Illini Basketball 2024-2025

Status
Not open for further replies.
#101      
the juiceman cometh
FreshlySqueezed said:
I get what you're saying here, but the bolded statement can be taken much more negatively than it should be.

Our current adjusted offensive efficiency is 119.3 points per 100 possessions. The only two Illini teams since 1997 (KenPom era) that were more efficient than that were 2005 and last season.

The offense is designed to get us easy looks inside, to get to the line and allows for more offensive rebounds so even at 32%, we are incredibly efficient because of what the threat of shooting 3s opens up for the offense.
Click to expand...
You're right about our efficiency but it's not because we get more easy looks inside. If those looks are there, we dont take advantage of them. We rank 254th in 2 point attempts, and 6th in 3 pt attempts.

It's just rebounding. We rank 2nd in the country in rebounding. Our shooting is inefficient plain and simple and what saves us is absolutely dominating the boards. If we let the rebounds get close we are in trouble. Every game we lost, we either lost the rebounding battle (only Tennessee), or won it by 7 or less.

It would be nice if we could improve our shooting so that we have something to fall back on when we face a tough rebounding opponent. Other than Tennessee, the best anyone has done against us in the rebounding battle is Arkansas. But we went ahead and shot 48% from 3 and 53% from the field. If we had our regular shooting night that's probably a loss.
 
#102      
FreshlySqueezed
Seems like you just want to argue, but okay...

I literally attributed some of our efficiency to our rebounding. You seem to want to attribute all of it to our rebounding, which just isn't correct.

We rank 254th in 2 point attempts because we basically take zero mid-range jumpers. We're shooting 56.1% on 2-point shots, which is 53rd best in the country.

We have a top 100 eFG% so I'm not sure how you can say the bolded is true with any level of certainty. Rebounding certainly helps but Texas A&M is the best offensive rebounding team in the country and their eFG% is 268th.

Just look at the shot charts after our games. We get extremely high percentage looks inside and it's not just from offensive rebounds. You space the floor with shooters and it opens the basket up. That's not rocket science.

We're essentially a less extreme Alabama. They shoot more 3s. They grab more offensive rebounds. They get to the line a little more. And they also shoot 32% from 3 as a team but they make over 60% of their 2s (we miss A LOT of layups, as many here point out). If we finished at the rim better, our efficiency would improve quite a bit.

It's hilarious to watch people complain about the 3rd best offense Illinois has had in the last 30+ years.
 
#103      
fuggles
the juiceman cometh said:
You're right about our efficiency but it's not because we get more easy looks inside. If those looks are there, we dont take advantage of them. We rank 254th in 2 point attempts, and 6th in 3 pt attempts.
Click to expand...
Efficiency does not depend on attempts but percentage makes. We are 69th in 2pt%. And if we could make some layups we would be much higher.
 
#104      
Mobi
fuggles said:
Efficiency does not depend on attempts but percentage makes. We are 69th in 2pt%. And if we could make some layups we would be much higher.
Click to expand...
He was trying to say we didn't try to penetrate much to take advantage of the spacing.
 
#105      
the juiceman cometh
fuggles said:
Efficiency does not depend on attempts but percentage makes. We are 69th in 2pt%. And if we could make some layups we would be much higher.
Click to expand...
No efficiency depends on points per possession. We have high points per possession because we rebound a lot of our misses, giving us additional chances within the same possession. Our 2pt% has a minimal impact on points per possession because we do not take many 2pt shots. Our overall FG% is 178th, because though we do pretty decently with 2pt shots (69th is still way below our overall efficiency rating), we prioritize 3 pt shots (we take almost as many 3s as we do 2s, which is pretty atypical compared to most teams - our opponents take on average 2x as many 2pt shots as 3pt shots).
 
#107      
goillini30
the juiceman cometh said:
No efficiency depends on points per possession. We have high points per possession because we rebound a lot of our misses, giving us additional chances within the same possession. Our 2pt% has a minimal impact on points per possession because we do not take many 2pt shots. Our overall FG% is 178th, because though we do pretty decently with 2pt shots (69th is still way below our overall efficiency rating), we prioritize 3 pt shots (we take almost as many 3s as we do 2s, which is pretty atypical compared to most teams - our opponents take on average 2x as many 2pt shots as 3pt shots).
Click to expand...
Where do we rank on FT rate? We draw a good number of fouls driving to get those 2 pt shots, which would depress our 2 pt attempts, but still be a positive in our efficiency stats. Genuinely curious because I don't know how we stack up with other teams.
 
