What are his personal traits that bug you? The leggings? Like the ones KJ wore? Is there anything else? I stand by my stance that the majority of opinions formed about Hamer are seeded by one prominent poster and the rest of us, except for a few, have no clue what he does or doesn’t provide for the program, with or without the mythical and magical hold he has over the head coach.
I don't know about everyone else, but I come here mostly to listen to the insiders. I appreciate what they have to say because they know a lot more than I do about the current state of Illini athletics.
The only way in which one prominent poster seeded my personal opinion about Hamer was by confirming that Hamer was in charge of the defense: A defense which was not evolving to meet challenges; not effective against many teams' style of play; and which appeared to cost us several close games.
Hamer is just the scapegoat and yes the blame is on Brad. You can't fire a coach with a top 20 offense year in year out but you can fire a defense coordinator, and hopefully find a better one to fix the defense. I know it's different but happens all the time in football.
The only cupcake game i want scheduled is an IL compass or I 74 - I 57 team. The one with a Q1 or Q2 projection. Portal watching.
All fair points and I do agree that tempo plays a big part of it. But again, I feel like watching that team, it was pretty clear there were some significant defensive deficiencies. And again, I do concede that a big part of that is personnel...that can't be completely overcome with scheme. But coaches are paid big money to figure out how to minimize that as much as possible.
In NCAA football you can have up to105 players. In basketball you can have 15. The HC isn't delegating to nearly the same degree.
I just want to point out that a lot of NBA teams have started drastically limiting the amount of drop coverage they play and a lot of teams switch it up and play even less drop coverage in the playoffs. Go watch the Celtics vs Raptors series a few years ago if you don't believe me.
Literally the best GIF everY'all still beating this poor, dead horse?
Do the same with either or Louisville/Kentucky
The defense was a roller-coaster ride just like the season. Second year together should smooth things out.
I agree with you b/c I kind of hate drop coverage but sometimes you have to play drop due to personnel. I am NOT convinced that Tomi is best suited for hedge. But both of them are probably better than switch all for us due to the fact that really bombed in 2023-2024.
Why not both? I’m sure staff was waiting for the warriors season to end to bring him on board.
As noted, the defense was top 40 KenPom. But I think the more important observation is that defense is also chemistry related, and last years team had ZERO time playing with each other previously, and then during the season, they had limited opportunities to practice defense as a unit because one or more were often sick or injured. Lack of practice translates to limited numbers of schemes done well that can be used in games. It was late in the year before they started mixing coverages on the PnR. Top 40 was not terrible under the circumstances and I think a lot of the criticism was overdone.
Stop the drop coverage period is what I would prefer. Hard hedge and get back. Hold up the the ballhandler, even if it's just temporarily. That's what everyone does to us and it's been very effective. Don't know why we haven't figured out an answer for it yet.
I think Tomi could hedge just fine. I watched several other teams use it this year with slower centers get by with it. The key is staying in the passing lane as they get back.
Per earlier in the thread by 0440:
I think you hit on something vitally important here, so I'm going to double down on it.
Last year, yes. Two years ago the primary core of the team was intact from the year before (less Domask). I think that is why it was so surprising that the team two years ago was so bad defensively...luckily the offense more than made up for it and carried the team to an E8. I expect the offense to be much better this coming year as well. If the defense steps up even marginally from this last season, then we should see better results.
