Illini Basketball 2019-2020

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#101      
I hope you are wrong. Not that I wouldn’t LOVE to see Ayo here for year 3, but if he sticks around—something went wrong. He gets injured or regresses.

I want to see Ayo elevate his game to the point where he is a top 3 pick.
I think Ayos goal is to be a top ten draft pick... however if scouts project him anywhere in the first round I believe he will declare.... some board have him at 23. 26. 28...
Some even have hi. Mid second round right now..
So climbing the ranks to a top 3 pick would be an amazing feat.... not only for Ayo but for the beloved... because if he can elevate his game to that level then we would be poised to make a run in the tourney....
 
#102      

foby

Bonnaroo Land
So Kofi is averaging 12.5 rebounds after 2 games. I can't recall having a 10 rb player for a full season in the 40+ yrs I've been a fan. Who was the last 10 rb guy we had?
 
#103      
I have lived in Michigan the past 35 years. Watched the game on TV. Kept the Tribune front page with the huge photo of NIck leaping in the air and the giant headline "In the Nick of Time".

Several years later the Orlando Magic, owed by the DeVos family, were in Grand Rapids for a preseason game. The team visited the children's hospital where I work. Both Nick and Sean Higgins were there. I brought the front page to work, met Nick and had him autograph it (Nick Anderson, #25). This gave me the opportunity to accuse Higgins of going over the back on Nick during the final possession of the 1989 Final Four game we have all replayed a million times. They both laughed at my accusation.

But Larry DID take the charge!
 
#104      
Mike Davis? He was Mr. Double Double

So Kofi is averaging 12.5 rebounds after 2 games. I can't recall having a 10 rb player for a full season in the 40+ yrs I've been a fan. Who was the last 10 rb guy we had?
 
#105      
I hope you are wrong. Not that I wouldn’t LOVE to see Ayo here for year 3, but if he sticks around—something went wrong. He gets injured or regresses.

I want to see Ayo elevate his game to the point where he is a top 3 pick.

Ayo if he starts playing more like last year or better is a Top 10 guard in the draft at the PG position....not a Top 3 however-not this upcoming draft.
 
#107      
Not sure where to put this, but this coming week the B1G releases their first players of the week awards. Color me shocked if Kofi doesn't win the B1G Freshman of the week award.
 
#109      

danielb927

Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
Update through 3 games on our performance re: KenPom's "Four Factors" — effective FG%, offensive rebound %, free throw attempts per FG attempt, and turnover percentage.

Offense
eFG% — middle of the road nationally (about 49.4%). Last night was actually our best eFG% of the season, but only by a couple percent.
TO% — our main weakness so far (27%). Last night was about as bad as the Nicholls St. game with a turnover on 29% of our possessions. We've got to clean that up. That said, to me turnovers seem like the easiest of these four things to improve.
OR% — our strength so far. We're grabbing the OR on 44% of our misses, which is 11th nationally. Last night dropped that some, but we still grabbed 29%, which is a bit better than the average across DI teams. If we can continue to make this a strength against good teams, we'll be competitive in a lot of games.
FTA/FGA — Another strength after being a major weakness last year. 44% is good for top 60 in the country. And, despite what felt like lopsided officiating at times last night, we still shot 0.38 free throws per field goal last night, not a huge drop off from our first two games.

Defense
eFG % — our worst stat on D. Opponents are putting up a 53% effective field goal against us. AZ moved the needle there by shooting almost 62%. If you're an optimist, this means we're 2-1 despite playing hot-shooting teams; if you're a pessimist, we're giving up too many open looks.
TO% — this was our only real strong suit on D last year. So far in 2019, we're about middle of the road, but the AZ game was our best performance of the year, forcing turnovers on 21% of their possessions despite the loss.
OR% — 50th in the nation, a big improvement from last year, but percentage-wise we gave up twice as many ORs last night versus our first two games. Like on the offensive side, we need to prove we can rebound against the big boys to have a great conference season.
FTA/FGA — good on average, but trending the wrong way in our first 3 games: 13%, 26%, 36%. Giving up offensive boards is a good way to have possessions end in a foul, so not surprised to see these last two stats move together on both offense and D.
 
