Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
… Loyola adversity* Lol. Been a long couple weeks.
Illini Basketball 2023-2024
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I agree with this. I don't think this team would have allowed themselves to get bullied by that very good Loyola team, though I do think Krutwig would give both Hawkins and Dainja a ton of issues.
Ayo was absolutely atrocious in that game and Frazier couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I don't think Loyola could have kept up athletically with Shannon to stop him and Domask is able to score inside where Frazier relied on the 3.
I do wish Kofi had stuck around and was a COVID super senior on this team though. I think they would be the legitimate title favorite with a 5th year Kofi and he would likely be making more in NIL than he does in Japan/Korea.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Tipsheet: Domask transitions smoothly to Big Ten level, makes Illini more dangerous
Marcus Domask did it all for SIU Carbondale for four years. Now he is putting that versatility to work at Illinois.
It's Giorgi, not Georgi, er, um, (clears throat), I mean, Moretti's first name is Niccolo, so wouldn't his nickname or diminutive form of his first name be Nicco, and not Nico? Or for some reason does the diminutive form drop one "c"? Afterall, I have no idea how they get "Betsy" from "Elizabeth", so anything is possible.
Tipsheet: Domask transitions smoothly to Big Ten level, makes Illini more dangerous
Marcus Domask did it all for SIU Carbondale for four years. Now he is putting that versatility to work at Illinois.www.stltoday.com
I think we might have the next Luka
More athletic Larry Bird perhaps... /s
I think we might have the next Luka
I mean, how to they get Jack from John?
How do you get Dick from Richard? Wait.. what?
Or Jim/Jimmy from James ?.
Cool chart. Would love if they turned this into a time series heatmap to show migration over the season.
They also posted a couple other charts on that Twitter acount. Apparently we’re terrible at avoiding turnovers, forcing turnovers, and getting to the free throw line. But we’re good at keeping our opponents off the free throw line.
Man, I still think we have to figure out how to use Dain better. He's objectively a good post player.
We do run better offense with Hawkins at the 5, but there are certainly situations (probably more than 4 minutes worth) when it would be nice to run some stuff to get Dain an easy basket. He's also a decent rim protector.
I kinda liked the backscreen/side ballscreen actions I saw them do a few times against (Rutgers? FAU?…one of those games…whereby Dain would come up from the block and rollback/dive after the ballscreen/backscreen on the wing.
Seems like a good, efficient easy way to get him involved…and with an element of surprise.
AND since I’ve already got into the weeds anyway…I was watching the game, left the room for like 3 seconds and I heard Bill Raftery say: “that THEY like to run that little FLEX action.” We had the ball. Huh?
Illinois..a flex action? I know we put in some new stuff. But that would be a BIG surprise.. It would have kinda made sense if he meant Tenn. (even though you like almost NEVER see it anymore unless on a SLOB) it would have kinda made sense because: Barnes was an assistant to G.Williams who was all about the flex in the 90s…who was an assistant under T. Davis who was all about it.
Right behind Dain, very difficult to be put in a situation cold and then try to play your best at two minute spurts.
I wonder if we can use both CH and Dain. Dain gives us the inside prescense on offense and CH can defend on the perimeter. CH can also feed the post and present as an outside threat.
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