Illini Basketball 2023-2024

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#1      

Dan

Dan
Admin
Dan
Welcome to the Illini Basketball & College Basketball thread :illinois:


2023-2024 Illini Basketball (29-9, 14-6)

DateOpponentResult
Mon, Nov 6Eastern IllinoisW 80-52
Fri, Nov 10OaklandW 64-53
Tue, Nov 14MarquetteL 64-71
Fri, Nov 17ValparaisoW 87-64
Sun, Nov 19SouthernW 88-60
Fri, Nov 24Western IllinoisW 84-52
Sat, Dec 2at RutgersW 76-58
Tue, Dec 5Florida AtlanticW 98-89
Sat, Dec 9at TennesseeL 79-86
Sun, Dec 17ColgateW 74-57
Fri, Dec 22MissouriW 97-73
Fri, Dec 29Fairleigh DickinsonW 104-71
Tue, Jan 2NorthwesternW 96-66
Fri, Jan 5at PurdueL 78-83
Thu, Jan 11Michigan StateW 71-68
Sun, Jan 14MarylandL 67-76
Thu, Jan 18at MichiganW 88-73
Sun, Jan 21RutgersW 86-63
Wed, Jan 24at NorthwesternL 91-96 OT
Sat, Jan 27IndianaW 70-62
Tue, Jan 30at Ohio StateW 87-75
Sun, Feb 4NebraskaW 87-84 OT
Sat, Feb 10at Michigan StateL 80-88
Tue, Feb 13MichiganW 97-68
Sat, Feb 17at MarylandW 85-80
Wed, Feb 21at Penn StateL 89-90
Sat, Feb 24IowaW 95-85
Wed, Feb 28MinnesotaW 105-97
Sat, Mar 2at WisconsinW 91-83
Tue, Mar 5PurdueL 71-77
Sun, Mar 10at IowaW 73-61
Fri, Mar 15Ohio StateW 77-74
Sat, Mar 16NebraskaW 98-87
Sun, Mar 17WisconsinW 93-87
Thu, Mar 21Morehead StateW 85-69
Sat, Mar 23DuquesneW 89-63
Thu, Mar 28Iowa StateW 72-69
Sat, Mar 30UConnL 52-77

All times CT
 
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#2      

Mobi

M
Mobi
sexy aubrey plaza GIF
 
#6      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
I have been quite hard on our defense, and I am still worried it might cut an otherwise deep NCAA Tournament run short. However, being the optimist I am, I wanted to try to look at things in a more positive light.

I think there is a common sentiment that our defense has regressed, and I feel that the Nebraska home game is a decent cutoff point where it became a lot more apparent to many of us. So, I wanted to look at a couple stats to maybe look at this a different way. Looking at our Big Ten play results since the first of the year, this is the story ... but please keep in mind this does not look at strength of schedule or not having TSJ or anything like that.

Also, the "% Margin" statistic is our opponent's total points as a percentage of our total points ... I thought this would be an interesting way to look at whether or not our uptick in offense is just sort of "carrying" our opponent's total score up with us - i.e., not NEARLY as concerning, as it still keeps some distance between us and them. So if we beat a team 80-60, the "% Margin" will be 75.0%.

BEFORE NEBRASKA
Record: 6-3 (.667)
Illini PPG: 81.6
Opponents PPG: 73.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 8.0
% Margin: 90.2%

AFTER NEBRASKA
Record: 5-2 (.714)
Illini PPG: 91.1
Opponents PPG: 84.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 6.6
% Margin: 92.8%

So, we are scoring almost 12% more points per game since the Nebraska game. That does include one OT game (Nebraska), but there was one OT game in the first group, too (Northwestern). However, we are giving up almost 15% more points per game ... so our defense HAS gotten worse than our offense has gotten better, but the gap is actually pretty small.

In other words, in a bizarre turn of events it seems we have just kind of morphed who we are as a team, and we are achieving very similar results (6-3 vs. 5-2) in a totally different way, lol. Not really sure what to think of that!
 
#7      

RabidDawgClassic

RabidDawgClassic
RabidDawgClassic
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I have been quite hard on our defense, and I am still worried it might cut an otherwise deep NCAA Tournament run short. However, being the optimist I am, I wanted to try to look at things in a more positive light.

