Illini Basketball 2025-2026

Status
Not open for further replies.
#626      
IlliniFan42
EmeraldCityIllini said:
Ya but we’re not making it to the tournament as a 16 seed lol

If we’re continually a 8,9,10,11 then id feel different.
Click to expand...
On the one hand, true. On the other hand, we were in as a #1 seed which apparently has a 40% chance and still didn't.

Under Brad we've been the following seeds: 1, 4, 9, 3, 6. The chance of us never making the Final Four with that combination is (1-40.1%) * (1- 8.1%) * (1- 1.16%) * (1-11.1%) * (1-3.5%) = 46.68%. The tournament can be a crapshoot, but from seeding alone we're more likely to have made at least one Final Four than none at all with that stretch.
 
#627      
EmeraldCityIllini
IlliniFan42 said:
On the one hand, true. On the other hand, we were in as a #1 seed which apparently has a 40% chance and still didn't.

Under Brad we've been the following seeds: 1, 4, 9, 3, 6. The chance of us never making the Final Four with that combination is (1-40.1%) * (1- 8.1%) * (1- 1.16%) * (1-11.1%) * (1-3.5%) = 46.68%. The tournament can be a crapshoot, but from seeding alone we're more likely to have made at least one Final Four than none at all with that stretch.
Click to expand...

Sooo the point is bites at the apple don’t matter?
 
#628      
NarrowJ
EmeraldCityIllini said:
Sooo the point is bites at the apple don’t matter?
Click to expand...

I think he has unknowingly explained exactly how bites at the apple works... or else he already knew and just wished to dismiss it with the 16 seed example

He presented correctly that seeds of 1, 4, 9, 3, 6 give you a chance of NOT making a F4 of 46.68%

Said another way... (which imo makes more sense), those seeds give you a 53.32% chance at making a F4

His next exercise would be:

What happens to that percentage when we go to a 6th tourney as a 4 seed?

Final exercise:

What about a 7th tourney as, lets say, 2 seed? Then what is the percentage?
 
#629      
doowink
lstewart53x3 said:
Robert pointed out in his latest basketball article that Dusty May once was a student manager for Bobby Knight and wanted the Indiana job.

Could you imagine if Indiana hired May and they were #1 in both football and basketball right now?

www.illiniboard.com

Where Do We Stand? December 18th

The return of basketball NERDstats! 43% of subscribers just said "hurray!" 57% read this intro and didn't click on the post because NERDstats aren't their thing. Which is fine. They weren't my thing for a long time, either. But now that I've caught the NERDstats bug, there's no going back.
www.illiniboard.com www.illiniboard.com
Click to expand...
Sad Jim Carrey GIF
 
#630      
IlliniFan42
NarrowJ said:
I think he has unknowingly explained exactly how bites at the apple works... or else he already knew and just wished to dismiss it with the 16 seed example

He presented correctly that seeds of 1, 4, 9, 3, 6 give you a chance of NOT making a F4 of 46.68%

Said another way... (which imo makes more sense), those seeds give you a 53.32% chance at making a F4

His next exercise would be:

What happens to that percentage when we go to a 6th tourney as a 4 seed?

Final exercise:

What about a 7th tourney as, lets say, 2 seed? Then what is the percentage?
Click to expand...
Yeah basically I'm saying I get why people are upset when the math says we have a slightly better chance to have made it to the Final Four than not by now, and that if we continue to not make it, then we continue going against what the math says should happen.

There's only so many bites of the apple you can take before you've gotta stop and wonder why you don't feel any less hungry.
 
#631      
BretMyBeachHouse
NarrowJ said:
I think he has unknowingly explained exactly how bites at the apple works... or else he already knew and just wished to dismiss it with the 16 seed example

He presented correctly that seeds of 1, 4, 9, 3, 6 give you a chance of NOT making a F4 of 46.68%

Said another way... (which imo makes more sense), those seeds give you a 53.32% chance at making a F4

His next exercise would be:

What happens to that percentage when we go to a 6th tourney as a 4 seed?

Final exercise:

What about a 7th tourney as, lets say, 2 seed? Then what is the percentage?
Click to expand...
I don't think you read him correctly. There's nothing unwitting about it. He took those numbers and said we were better than 50% chance of going to a final four. It's a simple calculation. A sixth year would put the percentage just over 57% for going to a FF.