#109      
fuggles
the juiceman cometh said:
No efficiency depends on points per possession. We have high points per possession because we rebound a lot of our misses, giving us additional chances within the same possession. Our 2pt% has a minimal impact on points per possession because we do not take many 2pt shots. Our overall FG% is 178th, because though we do pretty decently with 2pt shots (69th is still way below our overall efficiency rating), we prioritize 3 pt shots (we take almost as many 3s as we do 2s, which is pretty atypical compared to most teams - our opponents take on average 2x as many 2pt shots as 3pt shots).
Click to expand...
Yes efficiency depends on ppp. And making 56% of our 2pt shots is 1.12 ppp. It doesn't matter how many attempts are made. Also I didn't mention before, we are 19th in FTs made. Which is a result of getting good looks at the basket.
 
#110      
the juiceman cometh
fuggles said:
Yes efficiency depends on ppp. And making 56% of our 2pt shots is 1.12 ppp. It doesn't matter how many attempts are made. Also I didn't mention before, we are 19th in FTs made. Which is a result of getting good looks at the basket.
Click to expand...
Right but the point is we don't take that many 2 pt shots. The ones we do take help our efficiency, but the point is we take way fewer than most teams. We take way more 3s, where we are not efficient. This brings our overall FG% down to 178th. The handy-dandy stat to see this is eFG%, where we rank 121st.

The gap between poor overall shooting efficiency and good points per possession is bridged by rebounds, which often give us multiple shot opportunities within the same possession. A big reason why we rank 7th overall in attempted FGs (and just 37th in made FGs).
 
#111      
JFGsCoffeeMug
goillini30 said:
Where do we rank on FT rate? We draw a good number of fouls driving to get those 2 pt shots, which would depress our 2 pt attempts, but still be a positive in our efficiency stats. Genuinely curious because I don't know how we stack up with other teams.
Click to expand...
According to Torvik, we are 110th in FTR.
 
#112      
fuggles
the juiceman cometh said:
Right but the point is we don't take that many 2 pt shots. The ones we do take help our efficiency, but the point is we take way fewer than most teams. We take way more 3s, where we are not efficient. This brings our overall FG% down to 178th. The handy-dandy stat to see this is eFG%, where we rank 121st.

The gap between poor overall shooting efficiency and good points per possession is bridged by rebounds, which often give us multiple shot opportunities within the same possession. A big reason why we rank 7th overall in attempted FGs (and just 37th in made FGs).
Click to expand...
And also freethrow rate. We are one of the best in the country in FTA and FT per game. The coach is constantly talking about taking the ball to the rim and either making a layup and/or getting fouled.
 
#115      
FreshlySqueezed
the juiceman cometh said:
No efficiency depends on points per possession. We have high points per possession because we rebound a lot of our misses, giving us additional chances within the same possession. Our 2pt% has a minimal impact on points per possession because we do not take many 2pt shots. Our overall FG% is 178th, because though we do pretty decently with 2pt shots (69th is still way below our overall efficiency rating), we prioritize 3 pt shots (we take almost as many 3s as we do 2s, which is pretty atypical compared to most teams - our opponents take on average 2x as many 2pt shots as 3pt shots).
Click to expand...
That is what our defense is designed to do.

And with regard to our 3 point shot rate, we're 27th. Alabama is 21st, Duke is 32nd , Marquette is 39th. That's 4 teams in KenPom's top 13.

Our 2 point percentage is 53rd in the country. A huge part of that is because of how teams have to defend the 3 point line against us.
 
#116      
FreshlySqueezed
the juiceman cometh said:
Right but the point is we don't take that many 2 pt shots. The ones we do take help our efficiency, but the point is we take way fewer than most teams. We take way more 3s, where we are not efficient. This brings our overall FG% down to 178th. The handy-dandy stat to see this is eFG%, where we rank 121st.

