Illinois 105, Minnesota 97 Postgame

number1IlliniFan said:

Can we talk about Ty? Not his best game. They didn't even guard him when he was away from the rim. Anybody know his +/- tonight? Not sure he had 5 minutes in the 2nd half. Starts every game tho?

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Yeah. Also, he has so little confidence in his ability to score. It seemed like two or three times he had the ball within a foot or two of the basket and tossed it out to a three point shooter who missed the shot.

I noticed on defense in the second half he was guarding Mitchell and sagging in help side defense. He turned his head putting his back to his man, lost him, Mitchell shifted took a pass and drilled a 3.

Ty has the talent and has improved so, so much but the game still seems a bit fast for him.

21ChampaignSt said:

In the month of February we had the #1 ranked offense in the country and the #269 ranked defense.

At this point I'm just going to marvel at the spectacular volatility and enjoy riding this atomic bomb to the fiery finish.

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Had the Dr. Strangelove queued up but @WyattEarp beat me to it.

Edit: and @Poe's Law !

illini0440 said:

Minnesota didn't hit 14 threes because our defense sucks.

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I would agree but regardless Illinois is not good on defense. Not really an argument on that one. The stats don't lie. 205th in the nation. Pretty pathetic.

According to Torvik, Brad’s defense that is designed to run teams off the 3 point line now ranks 182nd in 3pt%D.

Scheme is a problem but Brad seems too stubborn to change.

Illiniguy13 said:

You either throw a double at Marcus or threaten a double and hope the on-ball defender stays planted and doesn't fall for his crafty tricks in the paint

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But you are saying that it is impossible to guard this "type of move" without giving ground on each bump or double teaming? This really makes a defensive person at the mercy of the offensive player.

LvilleILL said:

For sure. I also wouldn't be surprised going forward as well if we see some new wrinkles-pressing a little bit or some more matchup zone

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This!!! Like I get it that we aren’t a zone team, but how about throw in a 3-2 and a 1-3-1 zone just to make the other team change their mindset. Who cares if we give up an open three. We are anyways. It’s not like going to zone then make us give up a four pointer.

It causes the other team to suddenly change their thinking for a possession and wondering will Illinois do it again.

Don’t care if we get a stop or not. Just change it up. Maybe it gets the other team out of their flow and when we switch back to man to man, maybe they’re no longer in their flow.

WeWillWhen said:

According to Torvik, Brad’s defense that is designed to run teams off the 3 point line now ranks 182nd in 3pt%D.

Scheme is a problem but Brad seems too stubborn to change.

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It's designed to limit three point attempts and it has done that, they are 5th nationally in opponent three point rate. Their problems lately have been a combination of poor 2 point defense, fouling too much, and hot shotmaking from deep from their opponents.

jamarvelous31 said:

TL;DR 7th/8th

Loosely the way the ranking works is it subtracts the AdjD from AdjO and ranks teams based on the difference.
50th is about 100 AdjD, so we'd gain ~2 pts overall for +25.32, which would put us 7th/8th between Duke & Alabama

There's more complexity to his math, but that's a decent ballpark.

View attachment 31614

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I'm surprised Pomeroy hasn't changed that formula, since he had a long article showing that offensive efficiency had about 2/3 of the control over scoring. Maybe it's baked in somewhere with the calculation of AdjOE and AdjDE (versus raw OE and DE). But if not, a more accurate measure of strength against an average D-I team would weight the offense more heavily. Something like:

(2*AdjOE + D1avg(AdjOE)) / 3
-
( AdjDE + 2*D1avg(AdjDE)) / 3

would seem more appropriate.

Actually, let's just check out what that gives. Math is easy in Excel.

I give you, the "Adjusted Adjusted Efficiency Margin" Rankings. The first 4 columns are KenPom #s. The 3rd from right is the new formula, with rankings next to it - and the last column is the difference between the new ranking and KenPom. I didn't subtract the EM numbers because I'm not sure they really represent the same thing...

We're mid 2000's Gonzaga in the WCC!!

illiniballknower said:

It's designed to limit three point attempts and it has done that, they are 5th nationally in opponent three point rate. Their problems lately have been a combination of poor 2 point defense, fouling too much, and hot shotmaking from deep from their opponents.

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Yeah and as far as 3 point percentage allowed, one less percentage point moves you up like 100+ spots. So its a very touchy statistic.