Of course that past is past and doesn't impact the odds this year.

It's an interesting way of looking at performance to seed. Cumulatively.
 
#632      
NarrowJ
IlliniFan42 said:
Yeah basically I'm saying I get why people are upset when the math says we have a slightly better chance to have made it to the Final Four than not by now, and that if we continue to not make it, then we continue going against what the math says should happen.

There's only so many bites of the apple you can take before you've gotta stop and wonder why you don't feel any less hungry.
Click to expand...
BretMyBeachHouse said:
I don't think you read him correctly. There's nothing unwitting about it. He took those numbers and said we were better than 50% chance of going to a final four. It's a simple calculation. A sixth year would put the percentage just over 57% for going to a FF.

Of course that past is past and doesn't impact the odds this year.

It's an interesting way of looking at performance to seed. Cumulatively.
Click to expand...

I can assure you that I do not believe going to previous tournaments increases our chances “this year”… the exercise is meant to show that the more you go to the tournament, and the higher seed you get, the better chance you have at making a run. Our past seeds somehow magically factoring into this season is not the argument anyone is making with the whole bites of the apple thing.

If coach A goes to 5 tournaments in 5 seasons as a 1, 4, 3, 9, 6 and coach B goes to 3 tournaments in 5 seasons as a 5, 8, 7: which coach do you think has a better chance of going to a F4 within said 5 year timeframe?

Also: one of these coaches is Brad and the other is another different coach that a lot of people have said they wish we had instead.

Does this track for you guys now? I was not insinuating any black magic or voodoo whatsoever.
 
Last edited:
#633      
BretMyBeachHouse
NarrowJ said:
I can assure you that I do not believe going to previous tournaments increases our chances “this year”… the exercise is meant to show that the more you go to the tournament, and the higher seed you get, the better chance you have at making a run. Our past seeds somehow magically factoring into this season is not the argument anyone is making with the whole bites of the apple thing.

If coach A goes to 5 tournaments in 5 seasons as a 1, 4, 3, 9, 6 and coach B goes to 3 tournaments in 5 seasons as a 5, 8, 7: which coach do you think has a better chance of going to a F4 within said 5 year timeframe?

Also: one of these coaches is Brad and the other is another different coach that a lot of people have said they wish we had instead.

Does this track for you guys now? I was not insinuating any black magic or voodoo whatsoever.
Click to expand...
We agree. I just didn't get why you said "unknowingly ". I thought he absolutely knew what argument he was presenting.
 
#634      
Bigtex
Let's not forget after beating #1 seed Illinois, how did Loyola look in their loss to #12 Oregon St?
 
#635      
21ChampaignSt
NarrowJ said:
I can assure you that I do not believe going to previous tournaments increases our chances “this year”… the exercise is meant to show that the more you go to the tournament, and the higher seed you get, the better chance you have at making a run. Our past seeds somehow magically factoring into this season is not the argument anyone is making with the whole bites of the apple thing.

If coach A goes to 5 tournaments in 5 seasons as a 1, 4, 3, 9, 6 and coach B goes to 3 tournaments in 5 seasons as a 5, 8, 7: which coach do you think has a better chance of going to a F4 within said 5 year timeframe?

Also: one of these coaches is Brad and the other is another different coach that a lot of people have said they wish we had instead.

Does this track for you guys now? I was not insinuating any black magic or voodoo whatsoever.
Click to expand...
You're attacking the wrong point. What he is saying is that from a statistical probability standpoint, we should have made the Final Four by now based on the seeds we've had. We've "beat the odds" by not making it. I actually think this is an interesting way of looking at post season performance that I hadn't thought of before.

So now, your argument should be that the odds were roughly 50/50 that we would've made the Final Four by now. A coin flip. So it's not a major indictment on BU for not making it. And based on our past performance, it's reasonable to extrapolate that over the next however many years, we'll have a 50% chance of going to a Final Four, which is pretty good.
 
#636      
NarrowJ
21ChampaignSt said:
You're attacking the wrong point. What he is saying is that from a statistical probability standpoint, we should have made the Final Four by now based on the seeds we've had. We've "beat the odds" by not making it. I actually think this is an interesting way of looking at post season performance that I hadn't thought of before.

