I don’t think it was something we excelled at.
Illinois was 232nd in free throw attempt rate.
Only 19.2% of our total points came from free throws, which was 215th in the country.
Illinois 101, UIC 66 (Exhibition) Postgame
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Illinois was 232nd in free throw attempt rate.
Only 19.2% of our total points came from free throws, which was 215th in the country.
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
My observations
1. Cross court passes will be stolen by good teams. Picking up bad habits in exhibitions
2. Morillo and Vaaks are easily picked in traffic. They need to tighten their handles. Andrej shows this trait as well but has improved.
3. Jaksys cant shoot free throws.
4. Coleman is a stud. Will continue our streak of 1 and done.
5. Brown is very nice surprise.
6. Vaaks defense is as bad as everybody said. He appears to be trying hard but lacks athleticism. 6th man shooter role may be where he stays.
7. Despite UIC being terrible program we often barely beat them and even lost 2 times. Nice to see our backups put them away early and maintain 30 point victory margin
1. Cross court passes will be stolen by good teams. Picking up bad habits in exhibitions
2. Morillo and Vaaks are easily picked in traffic. They need to tighten their handles. Andrej shows this trait as well but has improved.
3. Jaksys cant shoot free throws.
4. Coleman is a stud. Will continue our streak of 1 and done.
5. Brown is very nice surprise.
6. Vaaks defense is as bad as everybody said. He appears to be trying hard but lacks athleticism. 6th man shooter role may be where he stays.
7. Despite UIC being terrible program we often barely beat them and even lost 2 times. Nice to see our backups put them away early and maintain 30 point victory margin
That’s fair.
If you watch a Deron Rippey Jr., Colben Landrew, and Burries (AZ last year)… all freshmen who not only pressured the rim but also finish / draw fouls / kick out.
Teams like UConn love to close out hard on the 3pt line. Need to be able to use their momentum against them and get to the rim.
I see why Tomi often sits corner or wing to lure the Ngongbas, Hines, Thiams etc. away from the basket. But he needs to improve back to being a 35% shooter like 2025 to make the 5-out a credible offense against top 10 opponents.
Keaton scored nearly 50 at Purdue for arguably our best win of the season outside vs. Houston (in HTX).
I think the solve for all of this is for Mirk to take on his Cam Boozer esque role for this team. I hope we have him back for UConn.
TTU is very beatable. Saw their exhibition vs. Kentucky. Lots of stagnancy in their offense without Toppin.
Duke is a freebie. They’ll like be ranked #1 so we lose nothing for a true road loss. Beating a Top 5 UConn with Mirk back on a neutral court could be the crown jewel in an attainable 15-0 midseason streak before we play MSU.
I would echo the point that I don’t really like this offense fully. I hope Brad is keeping some cards up his sleeve for TTU / Duke / UConn. I imagine that is the case.
Many times our players trap themselves along the baseline, get doubled, and make a bail out pass to the nearside wing or sweep it to the opposite corner. Better teams will easily trigger TOs in these situations.
If you saw our game vs. UConn in the Final Four towards the end, we basically were spamming Keaton ISO. He shot 2/10 from 3.
It’s hard to judge off exhibition and without Mirk. But it would be great to see more PnR action to set up easier advantages for our main scorers.
Maintaining a low turnover rate would be my #1 skepticism/priority with this new offense.
Illinois was 8th in lowest turnover rate last year. It was a massive reason for our success.
When you turn it over, you waste shot opportunities to score / get offensive rebounds, which lowers the chances of being an elite offense.
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An exhibition for a valley team, so not really here to mock game plans.
But at this point, I think if you decide to trap Illinois defensively, you’re just DOA.
The Houston game will stick with me for a long time on that front.
But at this point, I think if you decide to trap Illinois defensively, you’re just DOA.
The Houston game will stick with me for a long time on that front.
I still have nightmares about Robo Krepps, whoever the hell that was.
We had a #5 pick in the draft (who was selected over more athletic/speedy guards with better handles in Acuff, Flemings and Burries for his processing ability) running the offense. Keaton brought up the ball and orchestrated the offense 80-90% of that game.
Keaton was a cheat code. He broke full court pressure by Michigan and UConn and then orchestrated the best half court offense in the nation as a near 20-pt per game scorer alongside 5 boards and 5 assists.
You saw what happened to UConn when they lost Castle, Clingan, Newton, and Spencer. You saw what happened to Florida once they lost key pieces of their 2025 Natty squad. You're already seeing Michigan get blown out by Houston with their top 3 players (Cadaeu, McKenney, Thiam) all playing at full speed/health.
I don't think we'll know what this team really is until Mirk is truly back to a full 100 with a 5-10 games under his belt. That may coincide with when our brutal B1G stretch kicks off with games against the LA teams plus MSU. But till then I don't think we'll be able to say how this team holds up against last year's Final Four team led by the best processor and off-the-dribble shooter in the country.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
The offense is honestly the least of my concerns.
I was thinking of Jack Krapp (didn't he play at UIC?)
I don't disagree. We'll be able to win with our offense alone against sub top-20 teams. I worry about the Sweet 16-esque matchups (i.e. playing top 16 ranked teams like a Duke, UConn, MSU). This program isn't worried about marquee non-conference wins or Big 10 titles. We have those in droves. We have 2 second weekend appearances since 2005. We've gone 3-2 in 2nd/3rd weekend games in those 2 apperances losing to the same program. We're trying to add 4 such wins this season, i.e. outpacing what we cumulatively yielded in our 2 most recent appearances.
This offense is 0-3 against UConn with another crack a month away. UConn has lost Tarris Reed and Solo Ball, two All-American caliber players. Insiders are saying Mirk should likely be back by that game. Let's see how the offense looks then.
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He had a heck of an explosiveness rating IIRC.
LouHenson
- Naples Florida
Big Z is my biggest concern. Really he is probably the key to how good we can be. With his athleticism he should be a terror on the inside? Blocked shots and dunks will tell the story for him this year, not 3’s? Our defense is not good, but he could make up for a lot of our deficiencies if he would only learn how to use his skills?
The lack of progress he’s shown after an offseason and full year is concerning.
Is he injured? We should not be giving up 40 pts in the paint to Cinci and Baylor. Exhibition or otherwise.
I understand he’s a backup center. But he was near unplayable vs. UConn in the Final Four. Nothing in the exhibitions showed any progression from that version of him.
We really needed a step up from our returning college veterans to plug the Mirk-sized hole in our November / early December campaign.
Defense will differentiate us from a dark horse final four candidate vs. a real national title contender.
I am feeling a hybrid of 2024/25 and last year. everyone green light on transition from rebounding, conditioning and passing. increase the pace, increase fast break points, tire out the defense. the difference is we can then go halfcourt chess match with mirk , the passing and shooting and limit turnovers and fouls.
see you in the final four again. after that I'm not sure. just hope
Ethan brown is our annoying old school Wisconsin player who torches you quietly but then drinks your tears
see you in the final four again. after that I'm not sure. just hope
Ethan brown is our annoying old school Wisconsin player who torches you quietly but then drinks your tears
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JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
- Chicago
He is not and that's the nice thing. It also tells you Brad sends guards/wings to NBA. If Vaaks were with us last year, he would have likely already been in NBA. He can only be better than KJ IMO and KJ is not bad at all.
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I agree. You cannot replace Keaton. But by all accounts, he has very good handle and that's part of the reasons he is not afraid of pressure defense.
Bigtex
- DFW
To get dunks he has to spend sometime in the lane.
LouHenson
- Naples Florida
Yep and I wish he would do that
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