I think there is a common sentiment that our defense has regressed, and I feel that the Nebraska home game is a decent cutoff point where it became a lot more apparent to many of us. So, I wanted to look at a couple stats to maybe look at this a different way. Looking at our Big Ten play results since the first of the year, this is the story ... but please keep in mind this does not look at strength of schedule or not having TSJ or anything like that.

Also, the "% Margin" statistic is our opponent's total points as a percentage of our total points ... I thought this would be an interesting way to look at whether or not our uptick in offense is just sort of "carrying" our opponent's total score up with us - i.e., not NEARLY as concerning, as it still keeps some distance between us and them. So if we beat a team 80-60, the "% Margin" will be 75.0%.

BEFORE NEBRASKA
Record: 6-3 (.667)
Illini PPG: 81.6
Opponents PPG: 73.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 8.0
% Margin: 90.2%

AFTER NEBRASKA
Record: 5-2 (.714)
Illini PPG: 91.1
Opponents PPG: 84.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 6.6
% Margin: 92.8%

So, we are scoring almost 12% more points per game since the Nebraska game. That does include one OT game (Nebraska), but there was one OT game in the first group, too (Northwestern). However, we are giving up almost 15% more points per game ... so our defense HAS gotten worse than our offense has gotten better, but the gap is actually pretty small.

In other words, in a bizarre turn of events it seems we have just kind of morphed who we are as a team, and we are achieving very similar results (6-3 vs. 5-2) in a totally different way, lol. Not really sure what to think of that!
Click to expand...

I mean this with all due respect:
giphy.gif
 
#8      

abchew2

A
abchew2
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I have been quite hard on our defense, and I am still worried it might cut an otherwise deep NCAA Tournament run short. However, being the optimist I am, I wanted to try to look at things in a more positive light.

I think there is a common sentiment that our defense has regressed, and I feel that the Nebraska home game is a decent cutoff point where it became a lot more apparent to many of us. So, I wanted to look at a couple stats to maybe look at this a different way. Looking at our Big Ten play results since the first of the year, this is the story ... but please keep in mind this does not look at strength of schedule or not having TSJ or anything like that.

Also, the "% Margin" statistic is our opponent's total points as a percentage of our total points ... I thought this would be an interesting way to look at whether or not our uptick in offense is just sort of "carrying" our opponent's total score up with us - i.e., not NEARLY as concerning, as it still keeps some distance between us and them. So if we beat a team 80-60, the "% Margin" will be 75.0%.

BEFORE NEBRASKA
Record: 6-3 (.667)
Illini PPG: 81.6
Opponents PPG: 73.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 8.0
% Margin: 90.2%

AFTER NEBRASKA
Record: 5-2 (.714)
Illini PPG: 91.1
Opponents PPG: 84.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 6.6
% Margin: 92.8%

So, we are scoring almost 12% more points per game since the Nebraska game. That does include one OT game (Nebraska), but there was one OT game in the first group, too (Northwestern). However, we are giving up almost 15% more points per game ... so our defense HAS gotten worse than our offense has gotten better, but the gap is actually pretty small.

In other words, in a bizarre turn of events it seems we have just kind of morphed who we are as a team, and we are achieving very similar results (6-3 vs. 5-2) in a totally different way, lol. Not really sure what to think of that!
Click to expand...
I was hoping for something to help provide some reframing. Could you also do a breakdown of where those points were coming from between the two? Besides the Minn game it seems we still limit teams 3 pt attempts but they are hitting a higher percent. I’m interested if that holds true with the before Nebraska cutoff.
 
#9      

21ChampaignSt

21ChampaignSt
21ChampaignSt
abchew2 said:
I was hoping for something to help provide some reframing. Could you also do a breakdown of where those points were coming from between the two? Besides the Minn game it seems we still limit teams 3 pt attempts but they are hitting a higher percent. I’m interested if that holds true with the before Nebraska cutoff.
Click to expand...
I've been monitoring this actually.

Before Nebraska After Nebraska
2PD#21#189
3PD#61#350
3PR#7#4

I have a theory that I don't strongly believe in but hadn't seen it mentioned so I figured I'd throw it out there.

Even though we are literally the best offense in the United States of America, we don't make teams work that hard to guard us. By that I mean, we aren't constantly moving and cutting and making defenders chase us around and work through screens, etc. That's not a criticism of us. That just shows how good and efficient we are on that end. But when you combine that with our defense which doesn't really force opponents to work hard either, teams are just super comfortable against us. We do nothing to take them out of their rhythm.