So now, your argument should be that the odds were roughly 50/50 that we would've made the Final Four by now. A coin flip. So it's not a major indictment on BU for not making it. And based on our past performance, it's reasonable to extrapolate that over the next however many years, we'll have a 50% chance of going to a Final Four, which is pretty good.
Click to expand...

Yes that was absolutely going to be my next argument if that was what he was saying, so shame on you for beating me to it 😁

I think if we want to present this not converting a 53% chance of making a F4 as a drastic failure... that's very difficult to agree with. There is no guarantee with 53%, so as you said, it is little more than a coin flip, so you can choose to either:

A) Go "aw shucks" and then realize the fact that we're doing exactly what we need to be doing in order to reach a F4, and continue to offer support to the team in the way of... idk.. buying tickets, going to games, contining to cheer for the team

or

B) Sit on your hands and be angry and type your many criticisms into a tiny box on IllinoisLoyalty.com and hit 'Save'

Having conversations like this where folks try to present reasonable arguments based on actual math/numbers/facts and then have it spun umpteen different ways feels a lot like:

Cashier: That'll be $19.99
Customer: Here's a $50 bill
Cashier: This $50 bill looks counterfiet
Customer: oh haha my bad here's a $27 bill
Click to expand...

I just feel there is a consistent attempted gaslighting that being optimistic has no place with the current state of Illinois basketball.

Conversations about firing Brad that are justified with strawman "are you saying I am not allowed to air my concerns?"... nobody is saying that, but do we need to fire him? Can we fire him, even if for some crazy reason Josh wanted to do so (he does not)? I honestly don't know if he has a clause in his contract re: being fired for or without cause, etcetera, and we also have to have a conversation about a $26M buyout for a coach that we just gave a big contract to a few months ago.

Accusations of optimists as "being happy with the status quo" which is an implication that we do not want to advance in the tournament, we do not want to do anything more than what we've done to date. I think if you asked anyone on here if they want to win a NC, the answer (I hope) would be a resounding, all caps, "YES".

Ideas are misrepresented as "the figure it out in February and get hot late methodology" which is another strawman where I just don't think anyone on here has proposed that losing games is some great strategy.

I just don't understand the constant persuasion that exists here for optimistic people to be angry and miserable. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to head down to STL and scream my g.d. head off on Monday.
 
Last edited:
#637      
CrazyIlliniLady
NarrowJ said:
Yes that was absolutely going to be my next argument if that was what he was saying, so shame on you for beating me to it 😁

I think if we want to present this not converting a 53% chance of making a F4 as a drastic failure... that's very difficult to agree with. There is no guarantee with 53%, so as you said, it is little more than a coin flip, so you can choose to either:

A) Go "aw shucks" and then realize the fact that we're doing exactly what we need to be doing in order to reach a F4, and continue to offer support to the team in the way of... idk.. buying tickets, going to games, contining to cheer for the team

or

B) Sit on your hands and be angry and type your many criticisms into a tiny box on IllinoisLoyalty.com and hit 'Save'

Having conversations like this where folks try to present reasonable arguments based on actual math/numbers/facts and then have it spun umpteen different ways feels a lot like:



I just feel there is a consistent attempted gaslighting that being optimistic has no place with the current state of Illinois basketball.

Conversations about firing Brad that are justified with strawman "are you saying I am not allowed to air my concerns?"... nobody is saying that, but do we need to fire him? Can we fire him, even if for some crazy reason Josh wanted to do so (he does not)? I honestly don't know if he has a clause in his contract re: being fired for or without cause, etcetera, and we also have to have a conversation about a $26M buyout for a coach that we just gave a big contract to a few months ago.

Accusations of optimists as "being happy with the status quo" which is an implication that we do not want to advance in the tournament, we do not want to do anything more than what we've done to date. I think if you asked anyone on here if they want to win a NC, the answer (I hope) would be a resounding, all caps, "YES".

Ideas are misrepresented as "the figure it out in February and get hot late methodology" which is another strawman where I just don't think anyone on here has proposed that losing games is some great strategy.

I just don't understand the constant persuasion that exists here for optimistic people to be angry and miserable. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to head down to STL and scream my g.d. head off on Monday.
Click to expand...
I'm with you. Living life as an optimist is just a better way to go, in my opinion. Sometimes, I'm disappointed for a day or two, but usually, I get past that quickly and begin to look forward to the next game. I'd still rather be a "glass half full" kind of person, even when some friends accuse me of "drinking the orange kool-aid. For me, there's just no pleasure in dwelling on the negative. I will also add that I supported firing both Weber and John Groce, so I'm not a blind optimist...I just haven't even come close to believing that we'd be better off firing Brad (yet). Talk to me again if we miss the tournament a couple of years running, but being an optimist, I don't believe there's any chance that's going to happen.
 