#110      
Illini To Do's this week:
-Work on the turnover problem
-Rewrite all the inbounds plays
-Figure out how to use Georgi
-Get Adam Miller to commit
-Hire Bruce Weber to coach our defense (note: Weber not allowed to talk to recruits at any time)
 
#112      

illiniswish09

Northwest Suburbs
Big week of practice to correct things. Continue to improve over our next four games (that we should/have to go 4-0 in) with a few practices mixed in between. Then we hit a big stretch in the beginning of December vs Miami, at Maryland and vs Michigan. Hopefully Tev back at some point during that 3 game stretch.
 
#113      
Update through 3 games on our performance re: KenPom's "Four Factors" — effective FG%, offensive rebound %, free throw attempts per FG attempt, and turnover percentage.

Offense
eFG% — middle of the road nationally (about 49.4%). Last night was actually our best eFG% of the season, but only by a couple percent.
TO% — our main weakness so far (27%). Last night was about as bad as the Nicholls St. game with a turnover on 29% of our possessions. We've got to clean that up. That said, to me turnovers seem like the easiest of these four things to improve.
OR% — our strength so far. We're grabbing the OR on 44% of our misses, which is 11th nationally. Last night dropped that some, but we still grabbed 29%, which is a bit better than the average across DI teams. If we can continue to make this a strength against good teams, we'll be competitive in a lot of games.
FTA/FGA — Another strength after being a major weakness last year. 44% is good for top 60 in the country. And, despite what felt like lopsided officiating at times last night, we still shot 0.38 free throws per field goal last night, not a huge drop off from our first two games.

Defense
eFG % — our worst stat on D. Opponents are putting up a 53% effective field goal against us. AZ moved the needle there by shooting almost 62%. If you're an optimist, this means we're 2-1 despite playing hot-shooting teams; if you're a pessimist, we're giving up too many open looks.
TO% — this was our only real strong suit on D last year. So far in 2019, we're about middle of the road, but the AZ game was our best performance of the year, forcing turnovers on 21% of their possessions despite the loss.
OR% — 50th in the nation, a big improvement from last year, but percentage-wise we gave up twice as many ORs last night versus our first two games. Like on the offensive side, we need to prove we can rebound against the big boys to have a great conference season.
FTA/FGA — good on average, but trending the wrong way in our first 3 games: 13%, 26%, 36%. Giving up offensive boards is a good way to have possessions end in a foul, so not surprised to see these last two stats move together on both offense and D.

Good stat based analysis.

I'm not sure we need to look past TO% to fix the majority of our problems. I counted at least 10 absolutely horrible in bounds and into the post passes in our game against Arizona. Not all of these resulted in turnovers but they were all potential turnovers waiting to happen. Getting out of that game with only 22 Turnovers was lucky from what I saw. Sloppy ball handling does not win games. Arizona put up 25 fast break points on Illinois' 22 turnovers.

Not adjusting for tempo or opponent, Illinois has a TO% of 22.6%, good enough to put us in the bottom 31 teams in the country. To put that in perspective, the 50th best team has a TO% of 12.3%. Source. Illinois is averaging 20.7 TO per game, if we lowered our TO% to 12.3% that would be roughly 11.3 TOs or ~9.4 fewer per game.

The good news is that I think there's a really obvious place that these turnovers are occurring and it should be easily fixed in practice. Feliz and Ayo are each averaging 4 TO per game and Giorgi and Kofi are each averaging 3 TO per game. What's happening, is we are poorly passing into the post and not feeding our bigs in a way that puts them in a position to easily score. We need to draw up some more effective ways to deliver the ball inside without losing control of it. Just cleaning up our entry passes and working on the positioning of our bigs should account for most of those 9.4 extra turnover per game.

BBV is also averaging 4.9 Turnovers per 40 minutes so a little coaching would go a long way for him and could help unlock his potential to be used more.

In the Arizona game, if Illinois dropped it's TO% from 22.6 to 12.3 we'd go from 22 to 12 TOs. That would cut the 25 fast break points to ~14 and result in 10 additional shots taken by Illinois. If Illinois converted 1 point per each of those 10 attempts, that's a 21 point swing and there's your game right there.
 
#114      
12 turnovers between Ayo and Dre and these are our allBIG guards. Mannion made them look bad.
 
#117      
So Kofi is averaging 12.5 rebounds after 2 games. I can't recall having a 10 rb player for a full season in the 40+ yrs I've been a fan. Who was the last 10 rb guy we had?
I think Spoon in '73.
 