That could explain why, as our offense has gotten more efficient, our defense has gotten worse.
 
#10      

Second place is 1st loser

S
Second place is 1st loser
21ChampaignSt said:
I've been monitoring this actually.

Before NebraskaAfter Nebraska
2PD#21#189
3PD#61#350
3PR#7#4

I have a theory that I don't strongly believe in but hadn't seen it mentioned so I figured I'd throw it out there.

Even though we are literally the best offense in the United States of America, we don't make teams work that hard to guard us. By that I mean, we aren't constantly moving and cutting and making defenders chase us around and work through screens, etc. That's not a criticism of us. That just shows how good and efficient we are on that end. But when you combine that with our defense which doesn't really force opponents to work hard either, teams are just super comfortable against us. We do nothing to take them out of their rhythm.

That could explain why, as our offense has gotten more efficient, our defense has gotten worse.
Click to expand...
Ooooof. I didn't realize that it was THAT bad.

And that Nebraska game is another one where we coughed up close to a double digit leaf with under 4 to go.
 
#11      

ptgrd23

ptgrd23
ptgrd23
NW 41% W
PU 45% L ( we got outrebounded by 15)
MSU 42% W
Md 46% L (we shot 33%)
MI 48% W
Ru - 37% W
NW - 55% L OT (problem was we shot 41%)
IU - 46% W (despite ILL shooting 37%)
OSU- 50% W
Neb 43% W
MSU 53% - L (problem was we shot 43%)
MI 43% - W
MD 41% - W
PSU 54% - L (we shot 48%, but had 18 turnovers)
IA 48% - W
Mn 60% - W

JMO - combination of recency bias and bad optics from high scoring games . MN win, PSU loss, and NW loss were only games where we allowed opponent to shoot 51% or better. Mn shooting 70% from 3 on 20 attempts may not happen again in another 20 years. Take away the PSU choke job and people would be clammering for a #2 seed.

Our offense became more high powered/shoot faster once TSJ returned.

People have expectation we should be blowing teams out by 20 points like we did early in year. It turns out that beating up FAU and Missouri was fools gold. We outscore our competitors by 12 ppg for the year. That is good enough.

I think Brad is only concerned about stacking wins and staying healthy for the big dance. Imagine the discussion board if TSJ had not gotten the injuction. Be thankful for what we have. #2 team in B10. Everybody healthy. High ceiling with 3 headed monster TSJ, Marcus and Domask.

:hailtotheorange::hailtotheorange::hailtotheorange::hailtotheorange::hailtotheorange::hailtotheorange:
 
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#12      

doowink

D
doowink
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I have been quite hard on our defense, and I am still worried it might cut an otherwise deep NCAA Tournament run short. However, being the optimist I am, I wanted to try to look at things in a more positive light.

I think there is a common sentiment that our defense has regressed, and I feel that the Nebraska home game is a decent cutoff point where it became a lot more apparent to many of us. So, I wanted to look at a couple stats to maybe look at this a different way. Looking at our Big Ten play results since the first of the year, this is the story ... but please keep in mind this does not look at strength of schedule or not having TSJ or anything like that.

Also, the "% Margin" statistic is our opponent's total points as a percentage of our total points ... I thought this would be an interesting way to look at whether or not our uptick in offense is just sort of "carrying" our opponent's total score up with us - i.e., not NEARLY as concerning, as it still keeps some distance between us and them. So if we beat a team 80-60, the "% Margin" will be 75.0%.

BEFORE NEBRASKA
Record: 6-3 (.667)
Illini PPG: 81.6
Opponents PPG: 73.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 8.0
% Margin: 90.2%

AFTER NEBRASKA
Record: 5-2 (.714)
Illini PPG: 91.1
Opponents PPG: 84.6
PPG Margin: Illini by 6.6
% Margin: 92.8%

So, we are scoring almost 12% more points per game since the Nebraska game. That does include one OT game (Nebraska), but there was one OT game in the first group, too (Northwestern). However, we are giving up almost 15% more points per game ... so our defense HAS gotten worse than our offense has gotten better, but the gap is actually pretty small.