The gap between poor overall shooting efficiency and good points per possession is bridged by rebounds, which often give us multiple shot opportunities within the same possession. A big reason why we rank 7th overall in attempted FGs (and just 37th in made FGs).
Click to expand...
We're 94th in eFG% according to KenPom.
 
#118      
the juiceman cometh
FreshlySqueezed said:
That is what our defense is designed to do.

And with regard to our 3 point shot rate, we're 27th. Alabama is 21st, Duke is 32nd , Marquette is 39th. That's 4 teams in KenPom's top 13.

Our 2 point percentage is 53rd in the country. A huge part of that is because of how teams have to defend the 3 point line against us.
Click to expand...
Alabama is the 3rd best rebounding team in the country. They also get a ton of 2nd chances. Very similar situation to ours.

Duke shoots the 3 way more effectively than us. Nearly 38%. Good for 37th best in the country. They are just an efficient shooting team.

Marquette gets an efficiency boost from just not turning the ball over. They have the lowest turnover rate in the country. Turnovers obviously hurt efficiency so not turning the ball over helps.

It's entirely possible our many 3 point attempts do allow us to shoot 2s more successfully. I am not disputing that. But that is also not a major driver for why our offensive efficiency rating is so high. Because 1) we don't attempt many 2 point shots and 2) our eFG% is not that great, so it's clearly not canceling out the inefficiencies of our 3pt%.

I don't know why some are so reluctant to admit that we are very good at rebounding and pedestrian at shooting. That's ok! It's working just fine. I'd even argue it gives us a recipie for success even when we have the inevitable bad (or worse than usual) shooting night. And if we can get that 3pt% up to 34 or 35, while still dominating the boards, that's a blueprint for going deep into the tourney.
 
#120      
Rap47
If they would get 2 ft closer oneach Attempt they would probably increase that percentage by 4 to 5 percent. A lot of their attempts are about 25 ft.
 
#121      
ptgrd23
3 pg shooting Illini

KJ 5.1 attempts pg 42% elite
KB 4.3 attempts pg 27% below avg
BH 5.8 attempts pg 37% very good
TI 4.3 attempts pg 37% very good
DGL 3.5 attempts pg 28% below avg
WR 4.3 attempts pg 32% average
JD 1.5 attempts pg 32% average

Kylan and DGL are laggards. Actually its Kylan's missed layups that bother me more. He should be scoring at last 4 ppg more
 
#122      
fuggles
21ChampaignSt said:
Not sure what the debate is, but 3p% is the main reason why our AdjO is top 20 and not top 10. If we just improved from 33% to 35-36%, I think (though I haven't done the math) that we would be like 7th or 8th in AdjO to go along with our top 10 defense.
Click to expand...
The debate is someone thinks we should take more 2pt shots because we may not be able to offensive rebound. While our coach thinks we should take more 3pt shots.
 
Last edited:
#124      
Mobi
the juiceman cometh said:
Alabama is the 3rd best rebounding team in the country. They also get a ton of 2nd chances. Very similar situation to ours.

Duke shoots the 3 way more effectively than us. Nearly 38%. Good for 37th best in the country. They are just an efficient shooting team.

Marquette gets an efficiency boost from just not turning the ball over. They have the lowest turnover rate in the country. Turnovers obviously hurt efficiency so not turning the ball over helps.

It's entirely possible our many 3 point attempts do allow us to shoot 2s more successfully. I am not disputing that. But that is also not a major driver for why our offensive efficiency rating is so high. Because 1) we don't attempt many 2 point shots and 2) our eFG% is not that great, so it's clearly not canceling out the inefficiencies of our 3pt%.

I don't know why some are so reluctant to admit that we are very good at rebounding and pedestrian at shooting. That's ok! It's working just fine. I'd even argue it gives us a recipie for success even when we have the inevitable bad (or worse than usual) shooting night. And if we can get that 3pt% up to 34 or 35, while still dominating the boards, that's a blueprint for going deep into the tourney.
Click to expand...
I think it's a good recipe to make sweet 16. To make to the final four? I think you need a big more luck if your shooting is not efficient. In other words, this team has a high floor but the ceiling may not be as high as people think without efficient shooting.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back