blackdog
- Champaign
TSJ is a plus athlete even by NBA standards too. Pretty rare air to match him.
Illini Basketball 2024-2025
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TSJ is a plus athlete even by NBA standards too. Pretty rare air to match him.
It's legit and next year will be the year to get them because they will be down.
Let's get a top team next year, and get everyone back. I am assuming the home/away with Tennessee is done. I'd like to see BU schedule another home/away with another SEC team. Alabama in Chicago, Missouri in St. Louis and either Tennessee or Florida in Knox/Gainesville.
KJ is more frustrating than bad to me. Did the injury really affect him that much at the end of the season?
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
I'd personally prefer a team from the Big East or the Big 12 just to balance out the big conferences. If I were scheduling, I'd like to explore some of the following options.
Big East
Villanova, Creighton or St. John's - straight home and home
UConn - Four year with two on-campus, one at MSG, and one at the United Center
Big 12
Kansas - straight home and home or four-year with Kansas City and Chicago
Iowa State - Same as Kansas, including Kansas City (I don't think Iowa State would play in Des Moines unless it's their once-annual in-state school event with Iowa, Drake, and Northern Iowa)
Texas Tech - Straight home and home
BYU - Straight home and home
I still think you either have to look at Marquette as an annual game at the United Center or do some sort of four-year rotation with a big name opponent for the United Center. Personally, I still want one big non-conference game in Champaign each season. The game has to be big enough to get 18-20K into the United Center. I think Alabama will do that for next year without much trouble. I don't like having to schedule a two-year agreement with a school where they get a home game and we play at the United Center (i.e. Duke). Ideally, there would always be a "road neutral" game like we had with Alabama this season. In this day and age of quad rankings, I would imagine more programs would be willing to do that to increase their chances at Quad 1 games in "neutral" sites. For example, a Florida game in Orlando or Tampa in exchange for a UC game against Florida would be a really good series.
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I’ve posted this on IllInq YouTube channel, but to me, KJ is like a a pitcher who pitches a no-hitter but gave up 10 walks along the way.
Now that the season is over, do any of the insiders have info on things that went on during the season, like the extent and reason for KJ's injury, the illnesses impact, etc?
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- Batavia
I did hear that the inside story is that the injury did contribute to his reduced control/strength and increase in turnovers.
I'd be fine with UConn, Marquette, or Creighton but don't think there's been enough consistency from the rest of the Big East to feel comfortable scheduling for multiple years. Villanova/St John's need to be good for a few years to want them on the schedule. The objective of non-con scheduling should be to face teams that either winning moves us up or losing doesn't move us down.
I'm on board. This is great! Marquette would be a great yearly opponent.
I personally prefer Kansas. We have Missouri in St. Louis, then Kansas one year in Chicago then the next in Kansas City.
So why did KJ turn the ball over so much before the injury?
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
KJ turned the ball over too much. Still had the highest win share of any Illini freshman ever though. It’s wild that KJ just had the best Illini freshman season we’ve ever seen, yet many fans talk about him as if he wasn’t any good.
All that may be true. I was just asking why he turned the ball over so much before his injury too. Never said he was not a good player.
how is that measured? Was WinShare a thing back during the Brown/Williams years, or was it retroactively attributed by using game film/stats?
Well you can go do the math yourself, he averaged more TOVs after the injury, it's not really close.
Anyway, you take an 18 year and make them the engine of a power conf college team, they are gonna turn it over a lot. Demin is another freshman PG, had virtually same turnover rate without the whole injury part.
Edit: For S&G, KJ had a lower TOV rate this season than RayJ Dennis did as a senior at Baylor... so perspective, I guess
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He was always a high TO player, no one's claiming it was always gonna be 1-2 a game .... it's just it got drastically worse after the injury.
The shooting also took a pretty hefty hit (free throws included).
It was just that the first 2.5 months of the season.
blackdog
- Champaign
And he was driving left and finishing left a lot before the injury but that all went away afterwards. I can't even remeber a single time he finished with his left hand after coming back. He was basically gutting it out playing with one hand for half the season when it probably would have been in his best interest to shut it down.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
One note: Frank Williams didn’t play his freshman year. I have no idea how or if that’s factored in.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
I believe they’re just using the first season he played as his freshman season:
Frank Williams College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
Frank Williams - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more
www.sports-reference.com
Kasparas had a better eFG% and averaged more points, assists, and rebounds as a freshman than Frank Williams averaged over his career:
Kasparas Jakucionis College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
Kasparas Jakucionis - Stats, Game Logs, Splits, and much more
www.sports-reference.com
Sad so many fans didn’t get to enjoy his play this year.
Yeah, not to take away from the original point (it still stands), but the only of these players who had similar circumstances to KJ his freshman year was Ayo (you could maybe argue Trent). No one else was really asked to come in and shoulder the load that KJ was right off the bat... which may make his season all the more impressive.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
I think a lot of the angst about KJ comes from our perceived need for him to be all-everything in one lone season. If he were returning, we’d all feel much better about his freshman season because we’d be excited about his potential growth as a sophomore and beyond.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
And KJ still had a much better freshman season than Ayo.
KJ:
eFG%: 51.9%
Points: 15.0
Rebounds: 5.7
Assists: 4.7
Ayo:
eFG%: 50.1%
Points: 13.8
Rebounds: 4.0
Assists: 3.3
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