Illini Basketball 2022-2023

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#126      

pruman91

pruman91
Paducah, Ky
pruman91
www.stltoday.com

Gordo ranks area hoops: Illini, Billikens, Tigers all take wrong turn

Last week did not end well for the area's leading major college basketball teams. Illinois, SLU and Missouri suffered ugly losses that will force them to regroup.
www.stltoday.com www.stltoday.com

Here is how the region’s Division I teams stack up:​


Illinois (7-3): Baylor transfer Matthew Mayer had his breakout game for the Illini against Texas with 21 points and three blocked shots. Prior to that, Mayer scored in double figures just once all season — when he had 11 points against UCLA. Freshman Jayden Epps came off the bench to add 11 points and three assists in 31 minutes. Coleman Hawkins played 42 minutes against Texas and produced nine points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots while turning the ball over just once. Now the bad news: The Illini appeared sleepy during their 11 a.m. home game against the Nittany Lions. They mustered one brief surge the second half before fading badly. Illinois missed 16-of-23 shots from 3-point range while Penn State shot 12-for-24 from behind the arc. Terrence Shannon Jr. was nearly invisible with four points and three turnovers in 26 minutes. The Illini have some work to do.
 
#127      

doowink

D
doowink
pruman91 said:
www.stltoday.com

Gordo ranks area hoops: Illini, Billikens, Tigers all take wrong turn

Last week did not end well for the area's leading major college basketball teams. Illinois, SLU and Missouri suffered ugly losses that will force them to regroup.
www.stltoday.com www.stltoday.com

Here is how the region’s Division I teams stack up:​


Illinois (7-3): Baylor transfer Matthew Mayer had his breakout game for the Illini against Texas with 21 points and three blocked shots. Prior to that, Mayer scored in double figures just once all season — when he had 11 points against UCLA. Freshman Jayden Epps came off the bench to add 11 points and three assists in 31 minutes. Coleman Hawkins played 42 minutes against Texas and produced nine points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots while turning the ball over just once. Now the bad news: The Illini appeared sleepy during their 11 a.m. home game against the Nittany Lions. They mustered one brief surge the second half before fading badly. Illinois missed 16-of-23 shots from 3-point range while Penn State shot 12-for-24 from behind the arc. Terrence Shannon Jr. was nearly invisible with four points and three turnovers in 26 minutes. The Illini have some work to do.
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I would concur with this statement....the illini kind of remind me of a 1000 piece puzzle....I think all the pieces are there, someone just needs to fit them all together....only problem is that the clock is ticking. I expect BU and his staff will get the pieces put together
 
#128      

ChiefIllinois

C
ChiefIllinois
doowink said:
I would concur with this statement....the illini kind of remind me of a 1000 piece puzzle....I think all the pieces are there, someone just needs to fit them all together....only problem is that the clock is ticking. I expect BU and his staff will get the pieces put together
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I’m still of the mind that the beginning of this season has been a B+. Even the coaching staff tempered expectations prior to the season due to the newness of this roster. Second youngest in P6. Losing a known leader prior to the season hurts even more.

Right now we are not greater than the sum of our parts. I think it’s pretty easy to see in another month or two we will be. Zero panic from me.
 
#129      

LvilleILL

LvilleILL
LvilleILL
ChiefIllinois said:
I’m still of the mind that the beginning of this season has been a B+. Even the coaching staff tempered expectations prior to the season due to the newness of this roster. Second youngest in P6. Losing a known leader prior to the season hurts even more.

Right now we are not greater than the sum of our parts. I think it’s pretty easy to see in another month or two we will be. Zero panic from me.
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People need to remember that we are playing 5 true freshman (I include Dain because this is his first real year). There was always going to be speed bumps on the way. Just think about both how well this will serve us at the end of the year, and also next year. I think both Epps and Skyy will be all first team big ten caliber players next year
 
#131      

ChiefIllinois

C
ChiefIllinois
21ChampaignSt said:
Even the 2021 team lost early in the season to a Missouri team that finished 47 in Kenpom and only beat #81 Ohio by 2 at home.