LvilleILL said:

For sure. I also wouldn't be surprised going forward as well if we see some new wrinkles-pressing a little bit or some more matchup zone

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I want to see something that, even if it gives up some open looks, does so in a manner that forces the opponent out of rhythm offensively. I get we don't force turnovers but jeez make some guys catch the ball in spots that aren't so familiar to them.
A great example I saw last night: With our ball screen drop so deep, we force Elijah Hawkins to keep the ball and get into the paint before either trying to hit a floater or dishing to the roll guy near the basket (this area will be congested but Payne caught a lot of tough passes like this - kudos to him). I want to see us, just a few times, hedge or trap Elijah and leave the roll guy wide open to catch the ball, on the move, 16 feet from the basket. ESPECIALLY if the roll guy is Parker Fox or some other player who rarely creates points that far from the hoop. The below play ends in a lob dunk for Payne because we allow the point guard to make the final decision. If we stop the ball at the SF logo, it goes to Payne in the circle and then it's on him to drive, shoot, kick, etc. It's maddening because we are getting torched again and again; and like 30 minutes before this I watched NU hold Maryland to 20 total field goals doing exactly this. And I watched Nebraska destroy Minnesota this weekend doing exactly this. And I watched Nebraska destroy Penn State two weeks ago doing exactly this.

illini510 said:

Love Underwood calling out Raphael Davis about the whole All Defensive Team discussion and then Raphael's response to that in the studio. I agree with Raphael. Top defenders don't need a double team and should be able to defend a particular player all game long rather than for stretches within a game. He subtly called out TSJ for not asking coach to defend Christie in the 1st half when he was on his heater.

I'm wondering if some of our guys have an incorrect belief in how good of defenders they are. There seems to be a disconnect. But, hey, at least TSJ and Coleman can use this as motivation to prove guys like Raphael wrong. But, he knows what he's talking about and he isn't wrong

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Why does TSJ have to ask Underwood to take over guarding Christie? Why didn't Underwood make that move after watching Christie killing us with Domask trying to guard him?

When talking about a bad defense, we have to remember that the idea is that eventually you will have an off night and get beaten or even blown out because you cant keep the other team from scoring. At best, teams have kept up with Illinois. There haven't been any blowouts this year or really any bad losses that were caused by bad defense. I would love to see some advanced stats on how Illinois stacks up with other teams in allowing open shots from all over the floor. Northwestern got REALLY hot, we couldn't hit a shot against Maryland and they shot extremely well, we shot poorly and still hung with Tennessee at their place and Marquette while still figuring out who this team really was, Penn State was bad turnovers, Purdue was tight...ect...

Sure, you could make the case that Illinois somehow makes teams shoot better with poor defense or something but the reality is that all the losses have been close and many of the wins have been blowouts or not as close as the score may seem so I dont think the defense is the issue in the end. I think Illinois has had to weather some amazing shooting nights from opponents and still make it close if not win outright anyway.

illini011 said:

Will they make an effort to make changes to the defense this off-season?

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Sincere will be back. He is maybe the best on ball defender in the country

I woke up this morning with a bad vertigo bout and just now am getting back to feeling normal........reading all the negative posts about our defense isn't helping my head , but I support every negative post about our defense....

Is our defense concerning ??..........of course it is ......any dimwit can see that.........we are giving up more PPG than ever this season.......
And it could be an issue in the NCAA tourney if we run into a hot shooting team on an offensive run..........conversely , our offense is a dynamo barreling at breakneck speed and entertaining as hell..........I remember the late reign of Weberball and the whole crisis of Gross Groce perimeter minded shoot at the end of the shot clock 30 footers and never want to relive those days ever......

We are what we are and as someone posted earlier the # 1 offense in the country for February 2024....think about that as you prepare to post another demeaning post about our defense......I still remember the 38-33 loss like it was yesterday and rejoice when I watch the Illini now perform at unheard of levels on offense..........I'll take a 105-97 win every day of the week and twice on Sundays.........

Think about how the young recruits feel about our offensive metrics and give BU and the staff some credit for instilling an up tempo pro style offense that is attractive to the 4 & 5 *'s we are recruiting.........If we were losing games by only scoring 60-70 points and our defense was giving up 80-90 PPG , I would be leading the pack crying for change.....

