Yes...defense will carry us to a B10 championship and deep run in the tourney...or be our achilles heel
Illini Basketball 2023-2024
- Status
Doesn’t apply to this season but relevant to Illini sports in general in the near future. The fewer places I have to go to get Illini games the better imo.
ESPN, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery Forming Joint Venture to Launch Streaming Sports Service in the U.S.
ESPN, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached an understanding on principal terms to form a new Joint Venture (JV) to build an innovative new platform to house a compelling streaming sports service. The platform brings together the companies’...
espnpressroom.com
chrisRunner7
- San Diego
Wow, this is awesome. Could watch almost every college basketball game that I care about except for the random few on CBS, Peacock, or (eyeroll) BTN+.Doesn’t apply to this season but relevant to Illini sports in general in the near future. The fewer places I have to go to get Illini games the better imo.
ESPN, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery Forming Joint Venture to Launch Streaming Sports Service in the U.S.
ESPN, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached an understanding on principal terms to form a new Joint Venture (JV) to build an innovative new platform to house a compelling streaming sports service. The platform brings together the companies’...espnpressroom.com
You have think they are going to ask for $30-40 a month for this, right? Regular cable is going to lose even more folks who do not care about non-sports stuff.
Interesting, this is something Disney mentioned when they restructured their SEC filing last year to breakout ESPN. They also mentioned possibly divesting ESPN. I think it’s interesting because $11B of ESPNs $14B revenue comes from cable TV affiliate fees, and this JV may be the death of those affiliate fees.Doesn’t apply to this season but relevant to Illini sports in general in the near future. The fewer places I have to go to get Illini games the better imo.
ESPN, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery Forming Joint Venture to Launch Streaming Sports Service in the U.S.
ESPN, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, FOX and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached an understanding on principal terms to form a new Joint Venture (JV) to build an innovative new platform to house a compelling streaming sports service. The platform brings together the companies’...espnpressroom.com
I’m expecting a $40+ monthly fee. We’ll see what consumers appetite is.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
$40 at a minimum, I think.
The question is whether they're trying to use this to make money from an audience they think is already there, or whether this is a loss leader to try and build an audience.
In any case this is absolutely part and parcel with those big corporations wanting to get the heck out of the cable TV sports game. Last one out's a rotten egg.
chrisRunner7
- San Diego
I thought $30 to $40 sounded reasonable, which means they will probably start out at $45 or $50, and then give you the surprise price increase six months later. YouTube TV started out at $35, sigh.
But I would still take that over a pricier package and having to pay for, you know, Hallmark or the Food Network or MTV, or whatever else is still on cable packages nowadays.
They may not care where their customers come from. They get more money per customer this way and that cable ship is still sinking no matter what happens... it would be fascinating to see what the numbers looked like when they crunched them.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Nebraska/Illinois drew 655k on Sunday. For a comparison of other Sunday BTN/FS1 games this year:
655k for Nebraska at #14 Illinois
514k for Maryland at #10 Illinois
350k for Michigan State at Nebraska
277k for Rutgers at Michigan State
235k for Michigan at Iowa
226k for Michigan State at Northwestern
212k for Rutgers at #14 Illinois
148k for Minnesota at Ohio State
116k for Maryland at Minnesota
113k for Michigan at Penn State
Nebraska averages 249k viewers per game, so that is a quality rating for Illinois.
655k for Nebraska at #14 Illinois
514k for Maryland at #10 Illinois
350k for Michigan State at Nebraska
277k for Rutgers at Michigan State
235k for Michigan at Iowa
226k for Michigan State at Northwestern
212k for Rutgers at #14 Illinois
148k for Minnesota at Ohio State
116k for Maryland at Minnesota
113k for Michigan at Penn State
Nebraska averages 249k viewers per game, so that is a quality rating for Illinois.
I'm surprised the Rutgers at Illinois game was so low, that was the return of TSJ. I know it wasn't an exciting matchup on paper with Rutgers struggling so much, but I would have thought there would be more interest nationally to see him back on the court, even just to see what the reaction would be. There was divisional round football that day so that probably didn't help.
For the Nebraska game this past Sunday, college basketball had the biggest spotlight over the weekend
Think we are primed to take a leap during the last 9 games.
TSJ is close to regaining his pre-suspension form and looks to be locked in defensively, giving us another plus defender on the perimeter.
I think Quincy re-aggravated his wrist when he fell at Purdue and that’s why he’s been tentative and struggling at the FT line. He should heal and regain his form soon.
Domask has quietly shot 33% from 3 on 3 attempts the last 10 games. Not amazing, but trending toward a positive regression toward his career avg of about 36%.
And the lightbulb looks very close to switching on for DGL.
Probably won’t be enough to win the BIG, but I think we will be a very dangerous team come post season play.
TSJ is close to regaining his pre-suspension form and looks to be locked in defensively, giving us another plus defender on the perimeter.
I think Quincy re-aggravated his wrist when he fell at Purdue and that’s why he’s been tentative and struggling at the FT line. He should heal and regain his form soon.