Edit: for reference, PSU is currently #33 in Kenpom.
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this isn’t your mothers PSU team. They may not finish top half of the big ten but they play a modern style of basketball that is going to win them games like the ours multiple times this year.

That being said and building off my previous post, if this was our 15th big ten game instead of our 2nd, the outcome is absolutely different.
 
#132      

RockfordIllini

R
RockfordIllini
Count me in the not worried camp as well. As I said in the post game thread, Penn State’s system is uniquely suited to exploit what we are still struggling with, namely switching off ball and matching up with shooters in transition.

This wasn’t the first game where we’ve had issues with each. Maryland hurt us with open 3’s. One of our buy games, believe it was Lindenwood, was able to get past our press and had a lot of open transition 3’s. Believe Bilas called out during the UT game we were over helping (wouldn’t know, was at the game😀).

Additionally PSU had a big, physical 5th year guard who took all of our freshmen to school down low. He did a great job of bullying our guys, but then also feeling when we were bodying up too much and then countering with a spin move. Veteran Lundy also burned Epps multiple times with slip screens.

Throw in 2 big, tough road games including a win over #2, finals, etc not surprising we would have a let down game. It happens. Creighton lost at home to Nebraska. If anything I thought Brad was too harsh in his post game. Obviously I haven’t been in practices so will take Brad at his word that effort, leadership etc was lacking but I thought PSU was something like 70% execution, 30% effort. Good news is it’s all fixable and I think we will tighten up our off ball switching/communication with more practice and game action.

If anything I’ve felt like we’ve been way ahead of where I thought we would be. We were competitive in every other game including 3 top 10 matchups, and got 2 wins which were maybe the 2 biggest non con wins of BUs tenure. All with 5 freshmen, 7 new players and a brand new system. We may not win the BIG but we should be a handful come march.
 
#134      

21ChampaignSt

21ChampaignSt
21ChampaignSt
#135      

InDaAZ

InDaAZ
Eugene, Oregon
InDaAZ
Joel Goodson said:
Never, ever wear clown pants. However, a one-time exception would be granted for this:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1602774542426021890
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Why stop at just the pantaloons?
E36E3A1B-9938-40F9-A9F5-B305C0B7DE26.jpeg
 
#136      

Ransom Stoddard

Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
Bloomington, IL
Ransom Stoddard
21ChampaignSt said:
Ya know, this really puts things into perspective. While we quibble about whether our blue jerseys are cursed or which throwback should be our default home jersey, there are literally kids in Indiana who are forced to wear clown pants.
We truly are #blessed.
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But there are kids at Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue, etc. that wear them willingly. Those O/B striped overalls are the ugliest things I've ever seen, but they're pretty common in Krush and the NEZ.
 
#139      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
ugottabjoshinme said:
Chicago's Big Ten Team baby
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I also think it's hilariously insecure of Northwestern to have originally thrown "Big Ten" in there ... like, that effectively took a shot at ONLY Illinois while pathetically surrendering the title of "Chicago's 'Overall' Team" to the other most popular school in the area, Notre Dame. It's why I hate when Illinois fans will call US "Chicago's Big Ten Team" ... we are simply Chicago's team, there are absolutely more Illinois fans than ND fans in Chicago, and this becomes more than evident the second we get a pulse in any sport. Just leave "Big Ten" out of the whole sentence!

On another note, Illinois/Texas was the third highest viewed college basketball game last week, with 1.02 million viewers. We beat out several primetime Saturday games, including Kansas/Missouri on ESPN, Villanova/Boston College on FOX and Georgetown/Syracuse on ABC. We also handily beat the game after ours, Duke/Iowa, which only had 887k viewers.