But , that's not what is happening right now......we are second in the B$G with 3 games left in the regular season and have our destiny before us .......Can we beat purdont at the friendly confines of SFC Assembly Hall ???.............if nebby can do it , then we can too......The game that worries me is at the idiots on the road.............should be a track meet with a hostile crowd begging for revenge...........

I get the worry about our D.....I really really do.......But I also get how fantastic our offense is........Do you ??????

JMHO....................vertigo returning big time in Paducah.......NL # 3 , HELP ..................................

derrick6 said:

4 year student manager, not quite 7 years from a bachelor degree.

Nice try cherry-picking.

A kid.

Also, he’s an assistant. Just like many of us have an assistant. You don’t give an assistant power to make big impactful decisions, you as the leader make them.

This isn’t Brad’s first bad defense either.

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I don't know who is really responsible for the atrocious defense but defending Hamer as a "kid" is bizarre and laughable. It's not like he is a 18-year-old freshman. My oldest son is 27. He is not a kid.

DocMorgan said:

I don't know who is really responsible for the atrocious defense but defending Hamer as a "kid" is bizarre and laughable. It's not like he is a 18-year-old freshman. My oldest son is 27. He is not a kid.

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Hey Doc , nice to see a post from you again.....keep posting brother.......

DocMorgan said:

I don't know who is really responsible for the atrocious defense but defending Hamer as a "kid" is bizarre and laughable. It's not like he is a 18-year-old freshman. My oldest son is 27. He is not a kid.

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Most of the players aren't kids. Quincy guerrier went to school with my grandfather

We are a frankenstein team. Very good offense at this point but somewhere we lost our defense. I suppose Brad could go back to switching on every pick when he is playing TSJ 6-7, Marcus 6-6, Ty 6-6, Quincy 6-8 and Coleman 6'10. We are strong but slow team since we don't play traditional sized guards. Remember Ty and Marcus were PF's last season. Somehow we are 21-7, 2nd in B10 and ranked 13th nationally. Compare that with the of last season - Sky leaving mid season, Matthew drinking too much red bull, Jayden pouting. This team has all the pieces. Brad must be reading the forum since he is playing is bench more. Even platooning Dain late game. The post trap worked well against MD. I hope Brad uses it more against other bigs. Keep in mind NW, Ohio State and Nebraska beat Purdue, and we are playing at home so it is possible. Lets just enjoy the ride.

Still mad about the penn state game.

forbesfrosh said:

Why does TSJ have to ask Underwood to take over guarding Christie? Why didn't Underwood make that move after watching Christie killing us with Domask trying to guard him?

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We started with TSJ on Hawkins under the (IMO, correct) theory that keeping Hawkins from flitting around all over the place and initiating their offense was the best way to slow Minny down.

illini0440 said:

Minnesota didn't hit 14 threes because our defense sucks.

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For evidence of this.

Earlier this year Minnesota played UTSA. Minnesota scored 102 points. It’s the most points they’ve scored all year. UTSA has one of the worst defenses in all of college basketball ranked 345 KenPom (out of 362 teams).

In that game, Minnesota shot 48% from 3 (14-29).

Had Minnesota shot 48% from 3 against us, we would have won this game by 24.

Minnesota’s next game could be against Holy Cross, the worst defense in all of college basketball, and they wouldn’t shoot 74% from 3.

That was the best offensive performance by Minnesota in the KenPom era. Are we the worst defense Minnesota has played in 25 years?

No, that was an insane heater that Minnesota likely won’t replicate for the next 20 years, even against sub 300 level defenses.

And WE WON. Wild.

Dan said:

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Bro Dan...

Note two weeks ago after the zPenn State vs Illini debacle, the sport scribes had the Illini on a downward spiral, near death on a trail of doom. No defense, turnovers in crunch time, etc. Now after two big wins ... the Illini are a Big Dance darkhorse. I cant trust the sports media any more.
Regarding coach BU, he gave a few clues lately on how he coaches now. 1. Top 25 bball ratings are based on scoring offence. 2. Coach BU will run up the score to get favorable top 25 ratings and ... most likely a higher seed in the Big Dance.
Just my take. Whay say you?


.

illini0440 said:

popcorn

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Well, that is disappointing. I preferred it when you said that there were some things that you were not at liberty to reveal here.

NarrowJ said:

Yes, crushed the over by 50! Crazy.

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Take the Over and you won't care so much about our defense!