Illini Basketball 2026-2027

#458      
Illini in Indiana
IMO, we'll be fine and have a great year with a Nati chance.

But, there always seems to be a need for some struggles to bring a team together, and get others playing time to see who will contribute later.
 
#459      
Curbelo Fanboy
Mirk being out perhaps dragging into the early part of real games may prove to be a blessing in disguise in the long run. Leadership might need to come from somewhere else for a bit. Might see someone emerge who can take the reigns & then we find another leader to lean on later in the year.

Also it may leave Mirk a bit fresher at the end of the year. Say he plays 30 games by hopefully early April. That would be 6,7, 8 fewer than most everyone on any teams still left.

I thought last year at the end (Iowa & UCONN) we looked like a tired team. I think that was part of the shooting struggles. I'd like to see us find just a bit more bench depth during the season & his absence might force that a bit. Then he is just that marginal bit fresher at the end of the year. If you play in April every little bit adds up.
 
#461      
RandyfromTuscola
Curbelo Fanboy said:
Mirk being out perhaps dragging into the early part of real games may prove to be a blessing in disguise in the long run. Leadership might need to come from somewhere else for a bit. Might see someone emerge who can take the reigns & then we find another leader to lean on later in the year.

Also it may leave Mirk a bit fresher at the end of the year. Say he plays 30 games by hopefully early April. That would be 6,7, 8 fewer than most everyone on any teams still left.

I thought last year at the end (Iowa & UCONN) we looked like a tired team. I think that was part of the shooting struggles. I'd like to see us find just a bit more bench depth during the season & his absence might force that a bit. Then he is just that marginal bit fresher at the end of the year. If you play in April every little bit adds up.
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I agree that any rest over a long season can help in general, but I think it's more about lingering injuries than conditioning and normal recovery. These guys are in the best shape of their lives and beyond playing in a full Big Ten Tournament or an NCAA play-in game, everyone is playing the same amount of games as everyone else. I think it also comes down to Brad dividing minutes in the 2nd half to make sure guys aren't drained from playing in a 6 or 7 man rotation. I think those factors are a bigger impact for looking or feeling tired, unless we can point to lingering injuries that just need weeks/months to heal.
 
#462      
HensonHall71
Curbelo Fanboy said:
Mirk being out perhaps dragging into the early part of real games may prove to be a blessing in disguise in the long run. Leadership might need to come from somewhere else for a bit. Might see someone emerge who can take the reigns & then we find another leader to lean on later in the year.

Also it may leave Mirk a bit fresher at the end of the year. Say he plays 30 games by hopefully early April. That would be 6,7, 8 fewer than most everyone on any teams still left.

I thought last year at the end (Iowa & UCONN) we looked like a tired team. I think that was part of the shooting struggles. I'd like to see us find just a bit more bench depth during the season & his absence might force that a bit. Then he is just that marginal bit fresher at the end of the year. If you play in April every little bit adds up.
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I appreciate you are doing silver lining here - but this is the time we should be working on being connected on defense, knowing where your teammates will be, setting rotations and roles and none of that is really progressing with Mirk out.

It seems the team knows it’s going to be another 4-6 weeks or at least logic would suggest so (2 weeks in the boot, ramp up practicing again for 2 weeks, conditioning for games another 1-2 weeks). Which means he’ll miss TTech, Duke, UConn- so the real shame is we won’t get to truly measure ourselves against them and we likely aren’t beating Duke or UConn without Mirk.

Now the task is the find the best version of ourselves without him. Unfortunately the lineup we started against Baylor (if that truly is the lineup Brad thinks are our starters right now, which I think he did) simply can’t rebound. Jake at the 4 with Ethan at PG and Tomi at C are just not competitive on the glass. It’s a silver lining that Baylor punked us on the boards because it shines a glaring light on that. QC is the only position we’ll win rebounding wise.

I honestly think starting QC, Vaaks, Lincoln, Andrej and Tomi is our best lineup right now. It gives us enough defense and rebounding while the offense will still have no problems scoring
 
#467      
Dr Copejam
Det_Illini_fan said:
Has there been any health updates from Andrej and the Twins? Are we confident injuries from Friday night are minor? Likely won’t play against UIC sure, whatever. But good to go from a season standpoint?
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Waiting GIF
 
#474      
Fly Illini Fly!
RandyfromTuscola said:
If we go to back-to-back final fours and even with a national title, is there a reason why Mirk, Tomi, Z, Stojakovic, and dare I say Jake Davis don't make it in the rafters? I can understand the first reaction to that, but considering all of those guys would be starters or significant contributers on 2 final four teams and led to a national title, we may see everyone up in those rafters.
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The official constraints are:

• Consensus 1st or 2nd team All American

OR

• B10 player of the year

You'll need to accomplish one of those two, barring an exception like TSJ.
 
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