team, we beat them by 14 and 18 respectively. Those are both huge margins for teams with borderline top 50 talent. VCU is probably closer to 75ish and I dont think they make the tourney, but NCST is going to end close to top 50. They are both quality wins based not only on the teams ranking, but by how much the final box score shows.
 
#736      

FeelYourPaign

FeelYourPaign
So Cal
FeelYourPaign
I thought that as much as Ken Pom stats come up on here, it would be interesting to compare where his system had teams starting the year and where they are now.
Each team's score is shown as (start #) / (now)
Wisconsin 8 / 10
Ohio State 13 / 41
Michigan St 14 / 53
Indiana 16 / 15
Purdue 18 / 12
Michigan 31 / 29
Maryland 48 / 64
Iowa 55 / 68
Northwest 61 / 46
Illinois 70 / 66
Minnesota 71 / 47
Nebraska 85 / 97
Penn State 97 / 96
Rutgers 191 / 115

Biggest movers up
Purdue (given where they started, moving up is a pretty big deal)
Northwestern
Minnesota
Rutgers, but still in the basement

Biggest movers down
Michigan State
Ohio State
to some degree, Maryland

I kept the data and plan to do this again at about the end of January and at the end of conference play.
 
#737      

ILL in IA

ILL in IA
Iowa City
ILL in IA
Not sure where this goes, but anyone know where Austin Colbert is at these days. I know he left Old Dominion. Any sightings of him?
 
#740      

SescIllini

SescIllini
SescIllini
ILL in IA said:
Not sure where this goes, but anyone know where Austin Colbert is at these days. I know he left Old Dominion. Any sightings of him?
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I read somewhere the ODU coach basically said he wasn't into committing to bb right now. Sounded like the demands of college athletics was there.

Add Colbert and Paul and we are pretty solid at the bigs position.
 
#741      

gibb52

G
gibb52
SescIllini said:
I read somewhere the ODU coach basically said he wasn't into committing to bb right now. Sounded like the demands of college athletics was there.

Add Colbert and Paul and we are pretty solid at the bigs position.
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If Colbert wasn't into the demands of BB at ODU he wouldn't be here either. Always seemed a good natured kid that just didn't have enough work ethic.
 
#742      

TCTORNADO

TCTORNADO
TCTORNADO
gibb52 said:
If Colbert wasn't into the demands of BB at ODU he wouldn't be here either. Always seemed a good natured kid that just didn't have enough work ethic.
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and to think that we took Colbert over Ben Moore. Well so much for talent evaluation.
 
#745      

TCTORNADO

TCTORNADO
TCTORNADO
icengineer said:
I don't remember it being so cut and dry. Did Moore want to commit and we chose Colbert over him?
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If you listen to rumors that his HS coach Brost said he wanted to attend Illinois but staff slow played him because Colbert was top priority. Colbert visited C/U 9/28 and Moore committed to SMU 10/9 so timing looks like it could be right.
 
#746      

89illinigrad

89illinigrad
Chicago
89illinigrad
SescIllini said:
I read somewhere the ODU coach basically said he wasn't into committing to bb right now. Sounded like the demands of college athletics was there.

Add Colbert and Paul and we are pretty solid at the bigs position.
Click to expand...
I think I read somewhere that his brother died, which might be why he wasn't into basketball. He transferred to Hampton to he closer to home IIRC.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
#748      

IlliniBrave75

IlliniBrave75
IlliniBrave75
Beat me too it Attorney. Always great to hear how good of a person one of our athletes are. I was pulling for this kid to exceed before, but now I don't doubt he will in whatever he chooses!