The only two Saturday games that barely beat ours were Alabama/Houston (1.27 million on ABC) and Indiana/Arizona (1.43 million on FOX). Pretty impressive!
 
#143      

illini80

illini80
Forgottonia
illini80
pruman91 said:
Not sure where to put this but it is newsworthy in my opinion.................................


SMH...................................
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I mean come on pru…..just because he was on the phone when the $100,000 payment was being discussed….no one knows or can prove if he was actually LISTENING……. so how could he be penalized?

What complete joke the NCAA is. I’d fully expect Self to get the same harsh treatment.
 
#144      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
Current overview of our Tournament resume

Record: 7-3
NET Ranking: #27
SOS Ranking: #8
Home Record: 5-1
Away Record: 0-1
Neutral Record: 2-1
Quad 1 Record: 2-2
Quad 2 Record: 0-1
Quad 3 Record: 1-0
Quad 4 Record: 4-0

A Couple of Interesting Notes
- The Penn State loss was disappointing for "less scientific" reasons, for sure, but it will likely just remain a Quad 2 loss no matter what. No sense in really worrying about it too much, and best to move on! We still have a good resume. This team needs to find its consistency, but we have put together the type of resume so far that gets a very good (easily top 4) seed. So everyone should remain optimistic!! However...
- If you look at the next six games coming up below, we REALLY need to improve our mental effort and consistency. Almost all of those teams can beat us if we show up like we did vs. PSU, and yet a few would be losses that would really hurt our resume. Conversely, as of now at Northwestern and at Nebraska are BOTH considered Quad 1 wins ... huge opportunities for resume-boosting victories vs. teams that we simply should beat if we are focused!!
- The Syracuse win is BARELY a Quad 3 win (if they drop one spot, it's Quad 4). As annoying as Cranky Jim is, I hope they find their stride a bit.

(Reminder of the Quad thing...)
Quad 1: 1-30 Home, 1-50 Neutral, 1-75 Away
Quad 2: 31-75 Home, 51-100 Neutral, 76-135 Away
Quad 3: 76-160 Home, 101-200 Neutral, 135-240 Away
Quad 4: 161-363 Home, 201-363 Neutral, 241-363 Away

Full Illini Results So Far
W vs. #359 Eastern Illinois (Quad 4 W)
W vs. #281 Kansas City (Quad 4 W)
W vs. #341 Monmouth (Quad 4 W)
W vs. #6 UCLA (Las Vegas, NV) (Quad 1 W)
L vs. #9 Virginia (Las Vegas, NV) (Quad 1 L)
W vs. #324 Lindenwood (Quad 4 W)
W vs. #160 Syracuse (Quad 3 W)
L at #35 Maryland (Quad 1 L)
W vs. #17 Texas (New York, NY) (Quad 1 W)
L vs. #51 Penn State (Quad 2 L)

Next Six Games
vs. #339 Alabama A&M (Quad 4)
vs. #68 Missouri (St. Louis, MO) (Quad 2)
vs. #326 Bethune-Cookman (Quad 4)
at #75 Northwestern (Quad 1)
vs. #46 Wisconsin (Quad 2)
at #74 Nebraska (Quad 1)
 
#145      

2qtslow

2qtslow
2qtslow
I thought NET was the dominant factor for seeding purposes. A NET ranking of 27 implies a 7 seed, doesn't it?
 
#146      

JFGsCoffeeMug

JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
JFGsCoffeeMug
2qtslow said:
I thought NET was the dominant factor for seeding purposes. A NET ranking of 27 implies a 7 seed, doesn't it?
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NET is used to determine quadrants. It is not conclusive, by itself, for seeding purposes.

Q: How important is the NET?

A: We have been told it will be used exactly the same way the RPI was, which is as an aggregator to define the quadrants. It is never a decisive factor on its own. If you are arguing the case for your team, and all you have is a NET ranking, you have nothing.
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[LINK]
 
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