IlliniKat91
- Chicago, IL
It was mentioned in the post game thread when someone asked why Curbelo didn't play the second half.
Illini Basketball
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Torch me but I think Underwood will prove he can recruit but is not that great of a coach. He was severely outcoached last year against Loyola, barely squeaked by Chatanooga and got run by Houston. He had a stud last year in Ayo, who is playing very well in the NBA this year and an all-American in Kofi this year and could not get to the sweet sixteen. You can make excuses all day long about luck, etc. but at some point the coach has to look in the mirror.
Unfortunately not EVERYONE could play. He was meh when he was in.
Ok not going to “torch you” and I understand why you would say this. BUT
Underwood has a B1G championship (should be 2 really), a BTT Championship and he’s got the most B1G wins over the past 3 years.
And it’s a complete turnaround from what he inherited.
So this things certainly point to being a great coach IMHO. And they are more important to me than a single game against Loyola or Houston.
or you don't read enough into it. Especially after your remarks about Goode and Melendez not being ready for tournament play. I guess we will see. If you're right and Podz stays I will admit you were right . Will you do the same if he leaves?
OMG this is ridiculous. Reminds me of the IHSA who used to make us officials be "uniform police" and DQ people for having improper uniforms. At least IHSA has eliminated stupid jewelry and uniform rules (for track).
Illini in Indiana
- Indiana
I agree completely. We now have a highly competitive teams especially in the B10.
IMO, the B10 does not play the same game as other conferences. As an analogy, we line up against another B10 team and we both do what we do and the best team/play wins. Underwood is winning that game in the B10.
In the NCAA tourney
It goes down as a more scramble game and the best/hottest team/guy wins. Who can make a play, get a steal/turnover/rebound/..... We need to be more of a run/iso/press team in the future if we want to compete in the NCAA tourney. But, understand that comes with a 12-8 B10 record and a 5th place finish and a 6-10 seed in the dance.
Look at the B10 performance in the last 20 years, I don't think I'm crazy
Underwood is a great coach/recruiter, and I'd love to see him say for 10 more years. IMO, if he leaves he goes pro
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While I agree that this 1st weekend hump is now something BU needs to prove he can get over, I encourage you to take look at Underwood's resume as a head coach.
As someone else mentioned, maybe he's another Gene Keady. Does well in the BIG, but is only so-so in the NCAA's. I'm not going to say he's great, like others have, I'm not sure he doesn't get out coached. When Illinois lost this season, they looked terrible and they lost to teams they shouldn't. Underwood has to figure that problem out.
Collection of parts that never jelled into playing well together as a team.
As someone said earlier, they're still waiting for this team to peak.
They never seemed consistently adept at having Kofi pass out of the post, or having penetrators that either dished to Kofi or passed to an open three-point shooter.
As someone said earlier, they're still waiting for this team to peak.
They never seemed consistently adept at having Kofi pass out of the post, or having penetrators that either dished to Kofi or passed to an open three-point shooter.
In fairness DMW and Plummer beat their man off the dribble they just don't do anything with it. I saw DMW beat his man and he never looked to scored. Plummer did it and scored and got fouled in the Chat. game and yesterday got his shot blocked.
The NCAA is such a chicken
outfit in spite of the money in play.Here is my thoughts as to why the Big 10 has struggled. Albeit, I will start with the caveat that the BIG 10 has been very good in the tournament since the last championship in 2000. I do not believe the narrative that we are an inferior conference when it comes to the tournament.
Having started with that….. we have been very bad the last two years. I do believe that while we have very good college players, we do not produce enough NBA guys. True studs that can carry a team. That is a little of the problem.
For me the biggest detriment to us is that we bludgeon each other over the course the Big 10 season. The 20 game schedule, to me is the culprit. The Big 10 has no gimme games, especially on the road. While I think a great argument can be made that the Big 10 challenges teams and prepares them for the tournament, I also think the coaches and players are physically worn down.
I would like to see something similar to the football side. Two different sides of the conference. East and West or whatever it was called. Each team plays the other in their side of the conference twice (home and away) and then everyone on the other side of the conference once. Now, hang with me for a second. That only chops the big ten schedule down by 1 game, but it does two things.
1. It allows the Big 10 Tourney to start on Tuesday with the top 8 teams. Semis on Thursday and Championship on Saturday. Helping with fatigue.
2. It allows us the opportunity to schedule (hopefully) a marquee game in mid to late January against another power 5 team. Still a great game, hopefully in a great environment. It is a little break from the mental grind of being in the Big 10. It is fun to go up against Kansas, Gonzaga, Alabama, etc.
So for me, the 20 game schedule and the subsequent tourney schedule does more harm than good leading into the big dance.
Thoughts?
Having started with that….. we have been very bad the last two years. I do believe that while we have very good college players, we do not produce enough NBA guys. True studs that can carry a team. That is a little of the problem.