In other words, in a bizarre turn of events it seems we have just kind of morphed who we are as a team, and we are achieving very similar results (6-3 vs. 5-2) in a totally different way, lol. Not really sure what to think of that!
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info...I've been critical of our defense most of the season as well. I really thought that improvement would come as the season progressed, but I've not seen much if any improvement since the conference portion of the schedule began....seems we allow opposing players to get into the paint way to easily breaking down the defense and giving up easy shots....I think part of the issue is with the number of points being scored in most of our games the # of possessions for each team is up considerably which will result in allowing more points per game...thing that worries me is come tournament time will we have the ability to make enough critical defensive plays to keep advancing....we will more than likely have 1 game throughout the tournament in which the offense isn't clicking....just hoping the defense is good enough to overcome
 
#13      

Rap47

R
Rap47
Our defensive problem is the inability to stop the 4 and 5 on the opposition with small forwards, Hawkins and Guerrier. We have no rim protection to help out if the guards get beat. Mayer helped out from the weak side defensive position last year.
 
#14      

ptgrd23

ptgrd23
ptgrd23
With exception of Edey nobody in the B10 including Hunter Dickinson could move Kofi in the paint. While not a shot blocker Kofi was stronger than anybody else whether it was offense or defense.

Its interesting how Illinois almost plays a european small ball with Coleman playing a stretch 5 and only posting guards Ty and Marcus in the lane. It works very well offensively but we are vulnerable on defense.

in 2005 Illinois had the same albeit smaller weakness. We played Roger as undersized but high motor 4 who could hit the 3 pointer and Augustine who had great post moves and could block shots but was not a bruiser at 6'10" 235 compared to Scott May. We also played 3 guards Dee 6'0, Deron 6'3" and Luther 6'3". The starting five were quick, wicked fast, high energy, and very athletic. Also everybody could hit the 3 except Augustine who was a rebounding monster.

in 2024 our guards are bigger but with exception of TSJ and Coleman we are not very athletic. Marcus Ty and Quincy are strong but slow. Ty is a very good rebounder. Marcus works hard at it.
 
#15      

alaskaillini

A
alaskaillini
Rap47 said:
Our defensive problem is the inability to stop the 4 and 5 on the opposition with small forwards, Hawkins and Guerrier. We have no rim protection to help out if the guards get beat. Mayer helped out from the weak side defensive position last year.
Click to expand...
IIRC most of Mayer's blocks were on his own man after he let them get by him. My perception from the last half of this season is Hawkins that has not been nearly as aggressive as he was early at rim protection (or as he was last year when we led the league in blocks) - it seems he doesn't leave his man to rim protect like he did earlier in the year probably because he doesn't want to give up an inside pass to his man or an offensive rebound and dunk by his man if there is a miss.
 
#16      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
alaskaillini said:
IIRC most of Mayer's blocks were on his own man after he let them get by him. My perception from the last half of this season is Hawkins that has not been nearly as aggressive as he was early at rim protection (or as he was last year when we led the league in blocks) - it seems he doesn't leave his man to rim protect like he did earlier in the year probably because he doesn't want to give up an inside pass to his man or an offensive rebound and dunk by his man if there is a miss.
Click to expand...
Hahaha, I have no stats to back this one up, but these are indeed my two vivid memories of Matthew Mayer:

1. Off balance, pull-up three.
2. Blocking an opposing player who just smoked him because he wasn’t in position.

🤣 I have no ill will for the man, but what a seemingly wasted talent here. I know there were some team chemistry issues, but last year’s team will always be a total enigma to me.
 
#17      

grue2

G
grue2
Rap47 said:
Our defensive problem is the inability to stop the 4 and 5 on the opposition with small forwards, Hawkins and Guerrier. We have no rim protection to help out if the guards get beat. Mayer helped out from the weak side defensive position last year.
Click to expand...
We had a few possessions last game where Hawkins came over to help a bit. The primary defender (Dainja? Guerrier?) was guarding the defender ~6ft from the basket. Hawkins shifted over so he was just to that side of the basket and in 4-5' from the baseline. He didn't double team. He waited ready to jump and block the shot. His presence was also enough to discourage a wrap around pass. It also enabled the defender to primarily guard the baseline side, knowing the offense would spin into Coleman if they went the other way.

I'm not sure if this will work in general. It was a different look. It did seem to work for those few possessions.
 
#25      

Thaillini22

Thaillini22
Thaillini22
I think it bodes well for us that we've really only had one stinkbomb so far this season, that being vs. Maryland. Maybe for us, offense wins championships.
 
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