#638      
OrangeKrush1981
Pessimists and optimists tend to be less happy than are realists, I believe surveys show. Pessimists are unhappy about stuff as their baseline; optimists find themselves disappointed when outcomes don't match their expectations. Realists (if they are accurate in their perceptions, ha ha!) feel a bit better about the world than do the other two groups.

How's about that for pedantry? :)
 
#639      
Fighter of the Nightman
IlliniFan42 said:
Yeah basically I'm saying I get why people are upset when the math says we have a slightly better chance to have made it to the Final Four than not by now, and that if we continue to not make it, then we continue going against what the math says should happen.

There's only so many bites of the apple you can take before you've gotta stop and wonder why you don't feel any less hungry.
Click to expand...
I also think some of this should be subjective. 2021 doesn't need any further narrative, so let's skip that one.

- We didn't just "not make the Second Weekend" in 2022. To even get out of the First Round, we needed a last second shot to beat #13 seed Chattanooga. We scored just 54 points, and we trailed every single second of that game until there were 45 seconds left in the second half! We then lost to an admittedly very good and arguably under-seeded Houston team, but even during our mini, midgame comeback, we didn't exactly look "jazzed" out there.

- 2023 likely also doesn't need much narrative, but I think a lot of us still had a fool's hope that we would come out gunning after an incredibly frustrating THIRD loss to Penn State in the BTT. Instead, that team doubled down on its identity and played one of the most uninspired games I can remember for an Illini team (given the talent and the stakes), and we never even tied the game again after it was 2-2.

- I have no complaints about 2024. Even the 30-0 run vs. UConn seemed so bizarre and fluky, and the Huskies were admittedly an absolute juggernaut that plowed through everyone in their path that year. It's difficult and subjective to assign too much of the credit for what got us here - incredible team chemistry, TSJ playing with an incredible passion given the urgency, the team responding to TSJ with extra motivation, etc. However, it would be crazy not to give Underwood and Co. a lot of credit!

- Then we have last year. I'll admit I was super impressed with how we came out vs. Xavier, but we also seemed to live up to the same frustrating "back-and-forth" pattern of that team when Kentucky came up. The Kentucky loss reminded me a LOT of the 2023 Arkansas loss, where our fake comebacks never really threatened to turn the tide, and we didn't exactly look pumped up from the get-go.

TL;DR

Other than 2024, it really does seem to me like we have been unprepared for Tournament play. I think it might have been being overly tight and nervous in 2021 given the lack of NCAAT experience, it might have been angst in 2022 after the Loyola debacle, the 2023 team was a mess all year, the 2025 team was like a better version of that ... not sure. However, that is one thing I think it is totally fair to critique from Brad's teams so far, they have rarely come out playing their best basketball when it's win or go home, with 2024 being the very, very awesome exception.
 
#640      
BalloonsTheElephant
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I also think some of this should be subjective. 2021 doesn't need any further narrative, so let's skip that one.

- We didn't just "not make the Second Weekend" in 2022. To even get out of the First Round, we needed a last second shot to beat #13 seed Chattanooga. We scored just 54 points, and we trailed every single second of that game until there were 45 seconds left in the second half! We then lost to an admittedly very good and arguably under-seeded Houston team, but even during our mini, midgame comeback, we didn't exactly look "jazzed" out there.

- 2023 likely also doesn't need much narrative, but I think a lot of us still had a fool's hope that we would come out gunning after an incredibly frustrating THIRD loss to Penn State in the BTT. Instead, that team doubled down on its identity and played one of the most uninspired games I can remember for an Illini team (given the talent and the stakes), and we never even tied the game again after it was 2-2.

- I have no complaints about 2024. Even the 30-0 run vs. UConn seemed so bizarre and fluky, and the Huskies were admittedly an absolute juggernaut that plowed through everyone in their path that year. It's difficult and subjective to assign too much of the credit for what got us here - incredible team chemistry, TSJ playing with an incredible passion given the urgency, the team responding to TSJ with extra motivation, etc. However, it would be crazy not to give Underwood and Co. a lot of credit!