For me the biggest detriment to us is that we bludgeon each other over the course the Big 10 season. The 20 game schedule, to me is the culprit. The Big 10 has no gimme games, especially on the road. While I think a great argument can be made that the Big 10 challenges teams and prepares them for the tournament, I also think the coaches and players are physically worn down.
I would like to see something similar to the football side. Two different sides of the conference. East and West or whatever it was called. Each team plays the other in their side of the conference twice (home and away) and then everyone on the other side of the conference once. Now, hang with me for a second. That only chops the big ten schedule down by 1 game, but it does two things.
1. It allows the Big 10 Tourney to start on Tuesday with the top 8 teams. Semis on Thursday and Championship on Saturday. Helping with fatigue.
2. It allows us the opportunity to schedule (hopefully) a marquee game in mid to late January against another power 5 team. Still a great game, hopefully in a great environment. It is a little break from the mental grind of being in the Big 10. It is fun to go up against Kansas, Gonzaga, Alabama, etc.
So for me, the 20 game schedule and the subsequent tourney schedule does more harm than good leading into the big dance.
Thoughts?
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
And yet he has beaten teams coached by Painter (not this season but before), Izzo, Coach K, Brey, and Beilein.
Are you kidding me, Houston is the type of team that gives most teams in the country fits. We needed to be hitting our threes and take care of the ball, which neither happened. We did play fairly good defense but could have been better on the glass. Thats not on the coach. We had a hit our threes and feed to Kofi offense which was basically dictated by our personnel and their abilities. I think Brad did a great job this year with everything that befell this team. For a program and fans that has waited several years for a Conference title as well as a Conference Tourney
title, both of which Brad has given us there seems to be a lot of sour grapes out there. I hope we can keep him here till he is ready to retire.
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I think the jury is still out on this, but agree that the past couple of appearances are a bit of a concern.
This year was rough, especially offensively, with no Jake and Trent with one eye. Teams could just take their chances double/triple teaming Kofi, clog the lane and hope we don't make threes. Plummer was our only real deep threat, and he was just 5-15 from three in the two games.
Also, do we think we've actually seen 'his' style of play yet? Or an ideal execution of that style?
I don't know that he's had his ideal roster to date. this has been a rebuild, a successful one for sure (see the past 3 yrs) but a rebuild nonetheless.
This has been building to get what we got this year and in the coming years and I think this teams style of play will look dramatically different in the coming years.
Zorak
- Naperville
That's a damn good starting five. I hope we get to see it.
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IceCuban
- San Tan Valley, AZ
The TCU/Arizona game from last night really illuminated this. TCU looked like power lifters compared to (almost) anyone we have, and it showed against a very good Arizona team. We were carved up by teams with more athleticism, especially when that was at the wing position. Not to mention Houston put us away with high percentage mid range jumpers, something we rarely utilized this year.
LubbockIlliniFan
- Savoy, IL
Jaden Ivey, Jonny Davis, EJ Liddel, Malakai Branham, Keegan Murray will all be in the NBA next year...
Maybe, but we're talking about Underwood, not other coaches. If we want we can include Underwood's NCAA tourney record - he hasn't advanced any further than the second round for each basketball program he has coached. This isn't to say he's deficient. It's simply a way to say that if there was a roundtable of coaches where the topic was player development in preparation for tournament time there's a good chance Izzo would say some golden nuggets that Underwood - and any coach within the Big Ten - would benefit from. Izzo has been there and done that more than once.
Izzo isn't a perfect coach. No one saying he is. What's being implied is that he has some idea on how to advance within the NCAA tournament. If I counted correctly he's done it 14 times. On the other side of the coin he failed 10 times where he didn't advance beyond the Round of 32; three of those ten Michigan State finished 2nd or higher in conference play.
I agree. Underwood is a good coach. I think within a few years the Illini will finally advance beyond the Round of 32. Hopefully when Underwood reaches Izzo's age that coaching record will have more orange highlights than not as an Illini coach than somewhere else. If there's anything I get from Underwood record is that he knows how to get most out of his players during conference time even when talent isn't the best (mostly pointing to Stephen F. Austin tenure). It also seems he knows how to "rebuild" a program (see: Illini). The question is can he do it post-season. That's a fair question.
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GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
If that's the case then how did B1G teams make the NC game so many times? They beat plenty of good teams with good, quick athletes to get there. People are putting way too much stock in winning it, and not enough into what it takes to actually even get there. Fact is it's just bad luck (or bad reffing in our case) that a B1G team hasn't broken through yet.
I agree. Kofi is such an interesting challenge for a coach. You can't deny the obvious gifts he gives you as a coach. You also can't deny the obvious deficiencies he has. The good FAR outweighs the bad. We just never had guys who complimented him well. If we had shooters out there, we struggled to defend. If we had our best defense out there, we struggled to score.
Moving forward, I would expect our lineup to look al lot more like the team that showed us the exit ramp yesterday than one built around a dominant post player.
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