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
Illini Basketball 2026-2027
Have we ever went into a season caring who exactly the #9thman would be?
His 3pt attempts per game.
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.
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.
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.)
Well it doesn’t top neck size.
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.
One problem with that theory is that it would affect the whole team, not just transfers. But between 2022-23 and 2023-24 we took roughly the same amount of 3s but our overall 3pt% went up by over 3.5%. Similar thing happened between 2024-25 and this past season. We take 12 more threes a game now that we did in 2019-2020, at a much higher percentage.
Another problem is that some of the transfers whose percentage went down took a lot fewer 3s here than they did at their previous schools. So under that theory their personal 3pt% should have gone up. But it didn't.
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Too much over thinking on 3 point percentage jinx theory. Relax folks… every year brings new things!
10:50 — fine breakdown.
I’d absolutely co-sign Vaaks being the X factor. A lot depends on whether he can be that ball-in-hands maestro.
I’d absolutely co-sign Vaaks being the X factor. A lot depends on whether he can be that ball-in-hands maestro.
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
I don’t think that was a stupid drawn out pointless debate?
But my memory also sucks.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
We had a multi-day discussion on the 9th man and as important as whether or not one of our freshman can give us 6 minutes and 2 points off the bench is, what concerns more is… defense.
Will we have an historically good offense again next year? Hard to say. But it’ll definitely be top 5, which is good enough to win a lot of games.
But defensively we might struggle. We were a good, not great defense last year and we lost 3 of our top 5 defenders off that team (Boswell, Keaton, and Ben). We’re now replacing them with two freshman (QC and Morillo), along with a sophomore who was one of the worst defenders on one of the worst defenses in the country (Vaaks).
What gives me hope for the defense next year is the returners. Year two in Crocker’s system should pay dividends. Could see both Andrej and Mirk taking big steps forward.
To me, defense is the biggest question mark going into this season.
Will we have an historically good offense again next year? Hard to say. But it’ll definitely be top 5, which is good enough to win a lot of games.
But defensively we might struggle. We were a good, not great defense last year and we lost 3 of our top 5 defenders off that team (Boswell, Keaton, and Ben). We’re now replacing them with two freshman (QC and Morillo), along with a sophomore who was one of the worst defenders on one of the worst defenses in the country (Vaaks).
What gives me hope for the defense next year is the returners. Year two in Crocker’s system should pay dividends. Could see both Andrej and Mirk taking big steps forward.
To me, defense is the biggest question mark going into this season.