#119      
I know i am in the minority but i still see Ayo as a 3 year player
I have a tendency to agree with you from a readiness standpoint. I don't see him as a first round pick (right now). However, I think his mind is made up that he's going....ready or not. He's going to be off the charts with the measurables. However, until I see him being 1)more consistent and 2)their reliable go to guy when they need a hoop to end a run or plays made to salt a game away....I just don't see the intangible qualities of a first round pick.

Three games now, we've had crisis points and he's been nowhere to be found. A 16-0 run vs Nichols State(Feliz saved us in OT), the lead whittling down vs GC(Feliz again got the hoop), then a 16-1 run vs Arizona....where there was no answer.

A lottery pick, during these crisis points says give me the ball, get out of the way, I'm getting to the hoop and scoring/getting fouled. He did that last year(Ohio State comes to mind). SO FAR, outside of a few electric scoring bursts where he'll get in the open floor and get them 2 or 3 buckets in a row.....he's been extremely pedestrian. With all due respect to Feliz, during games when I see people posting that he's our best player, that's extremely damning evidence against Ayo, but it's been true. Without Feliz, we could very well be 0-3 or 1-2 right now.

Do I expect this to continue all season? No, I don't. I think the light will go on. I think the light will go on with GB as well. I think the presence of Kofi is causing an issue with both. Last year, 7 foot, 290 pounds wasn't anchored in the center of the lane. I see issues with Ayo's entry passes, him not getting to the rim cleanly and finishing, him being an unreliable shooter.....all that has the change and with more games under their belt with the new personel, I think it'll all get cleaned up.

As of this second however.....he doesn't look the part of a first rounder, much less a lottery pick.
 
#122      
Good stat based analysis.

I'm not sure we need to look past TO% to fix the majority of our problems. I counted at least 10 absolutely horrible in bounds and into the post passes in our game against Arizona. Not all of these resulted in turnovers but they were all potential turnovers waiting to happen. Getting out of that game with only 22 Turnovers was lucky from what I saw. Sloppy ball handling does not win games. Arizona put up 25 fast break points on Illinois' 22 turnovers.

Not adjusting for tempo or opponent, Illinois has a TO% of 22.6%, good enough to put us in the bottom 31 teams in the country. To put that in perspective, the 50th best team has a TO% of 12.3%. Source. Illinois is averaging 20.7 TO per game, if we lowered our TO% to 12.3% that would be roughly 11.3 TOs or ~9.4 fewer per game.

The good news is that I think there's a really obvious place that these turnovers are occurring and it should be easily fixed in practice. Feliz and Ayo are each averaging 4 TO per game and Giorgi and Kofi are each averaging 3 TO per game. What's happening, is we are poorly passing into the post and not feeding our bigs in a way that puts them in a position to easily score. We need to draw up some more effective ways to deliver the ball inside without losing control of it. Just cleaning up our entry passes and working on the positioning of our bigs should account for most of those 9.4 extra turnover per game.

BBV is also averaging 4.9 Turnovers per 40 minutes so a little coaching would go a long way for him and could help unlock his potential to be used more.

In the Arizona game, if Illinois dropped it's TO% from 22.6 to 12.3 we'd go from 22 to 12 TOs. That would cut the 25 fast break points to ~14 and result in 10 additional shots taken by Illinois. If Illinois converted 1 point per each of those 10 attempts, that's a 21 point swing and there's your game right there.

Good stuff. Is there an exact definition of what a fast break point is? I'm not sure all those fast break points came from TOs. We like to crash the offensive glass hard and I think we got caught shorthanded on defense quite a few times because of it.
 
#123      
BlueLeader
I know one thing, we're gonna destroy Michigan this year.
jrichisamazing,
What makes you say that?

Illinitiger Answer:
I'm thinking a Fifth of some liquid with a brown paper bag around it.
 
#124      
Good stuff. Is there an exact definition of what a fast break point is? I'm not sure all those fast break points came from TOs. We like to crash the offensive glass hard and I think we got caught shorthanded on defense quite a few times because of it.

Hudl (film app for many teams) defines it as scoring in 8 seconds or less. Hudl also has the 4 factors after every game, so maybe it’s tied back into kenpom somehow.
 
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