Domask has quietly shot 33% from 3 on 3 attempts the last 10 games. Not amazing, but trending toward a positive regression toward his career avg of about 36%.
And the lightbulb looks very close to switching on for DGL.
Probably won’t be enough to win the BIG, but I think we will be a very dangerous team come post season play.
Whitmans Sampler
- Eastern Iowa
Can’t speak to his on-court progress, but it looks like he has a baby girl arriving this year.
Historically correct. I had told people before the Chattanooga game that I thought Illinois will lose.
I think the way the game is called makes a big difference as well. Watching those clips I felt like there were a lot of 50-50 calls that weren't called. We're pretty aggressive defensively, so I don't think we'd gain anything if the game were called tight, but I could see some teams wanting to pull a Lute Olsen and pre-emptively criticize the officiating.
What’s the horrendous luck you refer to?
2018-2019 (Ayo FR) : 12 - 21 with no post season due to losing record
2019-2020 (Ayo SO, Kofi FR) : 5-5 last 10 games, ranked 21 in AP, no post season due to Covid
2020-2021 (Ayo JR, Kofi SO) : ranked 2 in AP, 2nd round loss
2021-2022 (Kofi JR) : ranked 19 in AP, 1 point win over Chattanooga 1st round, 16 point loss to AP #15 Houston 2nd round
Playing good teams in the tournament isn’t bad luck, that’s the whole purpose of the tournament.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
You don’t think having the tournament cancelled in 19-20 due to a once a
in a generation pandemic, which would have been our first tournament in 8 years and would have allowed the core of that 20-21 team to taste the tournament a year before they were ready to make some noise in it, is bad luck?
You don’t think drawing a top 10 KenPom team as a 9 seed in 20-21 who also happens to be your little brother program with a chip on their shoulder, is bad luck?
Or that same year, due to Covid protocols, the team was not able to return to campus between winning the B1G tourney and the NCAA tourney, and instead had to stay confined to a hotel room for the entire week. That’s not bad luck?
Or in 21-22 drawing the #2 KenPom team as a 5 seed and having your best player’s eyes swollen shut headed into the tournament. That’s not bad luck?
We all want to see a BU coached team advance further in the tourney. At the same time, the program has absolutely had some bad luck over the past few years (Not including last year, that was just a poorly constructed team).
I can’t speak about the student aspect, but living in Columbus for past 20+ years I can tell you not much interest from general public or even the alums I know. The team/program in general doesn’t come up in conversation that often; and I rarely hear anyone talk about going to a game. It was better during the prime year’s in the Matta era, but well under what I would have expected. I haven’t seen any type of excitement during Holtmann era.
I don’t really think any of that is bad luck. Every program has tough tourney losses. Even the best coaches have disappointing finishes with good teams. I think saying it’s bad luck is a cop out.
2020-2021 : We were ranked #2 in AP and a 1 seed! The COVID stuff is a wash because that was affecting everyone and just a part of the reality at the time. I’m not going to dissect the intricacies of COVID to find excuses on why Loyola found an advantage through COVID. Also, say what you want about Kenpom but 8th seed Loyola lost to 12th seed Oregon State in the next round.
2021-2022 : Houston being underseeded was a challenge sure but playing underseeded or hot teams in the tournament is not unique to the Illini. Houston’s seed also doesn’t explain the Chattanooga game 2 days prior who was 67 in Kenpom.
I acknowledge the tournament hasn’t been a cakewalk, but it’s not bad luck. I fully expect there to be similar challenges this tournament. This team needs to be better prepared than previous teams to handle it.
I don't think 2020-2021 was bad luck at all. BU got completely outcoached against Loyola (FWIW I like our coach a lot).
OTOH, 2021-2022 was bad luck. We were the walking wounded by the time we played Houston in the tournament (and yes they were under seeded as well). I didn't think we had a chance before that game and I was right.
Last year, we just sucked. Basically no backcourt by the end of the season in addition to bad team chemistry.
OTOH, 2021-2022 was bad luck. We were the walking wounded by the time we played Houston in the tournament (and yes they were under seeded as well). I didn't think we had a chance before that game and I was right.
Last year, we just sucked. Basically no backcourt by the end of the season in addition to bad team chemistry.
Right now Hulu live includes all of this and is less than $80/mo for all live channels you could want (except unfortunately Marquis) plus includes Hulu, Disney. This will surely end up being much less economical.
DICKnaggie
- Champaign
Question for anyone close to the program: With Amani's back issues, how much has be been able to participate in practices? Is he essentially missing this year from a developmental perspective?
IlliniMike_Aurora
Straight outta Champaign
Your last paragraph sums up 19 years of frustration, thank you !
Update
| Overall Ranking | Offensive Ranking | Defensive Ranking |
| ||||
| Before Suspension | 13 | 32 | 18 | 50 | |||
| During Suspension | 12 | 3 | 83 | 126 | |||
| After Suspension | 20 | 10 | 101 | 55 |
- Status