Illini Basketball 2026-2027

SCDerby said:

I havent posted much but i was kinda reading how situation will develop for our guys and at least for me, this is very concerning change, even bigger than some injuries from recent time. Article mentioned Miami Heat as an example for that and it caused them to have good offense but once teams scouted it, they couldnt buy a bucket or even defend decently despite having some really good defenders.

This is such a predictable gimmick offense that will fail spectacularly once teams adjust when games that actually matter which will happen most likely in March. Dont get me wrong, you will still run some weaker teams out of the gym and win a lot of games but i dont see this as a good thing. Playing fast sounds nice but its like everything in basketball, game of give and take. If you wanna win the whole thing, this isnt the way, this most likely put you on upset alert coming March.

Let me try to explain why, you will start playing high pace, 5-out basketball, score a lot of points and cause defensive chaos early on because you will be harder to scout and other teams wont really have time or personel to focus on multiple threats who could go off each night. It will be nice watch, especially against less talented opponents, with that no-ball screen heavy movement offense. It will work wonders on less talented players that will develop and help them make plays and make them look better by putting pressure on opponents. It will come handy in spring when NIL money becomes a factor.

If you watched Miami last season, you know what happened. Without ball screens to create separation, their drivers often collided into wall-off paint coverages. This led to a ton of bricked shots and bad spacing. Because Heat was playing at such an exhausting pace, these bad misses turned into long rebounds and immediate track meets going the other way, testing already bad transition defense. Opponents ran directly down the Heat's throats. Playing a "zero-play" offense requires continuous, almost frantic cutting and re-spacing from all 5 players. When opponents adjusted, Miami’s players lacked the stamina to maintain both that offensive pace and their standard, high-energy defensive closeouts. They looked slow out on the perimeter, giving up big scoring nights to elite ball-handlers and scoring guards who feasted on lazy, delayed contests that came out of fatigue. In the end, like i mentioned above, silver lining from last season from Heat were exactly those players nobody expected to do as good - Jaquez and Pelle Larson while their "stars" struggled to find real chemistry and faced some chemistry and injury issues between them.

This is when things get interesting. When only option to gain offensive advantage is off-the-dribble, your best players will tend to overdribble and take contested shots late in the clock once they face decent defenders. You'd think it would be hard to stop and would require some generational defensive plan but it wont take that much. Teams will stay home on shooters and wont over-help from the wing defenders, just stunts. Some teams will be sagging one-on-one coverage against Andrej, without getting beaten off the dribble (easier said than done, but the some teams will have the right personnel), and late paint help by their bigs - only when the Illini drivers commit for the lay-up. As a result, the primary weapon of every drive and kick offense - the kick for a 3-point shot - will be limited. The ball wont move as good as you would like, and most of the shots will be tough, off the dribble, and contested.

Whole Larry Bird comp they threw at David Mirkovic is just poor and wont age well. Not because David isnt talented but because its just limiting his game to ISO basketball and drive & kicks. Guy that showed his versatility and ability to be used on multiple ways such in PnR as both handler and roller, pop threat, cutter, elbow and post threat, as well as offensive rebound threat is exactly what made him ranked so high and dangerous players in preseason despite not even playing in preseason because of injury. Simply said, this smells like mismanagement.

Rebounding might also become an issue for you guys, despite having size this could kill opportunities for offensive rebounds. OREBs helped you guys win some games and possession battles that ended up going in your favor. Because this offense weaponizes a 5-out style to pull opposing bigs out of the paint, when shots go up your players will also be spaced out, but not like it was last season. On the defensive glass, running at such a high tempo will force cross-matches in transition. Instead of traditional box-outs, your guards and wings will be often caught trying to check larger players on the block. Coleman is already elite rebounder for a guard, but you cant rely on him as a freshman to check bigger players night after night w/o getting in foul trouble. This could lead to rebounding troubles that will make some games that could be seen as "easy" on paper to become harder than expected.

In (not so) short, the no-ball-screen offense requires a serious physical tax. Once the easy buckets dry up, Illini might be left playing a track-style game with a roster built for a half-court basketball that eventually led them to success. True, there are no Wagler anymore but most of the other players are there from same run and probably it would require less adjustment and chemistry to build up for new offense.

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goillini30 said:

Yeah, color me skeptical as well. I much prefer using the ball screen to gain the initial advantage rather than counting on 1v1 attacks. Most of my excitement about Vaaks was getting him in PnR with a ton of space around him, but now we're not going to use ball screens? Seems like a weird idea to me, but I think the Underwoods have earned some benefit of the doubt, so we'll see how it goes.

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NarrowJ said:

An extremely frenetic paced offense does leave you vulnerable as a defense, so I agree wholeheartedly there.

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