Illini Basketball 2023-2024

foby · Oct 31, 2023

Yukon said:
I think folks are making too much positive and at least one of us way too much negative out of an exhibition game.

Besides the word "exhibition", please name a few (besides the foul thing and game only) things that make it different from a game in November. I can't think of any more, so very interested if you or anyone else can shine some light on that.

RockfordIllini · Oct 31, 2023

I was a little underwhelmed by Timberlake. In his film he looked like he had a good, quick shot. Maybe not Plummer esque but more like a very rich man’s Andrew Funk. But he didn’t start and was pretty much a non factor offensively. Surprised they didn’t use him to try and space the floor for Hunter.

Now that kid Knect that Tennessee got looks like a dude! Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a first round pick next year. Will see if we can bother him with our positional size.

Tacomallini · Oct 31, 2023

grue2 said:
That isn't what was said. I expect every center to get burned repeatedly without good help defense. Not all of the layups were Dickeron. Whose job was it to step in their path? *I* could not tell where the defense broke watching real time. Something was off. Its possible Coleman played 5* defense, and all the mistakes were that of teammates. I could not tell. Thus the "unknown" category vs. the "bad" category.

NCIllini10 · Oct 31, 2023

Yukon said:
I think folks are making too much positive and at least one of us way too much negative out of an exhibition game. Though, I admit it was a little bit more than that because the lights were on. It was 2 ranked teams facing off and there was the Dickinson and Self back drop. But here is what I saw:

1. D was a little weak early on both ends of the court (us and them). A lot of uncontested shots. But ramped up as the intensity ramped up. Coach has a lot of film to coach with there.
2. I loved the offensive flow in the first half and early in the second. The play in the second half where all 5 players touched the balll TSJ to corner, to top wing, to top key, to Domask (I think) for a wide open 3 was 05 esq. Beautiful! Nothing we've seen here for years. Maybe since 05.
3. We have depth
4. We only turned it over 14 times in an exhibition game guys! Against a top ranked team! Considering we handed out TO's like candy on Halloween in the past, and again, in an exhibition game, that is encouraging. They should get better, theoretically.
5. When KU extended the pressure late, we went stagnant. Flow stopped. A lot of standing around, penetration stopped and we settled for tough shots. But we were running the clock. Still, want to see movement.
6. Dain still can't shoot FT's. Did he not work on it?
7. Rodgers needs work on the line too.
8. Not really concerned about point guard. We have a lot of people who can start the offense and if we're running out, whoever has it is point.
9. I like what I see from Domask and Guerrier. Hopeful on Harmon.

Overall, I was encouraged.

ILL!

He shot 1-2 from the line. Both shots looked good. Don't know if we can make a judgement about his FT shooting this year yet. Not saying that he is going to be a great FT shooter, hopefully can't get worse than 38%!

Got to say that it amazes me to see so many people say that they (the guys on the team) need to work on FT shooting as if they don't constantly work on it. I am sure that each player is shooting thousands of FTs each year. Why are some guys adept and others not? I can't say. Perhaps it is a skill that some are just better at, or maybe it is a mental thing? However, I feel fairly confident that it isn't because they don't work on it.

grue2 · Oct 31, 2023

aaeismacgychel said:
If you want to focus on the bad, I think it's your prerogative to do so and I do think it can bring up reasonable concerns so I'll at least try being constructive in responding to those:
...
In any case, there's my constructive feedback to your concerns, but we also just beat Kansas. It's ok to smile a little and enjoy it

Oh, I enjoyed it. My post was an answer to the "So where are the naysayers now" jibe surrounded by orange soaked comments. I even labeled the post as "Mouthing off." People seem to have missed that.

Thanks for the constructive replies.

illini0440 said:
They didn't want to get lobbed to death so he wasn't supposed to help off of the bigs.

Ok, then he did his job. Some others ...

band camp · Oct 31, 2023

Yukon said:
I think folks are making too much positive and at least one of us way too much negative out of an exhibition game. Though, I admit it was a little bit more than that because the lights were on. It was 2 ranked teams facing off and there was the Dickinson and Self back drop. But here is what I saw:

1. D was a little weak early on both ends of the court (us and them). A lot of uncontested shots. But ramped up as the intensity ramped up. Coach has a lot of film to coach with there.
2. I loved the offensive flow in the first half and early in the second. The play in the second half where all 5 players touched the balll TSJ to corner, to top wing, to top key, to Domask (I think) for a wide open 3 was 05 esq. Beautiful! Nothing we've seen here for years. Maybe since 05.
3. We have depth
4. We only turned it over 14 times in an exhibition game guys! Against a top ranked team! Considering we handed out TO's like candy on Halloween in the past, and again, in an exhibition game, that is encouraging. They should get better, theoretically.
5. When KU extended the pressure late, we went stagnant. Flow stopped. A lot of standing around, penetration stopped and we settled for tough shots. But we were running the clock. Still, want to see movement.
6. Dain still can't shoot FT's. Did he not work on it?
7. Rodgers needs work on the line too.
8. Not really concerned about point guard. We have a lot of people who can start the offense and if we're running out, whoever has it is point.
9. I like what I see from Domask and Guerrier. Hopeful on Harmon.

Overall, I was encouraged.

ILL!

Kudos for working Halloween and candy into a turnover simile. Well done.

BRucks · Oct 31, 2023

Yukon said:
5. When KU extended the pressure late, we went stagnant. Flow stopped. A lot of standing around, penetration stopped and we settled for tough shots. But we were running the clock. Still, want to see movement.

In the second half we had a stretch of nearly 6 minutes where we didn't score a basket. Another stretch where we went 3 minutes. Reminiscent of Lunney's fourth quarter offense vs. Wisky.

BRucks · Oct 31, 2023

foby said:
Besides the word "exhibition", please name a few (besides the foul thing and game only) things that make it different from a game in November. I can't think of any more, so very interested if you or anyone else can shine some light on that.

I doubt that you'll see us play 12 guys in many regular season games.

BRucks · Oct 31, 2023

NCIllini10 said:
He shot 1-2 from the line. Both shots looked good. Don't know if we can make a judgement about his FT shooting this year yet. Not saying that he is going to be a great FT shooter, hopefully can't get worse than 38%!

I suspect that Brad has. I doubt that we see him playing late in a close game.

foby · Oct 31, 2023

BRucks said:
I doubt that you'll see us play 12 guys in many regular season games.

Agreed. However, given KU's use of a smaller rotation and the fact that 3 of those played just a few minutes each in the first half, it doesn't really seem to diminish the feel of it being a "real" type game.

Second place is 1st loser · Oct 31, 2023

foby said:
Besides the word "exhibition", please name a few (besides the foul thing and game only) things that make it different from a game in November. I can't think of any more, so very interested if you or anyone else can shine some light on that.

Intensity and legitimate game pressure. In an exhibition, you want to win, but the alternative isn't bad whatsoever. Plus, both teams are still trying things out. The coaches were having interviews in the middle of game play for heaven's sake.

Big, big differences.