- Then we have last year. I'll admit I was super impressed with how we came out vs. Xavier, but we also seemed to live up to the same frustrating "back-and-forth" pattern of that team when Kentucky came up. The Kentucky loss reminded me a LOT of the 2023 Arkansas loss, where our fake comebacks never really threatened to turn the tide, and we didn't exactly look pumped up from the get-go.

TL;DR

Other than 2024, it really does seem to me like we have been unprepared for Tournament play. I think it might have been being overly tight and nervous in 2021 given the lack of NCAAT experience, it might have been angst in 2022 after the Loyola debacle, the 2023 team was a mess all year, the 2025 team was like a better version of that ... not sure. However, that is one thing I think it is totally fair to critique from Brad's teams so far, they have rarely come out playing their best basketball when it's win or go home, with 2024 being the very, very awesome exception.
Click to expand...
The Office Thank You GIF
 
#641      
MDchicago
EmeraldCityIllini said:
Houston made a final four without playing a single digit seed, Purdue played an 11 seed in the final four, and got gifted a St. Peter’s in the S16 (which they blew) - this is the bites at the apple thing. I legit think we missed the tournament for so long fans forgot how this thing works. The way some of us wear the Loyola game on our sleeves is bizarre - we lost to a nine seed (improperly) and we act like that’s never happened in the history of the sport.

The Duquesne “break” was interesting, because we got screwed over to begin with the committee moved BYU to a 6.

The “lame attitude” seems to be a common sentiment. Do you believe fans who are pro Brad think this is the ceiling or do you think there’s further context there?

If the season ended today, we are what? No worse than a 5 seed? I swear I’d think this team was 5-6 with all losses to bottom feeders
Click to expand...

For all the flack Brad gets after a tough loss, for perspective it is useful to remember that:
- Lou Henson made the tournament 57% (12 of 21 years) of the time at Illinois (Brad: 75% to date with Covid credit, ~9% edge adjusting for tournament size);
- Lou lost to a lower seeded team in the tournament 67% of the time (Brad: 40% to date),
- Lou had six painful first round exits (50% of tournament appearances; 5x as higher seed). Brad: has one first round exit (losing to a higher seed) (20% of tournament appearances to date).
i- Lou and Brad have both made Sweet 16 or better 14% of the time (Lou: 3 of 21; Brad: 1 of 7 opportunities to date) at Illinois

Lou: Successful rebuild that ended with 1 conference championship, 1 Elite 8, and 1 Final Four, and a lot of wins over 21 seasons. Now has the court named after him and is in the Colllege Basketball Hall of Fame.

Brad: Successful rebuild with 1 (2*) conference championship and 1 Elite 8 in 8 seasons (7 tournament opportunities) to date, with the program well=positioned as a perennial top 25 team and conference title contender.

Not saying Brad is better than Lou or vice versa, but the comparison is a reminder that the journey is not easy, and that success requires a great job at the things you can control and often also depends on good fortune in the things you cannot (injuries, matchups, officiating, bounces of a ball). Which is why I subscribe to the multiple bites at the apple mentality, and think that while there always is room for improvement, Brad and Josh have us better positioned than most to have those opportunities. Rooting for Brad, the team and some good fortune along the way, starting next Monday!
 
#643      
NarrowJ
Saying we had to win on a last second shot vs Chattanooga doesn't really rattle me, look at the other tournament game results where very good teams do not scrape out a win versus pesky teams like Chattanooga obviously was. Much worse things have happened to much higher seeds... Loyola game was awful but I recognize they were 10th in KP or whatever... losing to little bro hurts, but they were a good team and we know it happens sometimes.

I am not even disagreeing we were unprepared in some games, I absolutely agree - my memory of the Loyola game is players looked tight and scared

We have:
Lost to 8 as 1 (Loyola)
Lost to 5 as 4 (Houston)
Lost to 9 as 8 (Arkansas)
Lost to 1 as 3 (UConn)
Lost to 3 as 6 (Kentucky)

I think sometimes, in the NCAA tournament, teams just lose... one team has to go home. The only thing I really see as a common denominator in these games is that we lost them, that's it, really.
 
#644      
Battle89
lstewart53x3 said:
Robert pointed out in his latest basketball article that Dusty May once was a student manager for Bobby Knight and wanted the Indiana job.

