Illini Basketball 2026-2027

#201      
mysterio2525
Fly Illini Fly! said:
Right. Plummer averaged 14.6/2.5/1.1

I think Vaaks should be around 14/4/4.

.....

Vaaks should average 14 without much of a stretch, IMO.

At Providence, he averaged 2.9 3PM / 2.0 2PM / 3.0 FTM (per game).

Now, those FTM and 2PM are actually pretty low (especially 2PM). His skill set won't be very downhill-oriented, but Kylan, KJ, and Keaton were all significantly ahead in their time here.

But still, if we take those same numbers and just adjust the 3PM to 2.4 (because his attempts will be a lot lower) we get:

(2.4 * 3) + (2.0 * 2) + (3.0) = 14.2 points per game.

If things really take a leap he could be in the 15-16 range.
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I think you are right on it.... the big question is he taking the shots with the shot clock running down because he has the ball? Keaton did that a ton and made a lot early but missed many of them late or would drive into the lane make things work. that's who we need vaaks to be. may hurt his shooting percentage but gives us the safety net. I'm sure mirk will help with that as well
 
#204      
wc_illini
wc_illini said:
New theory: players generally improve (on average) throughout their career, but maybe the adjustments to a new system (on average) cause a step back in year one?
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Our incoming transfers (excluding those jumping up a level) had a lower 3pt% regardless of how many years they had played at their prior school:
>1 year: 257-707 (36.4%) -> 293-857 (34.2%). This is Bos, Guerrier, Mayer, TSJ, Plummer
1 year: 146-449 (32.5%) -> 77-277 (27.8%). This is Stoj, Z, Booth, White. Smaller sample size, but a big enough difference for it to likely be meaningful.

Our outgoing transfers (excluding those going down a level) had a lower 3pt% if they had played >1 year at Illinois, but improved if they had played only one year:
>1 year: 205-576 (35.6%) -> 175-521 (33.6%). This is Hawkins, Goode, Melendez, Grandison, and Curbelo
1 year: 127-391 (32.5%) -> 242-719 (33.7%). This is White, Epps, Clark, and Miller

Since sample sizes (number of shots and number of players) are getting small here, I also looked at the stats combining both the incoming and outgoing transfers:
>1 year: 462-1283 (36.0%) -> 468-1378 (34%)
1 year: 273-840 (32.5%) -> 319-996 (32.0%)

That's some support for the idea that transferring may cause a (bigger) step back for guys who had grown accustomed to their prior team, but someone would want to look at lots more transfers across lots more teams to really know anything.
 
#205      
the juiceman cometh
wc_illini said:
I made a mistake in these calculations. They should be:
Season | Transfers' aggregate 3pt% change from prior year | Team 3pt attempt rate
2020-21 | +3.6% | 30.0
2022-23 | -2.1% | 41.9
2023-24 | -1.9% | 38.6
2024-25 | -6.2% | 47.2
2025-26 | -8.3% | 49.7

Or, if you want to exclude players coming from non-power conferences:
2020-21 | +2.5% | 30.0 |
2022-23 | -2.1% | 41.9
2023-24 | +2.7% | 38.6
2024-25 | -6.7% | 47.2
2025-26 | -8.3% | 49.7

These look even more correlated with our 3pt attempt rate except for 2023-24. And while the sample sizes are small, some of the differences are large enough to still be meaningful. For this past season, there's an 87% chance that the difference isn't due to variance, and 88% for the prior year's class. There's only a 60% chance that variance doesn't explain why the 2023-24 transfers shot better.
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This is such a weird pseudo-mathy thing to do. You're counting the variation between how a class of transfers did elsewhere to here as if it's the same player/same team year over year, when it's actually the exact opposite. If the increased number of attempts was causing our team 3pt% to go down, you'd see this same correlation in the team 3pt% year over year. I used attempts per game instead of rate because I couldn't find the rate stat you used.

Year | 3pt% | Attempts per game

2019-20 | 30.9% | 18.3
2020-21 | 37.3% | 17.5
2021-22 | 35.9% | 24.9
2022-23 | 30.8% | 24.7
2023-24 | 34.9% | 23.1
2024-25 | 31.3% | 30.1
2025-26 | 34.5% | 30.6

In fact with some of the transfers in, you have their 3pt% going down on fewer attempts. Stojakovic is one example. Big Z another (125 attempts at UK the prior year, to just 100 with us). Obviously when you have fewer attempts, you have increased variability for that particular player. Fewer attempts also means reduced impact on the overall team's percentage, particularly when the team's attempts increase, but that particular player's attempts are decreased.
 
#206      
Illini 993
I wonder what the 3 %s are at the SFC compared to other arenas? Some arenas seem to have softer rims than others - maybe our rims are tighter comparatively. I did a brief look, but didn't find those stats, other than going game by game (which would take more time than it's worth for me.)
 
#208      
BretMyBeachHouse
the juiceman cometh said:
The bigger problem even than sample size is correlation/causation. What is your hypothesis as to why players are shooting worse here, only over the last two seasons? What changed at that point? And how does the fact that Big Z shot fine until more than halfway throught the season fit into that hypothesis.

My guess is 2 seasons was not chosen for any reason other than that it fit the narrative you wanted to advance, which is that transfers coming in invariably get worse at shooting 3s (except for the one that didn't) and therefore we should be skeptical that Vaaks will do well.
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I'm agnostic on this issue. I'm willing to accept just random statistical anomaly.

However, your "What changed at the point?" comment is pretty obvious. The team started launching 3s at a much higher rate. I'm not sure what other aspects of the offense changed. But there was a noticeable change on how many threes we were taking. I'm not sure the impact of that on the percentages. Perhaps none.

As I've joked before, we have a high powered offense. The last thing we need is players screwing it up by making 3s.
 
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