The thing I see in DGL is he is the type of small quick athleric guard that can score on a ll leveks and while he may ir may not be there completely l yet is the kind of guard that has caused us lots of issues in the past staying in front of. Just see the end of the Tennesses game l, Tony perkins types or others. Its good to have him in practice to challenge and he has and will step up in some games on both ends of the court. He will get better and help his teammates to as well.
Illinois 117, Chicago State 64 Postgame
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RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
No one is disputing that the decade before Ayo the Illini were down — way down. And no one is disputing that Ayo was the player whose decision to attend the UI sparked the current revival. At odds are Ayo’s place in the overall pantheon of Illinois basketball — “the house that Ayo built.”
Paralleling your argument, people forget just how down Illinois was between the 89 Flying Illini team and Lon Kruger’s renaissance. By comparison, the trio of Sergio McClain, Marcus Griffin and, most importantly, Frank Williams choosing the Illini was the “Ayo moment” of that period. Two decades before that, Derek Harper was the Ayo of the day. History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it sure rhymes.
Finally, it’s very short sighted to say that Henson rebuilding the brand in the 80s didn’t help us get where we are today. That’s like saying your existence has nothing to do with your great-great grandfather getting it on with your great-great grandmother. I have no idea where we’d be now if not for Henson — good or bad — but where we are right now is most certainly the offshoot of his 20 year efforts.
True in some systems but winning/losing doesn't technically matter with Kenpom, at it's core what matters is how many points you're scoring and giving up per 100 possessions on offense and defense. There are weights for recency and SOS but Indiana didn't drop because it was a closer win, they dropped because they shot 5% from three and 66% from FT (offensively inefficient).
Indiana's inefficiency is why they're in the mid 50's in Kenpom despite being 10-3, while Illinois floats around 20 at 9-3 and you have teams like Arizona that are 6-5 but ranked in the mid 20's. Arizona isn't getting penalized for their losses because they're losing efficiently.
Sorry, but not comparable at all. In the 7 seasons Lou had after the 89 Final Four, we still only missed the tourney 3 times and one of those was due to NCAA ban. Lon's first season before any of the Manual trio showed up we made the tourney and finished with a top twenty ranking.
Then consider Ayo committed to us fall of 2017. We hadn't made the tourney 5 straight years. We had the made the tourney only 3 times in the previous 11 years (!). Not to mention we were in the middle of one of the worst seasons in program history (finished 14-18..yuck).
Those Manual guys took us over the top as a program, especially with Self. But you're doing Ayo a disservice in comparing the program they committed to, to the one Ayo took a chance on.
The topic of conversation is taking away from the legacy of many really, really, really good players. When you talk about the greatest (greatest!) guys to play here, no one's over another for me... extremely happy to have watched them all.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
Yeah, you're absolutely right, wins and losses technically don't matter. I knew I would get dinged on that. But the thing is, you have a whole heck of a lot higher chance to be inefficient against a semi-decent team like Winthrop vs. an awful team like Chicago State. Scheduling Winthrop in the current system is largely a lose-lose proposition.
Bigtex
- DFW
where would you put Oakland? I prefer the decent mid-majors vs the Chicago St. Illinois has done well against nonconference non Power 5.
No one's taking away from any legacies here lol Just giving Ayo his credit for committing to the beloved at literally the worst point in our program since the early 70s.
Yeah sure, Assembly Hall/SFC might not literally be the house that Ayo built....but he sure as hell was the one that chose to renovate it and rebuild it after an almost decade long disaster when almost no one else would.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
I love Greg Kampe and want to support him. Plus, there's a utility to playing his incredibly awkward zone. But you better believe last year's game hurt our offensive efficiency numbers at the time (even if we obviously made up for it later in the season). It's a balancing act. Brad's been pretty open about scheduling to game the current system and I appreciate his candidness on the topic.
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Who is Bam???
Oh come on
Would he make them winning 74-72, one and one, where two free throws put it away? Or down 72-71? It's one thing to step up there when up 40. It's a other when you're on national.TV, the game on your shoulders and 15,000+ screaming at you.
That has to be a consideration late in games. Heck, Chris Collins went after Tomi in a tied game with a minute to go. Tomi split, which was a big, big deal.
We have a couple of guys in our squad that could be considered a target with MJJ being at the very front of the line.
And who is TJ? Okay, I know who that is. But when did we start abbreviating from TSJ to just TJ? After all, the “J” is for Junior, right? Why would we use that for his abbreviated name? Just doesn’t make sense to me, but what do I know (which I seem to say more and more often these days)?
Kylan Boswell
TJ is the nickname that his teammates and coaches called him.
There is Bam and also there is BAM from years ago…..
So many guys have been program changers for us. How bout Frank,Sergio and Marcus brought to you by Lon Kruger.
Yes good point. Not sure what the thought process was on scheduling Chicago State generally, seems like with scheduling tune up games we have a weird habit of scheduling teams that are a year removed from a crazy upset (Chicago state beat NW last year, Oakland beat KY last year, FDU the year after they upset Purdue).
That is besides the point and may be a total coincidence. It seems like most of these kinds of games are usually scheduled around some kind of administrative/coach relationship vs. having some preseason aim for the outcome, but I'm far from an insider and only speculating here.
DGL's minutes are definitely going to pick up
You had me until here
Michigan started the day at 20 and moved up to 11 by beating the snot out of a Western Kentucky team that started the day at #116.
Beat any team by more than you're expected to and you move up. Beat any time by less than you are expected to and you'll drop. It's pretty simple.
In 2022, we beat #301 UT Rio Grande Valley by 9 points and dropped 8 spots (from 15 to 23). It's not some foolproof formula. You just need to outperform the algorithm's expectations.
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