Could you imagine if Indiana hired May and they were #1 in both football and basketball right now?

www.illiniboard.com

Where Do We Stand? December 18th

The return of basketball NERDstats! 43% of subscribers just said "hurray!" 57% read this intro and didn't click on the post because NERDstats aren't their thing. Which is fine. They weren't my thing for a long time, either. But now that I've caught the NERDstats bug, there's no going back.
www.illiniboard.com www.illiniboard.com
Click to expand...
Sounds like a nightmare scenario, the only thing worse would be if say Michigan were the beneficiary...wait

1766164599694.png
 
#645      
Fighter of the Nightman
^ I totally get that great Power Conference teams lose to Mid-Majors all the time, and at the end of the day ... a win is a win in March Madness! I'll never complain about any win that keeps us alive, regardless of how we get there. I am more remembering how we played as far as the eye test, and it was NOT good. And it's not like Chattanooga played THAT well, either, we just looked so bad for the vast majority of the game, haha.
 
#646      
RockfordIllini
Fighter of the Nightman said:
^ I totally get that great Power Conference teams lose to Mid-Majors all the time, and at the end of the day ... a win is a win in March Madness! I'll never complain about any win that keeps us alive, regardless of how we get there. I am more remembering how we played as far as the eye test, and it was NOT good. And it's not like Chattanooga played THAT well, either, we just looked so bad for the vast majority of the game, haha.
Click to expand...
In fairness, the 22 team was wracked with injuries and was pretty much a shell of itself by the time the tournament came around. If memory serves several members of the team came down with pinkeye during the first weekend, with Trent having a particularly severe case. But the real loss was Grandison. He was such a connector on offense that when he hurt his shoulder we were never really the same team.

Also, for as bad as our Loyola draw was, getting Houston, who finished second in KenPom, as a 5(!) seed may have been worse. Believe we were a pretty heavy underdog as a 4 seed which should tell you all you need to know.

EDIT: Go pull the KenPom data from 22. It really is jarring to look at. 1s, 2s and 3s all across the top 10, only outlier being Houston.
 
#647      
Curbelo Fanboy
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I also think some of this should be subjective. 2021 doesn't need any further narrative, so let's skip that one.

- We didn't just "not make the Second Weekend" in 2022. To even get out of the First Round, we needed a last second shot to beat #13 seed Chattanooga. We scored just 54 points, and we trailed every single second of that game until there were 45 seconds left in the second half! We then lost to an admittedly very good and arguably under-seeded Houston team, but even during our mini, midgame comeback, we didn't exactly look "jazzed" out there.

- 2023 likely also doesn't need much narrative, but I think a lot of us still had a fool's hope that we would come out gunning after an incredibly frustrating THIRD loss to Penn State in the BTT. Instead, that team doubled down on its identity and played one of the most uninspired games I can remember for an Illini team (given the talent and the stakes), and we never even tied the game again after it was 2-2.

- I have no complaints about 2024. Even the 30-0 run vs. UConn seemed so bizarre and fluky, and the Huskies were admittedly an absolute juggernaut that plowed through everyone in their path that year. It's difficult and subjective to assign too much of the credit for what got us here - incredible team chemistry, TSJ playing with an incredible passion given the urgency, the team responding to TSJ with extra motivation, etc. However, it would be crazy not to give Underwood and Co. a lot of credit!

- Then we have last year. I'll admit I was super impressed with how we came out vs. Xavier, but we also seemed to live up to the same frustrating "back-and-forth" pattern of that team when Kentucky came up. The Kentucky loss reminded me a LOT of the 2023 Arkansas loss, where our fake comebacks never really threatened to turn the tide, and we didn't exactly look pumped up from the get-go.

TL;DR

Other than 2024, it really does seem to me like we have been unprepared for Tournament play. I think it might have been being overly tight and nervous in 2021 given the lack of NCAAT experience, it might have been angst in 2022 after the Loyola debacle, the 2023 team was a mess all year, the 2025 team was like a better version of that ... not sure. However, that is one thing I think it is totally fair to critique from Brad's teams so far, they have rarely come out playing their best basketball when it's win or go home, with 2024 being the very, very awesome exception.
Click to expand...
You are spot on. Each of Brad's 5 tourney elimination losses have been double digits or near so (Ky last year was a 9 point game). We haven't gone out "with dignity" in any of those games. The Loyola, Houston & UConn games were all basically over at the 10 minute mark of the 2nd half (UConn sooner than that). And as you said in the AK & KY games we never really mounted a serious charge.

Each of those games kind of gave the look of a team that was 1. overwhelmed from early in the game & 2. didn't exactly go down with a tough fight. That is part of why some of the regular season losses we've seen cause more frustration. They at times seem to be the continuation of a pattern that we've seen often under Brad.

Admittedly a single elimination tourney is a fickle business. Lot's of good coaches have experienced a string of bad/embarrasing losses in the tourney. Some have eventually changed that narrative. Lute Olsen had the rep of a choking dog at AZ until Miles Simon & Mike Bibby arrived. Then they won a title & played for another one in a 4 year span. Narrative shifted. In another sport, Marty Schottenheimer was by all measures a good NFL coach but his best teams always came up lame in the playoffs. Thus he earned the narrative that he couldn't deliver when it mattered. I use these examples to say narratives can change but the only way it changes is by making consistent long runs in March and/or winning a title.
 
#648      
bigcityillini
Curbelo Fanboy said:
You are spot on. Each of Brad's 5 tourney elimination losses have been double digits or near so (Ky last year was a 9 point game). We haven't gone out "with dignity" in any of those games. The Loyola, Houston & UConn games were all basically over at the 10 minute mark of the 2nd half (UConn sooner than that). And as you said in the AK & KY games we never really mounted a serious charge.

Each of those games kind of gave the look of a team that was 1. overwhelmed from early in the game & 2. didn't exactly go down with a tough fight. That is part of why some of the regular season losses we've seen cause more frustration. They at times seem to be the continuation of a pattern that we've seen often under Brad.

Admittedly a single elimination tourney is a fickle business. Lot's of good coaches have experienced a string of bad/embarrasing losses in the tourney. Some have eventually changed that narrative. Lute Olsen had the rep of a choking dog at AZ until Miles Simon & Mike Bibby arrived. Then they won a title & played for another one in a 4 year span. Narrative shifted. In another sport, Marty Schottenheimer was by all measures a good NFL coach but his best teams always came up lame in the playoffs. Thus he earned the narrative that he couldn't deliver when it mattered. I use these examples to say narratives can change but the only way it changes is by making consistent long runs in March and/or winning a title.
Click to expand...
Comes down to a simple question. Whenever Illinois plays a team of superior or equal talent… how does that typically look? March is when things get exploited… good coaches notice a weakness and exploit it (hello porter moser). It’s not a crap shoot that some people on here make it out to be. If it was… then we wouldn’t see the same faces all the time come March.

It’s sorta like in pro baseball in October when the rotations shorter and micro managers come to play. You can’t convince me that every single elimination tournament is a luck fest.
 
#649      
Curbelo Fanboy
bigcityillini said:
Comes down to a simple question. Whenever Illinois plays a team of superior or equal talent… how does that typically look? March is when things get exploited… good coaches notice a weakness and exploit it (hello porter moser). It’s not a crap shoot that some people on here make it out to be. If it was… then we wouldn’t see the same faces all the time come March.

It’s sorta like in pro baseball in October when the rotations shorter and micro managers come to play. You can’t convince me that every single elimination tournament is a luck fest.
Click to expand...
There is an element of luck involved. But in a tourney that requires 6 games to win, most every champion is going to have one game (or more) where plan A coming into the game doesn't work. The coaches that can "shift on the fly" or come up with some new wrinkles in that short turn time in between games are the ones that give their teams a wider window in which they can win games.

An example I can think of is when Utah w/ Ric Majerus upset defending champ Arizona in 1998 in regional final. Majerus was a tactical whiz & implemented a triangle and 2 defense to stop Arizona's duo of Miles Simon & Mike Bibby. You could tell Arizona was in deep doo doo five minutes into the game. They had no clue what to do against that defense. The game was basically over at half time. An extreme example but definitely a case where the coach essentially won the game for his team.

Those moments don't come up often, but when they do the difference is noticeable. To date, IMO, Brad has not shown the ability to adjust on the fly when plan A doesn't work. Or if he is adjusting it's not coming quick enough or effectively enough to pull the game out of the fire.
 
#650      
kyillinifan
Illini Tx Tech bball game is Big Ten network. We win. Kirk drove the ball in the first half.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back