Illinois 64, Oakland 53 Postgame

#101      

zentrails

Z
zentrails
Miles Leonard said:
Our defense was elite in the final 7 minutes. Oakland seems like a well coached group and Kampe was calling some great sets. They look pretty dangerous to me.

Nobody will remember that we stunk up the joint for much of this one come Selection Sunday.
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Good teams save their energy for the tougher games (KU); beat teams like Oakland without having to put out a whole lot of effort; have fun with the cupcakes (EIU) like a cat with a mouse.

I expect us to be very very UP for Tues game, nothing like tonight, more like we played against KU.
The pressure will actually mostly be on Marquette to win IMO.
 
#103      

JSpence

J
Evansville, IN
JSpence
Butters said:
??? Last year's team won their first 3 games all by 30+, then beat UCLA on a neutral court. They shot 39% from three over those four games. Do you not remember that?
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And the team before THAT won its first two games by an average of 30 points, then lost to Marquette, then won the Big Ten.

WTF kind of conclusion are you expecting to draw from the first two official games of the season? You're implying that any unranked team on the November schedule should be a blowout win, AND that we can extrapolate these results to March?? That's certifiable.
 
#104      

Miles Leonard

M
Miles Leonard
Butters said:
??? Last year's team won their first 3 games all by 30+, then beat UCLA on a neutral court. They shot 39% from three over those four games. Do you not remember that?
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In Weber's final year here we started 10-0 and were ranked #19th in mid December. Two months later, we were getting taken apart by Nebraska on our way to a 17-15 finish.

Making any conclusions two games into the season is quite foolish.
 
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#107      

Sutton_Place

S
Sutton_Place
Butters said:
Last year's team started better than this.
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houston rockets basketball GIF by NBA
 
#109      

Butters

B
Butters
JSpence said:
And the team before THAT won its first two games by an average of 30 points, then lost to Marquette, then won the Big Ten.

WTF kind of conclusion are you expecting to draw from the first two official games of the season? You're implying that any unranked team on the November schedule should be a blowout win, AND that we can extrapolate these results to March?? That's certifiable.
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I'm not drawing any conclusions about the whole season. Just talking about how they look so far. Last year's team got off to a better start. That doesn't mean this year's team will be worse all year. But they need to start playing better fast.
 
#110      

Piotyr

P
Piotyr
Shout outs to Hawkins and Guerrier, who were both much better tonight than they were Monday.

10 minutes of dominant basketball instead of 20, but nice to see them take charge to close the game. As long as they bring the same level of defensive effort from the tip next week, it'll be a fun game.
 
#111      

My2Cents

M
My2Cents
Butters said:
??? Last year's team won their first 3 games all by 30+, then beat UCLA on a neutral court. They shot 39% from three over those four games. Do you not remember that?
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My bad, I thought you said your comment after two games!!?? Also, even if Illinois wins the next ten games, or fifteen games, we won't know how good this team will be. Last years team was the least representation of "team" that I have seen In a long time. This years TEAM is already much better than last years TEAM!!!
 
#113      

Emerson Bigguns

Emerson Bigguns
Emerson Bigguns
Quincy earned his jersey tonight. He wasn’t losing to Oakland. Outstanding poise and effort down the stretch.

TSJ remembered he was the best player on the court just in time.

Ugly, but this team isn’t going to win pretty. There are a lot more 60 something to 50 something games in our future. If you’re queasy, now is the time to jump off the bandwagon.
 
#116      

hoopsfan47

H
hoopsfan47
After hearing the post-game pressers, I wish I could tell TSJr. to his face that he played a defensive game that was positively epic. It takes effort and focus, and sometimes it even hurts, but when you want to take a player out of the game in order to win, that is what you have to do....and he did it. Not sure everyone understands that you can, if you have to and have a defender with the size and quickness of TSJr., you can shut down the perimeter star of your opponent. Actually that is true of almost any player if the defender has the size, strength, quickness, and determination to do just that. TSJr. is our guy, a bigger version of Trent Frazier and Sincere Harris, and he did on the defensive end what needed to be done. CoHawk, DD, and Q stepped up to help on offense, and the Illini won an ugly game played the way Oakland wanted to play. Terrance's defense was a huge part of the reason. As I said in the middle of the week on the pregame thread, it will help his draft stock too as it is evidence that when asked, he can be a lock down defender on elite offensive shooters. Love what Terrance did tonight and what he brings and means to the Illini program.

Also, a tip of the hat to the entire group who played for keeping the turnovers in the land of single digits. Nine is not anything to get cocky over as they all understand that a zone defense is not designed to make you throw the ball into the 3rd row....but it was encouraging as it was designed to make it difficult to get the ball into DD. I loved the tip pass in the first half that CoHawk made to Q for a dunk and then his backdoor feed to Q late in the game for another layup.
 
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#119      

Loyalillini10

L
Urbana, IL
Loyalillini10
Tough game but we came out the winners and no one was injured and that is what matters. I am not looking forward to a season where if we don't blow every mid-major opponent out, "we are in trouble." Sure, I have some concerns but I am not putting Chicken Little on speed dial. Our FTs have to start falling; that has to get better. I was disappointed by that tonight.

1-3-1 zone games tend to be uglier--it is a design of that defense. I saw a lot of "our offense just wasn't moving," in comments and that is a product of that zone. The ball moved and that is what is important versus the zone. I hope to not see the 1-3-1 the rest of the season.

Folks, college basketball has changed. With the addition of the portal, the talent gap between mid-majors and high-majors have lessened. Many talented players leave their original school and join a mid-major for the guaranteed playing time because they don't have to sit out a year any longer (the first time). Get used to seeing more competitive games between the mids and the highs and get used to more upsets. There have been several already this season and Illinois has not been one of them--celebrate. 2-0. That's what matters.
 
#120      

Keisersose

Keisersose
Keisersose
foby said:
Just find this to be pretty cool;

Oakland record for 25 years in D1 - 413-362

Kampe's record at Oakland - 413-362
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I remember when he coached Oakland amd played the 05 team early in the season. He made some comment about how we we the best he’s ever faced and he coached against the great MAUbyeams with Mateen Cleaves.

I thought he seemed like a good coach and was surprised he was still at Oakland.
 
#121      

RockfordIllini

R
RockfordIllini
Clunky, but that’s partly due to the zone.

2 things I was most encouraged by was that we only took 12 3s and we only had 9 TOs. For those of you that are saying last year’s team was better, I dare you to find a single game where we had less of either. Even in wins, we were a hot mess.

Biggest disappointment was Coleman clearly didn’t have his head in the game. Was getting scored on at will by the kid from Naperville. He should have locked that kid up the way TJ locked up their chucker.

Otherwise defensively we were pretty good. If they take and make their normal volume of 3’s this game is way more interesting.

Domask and Goode struggled but they will come around.

I think we will see a much better effort on Tuesday and will provide a great early test/contrast to our PG by committee. Will be interested to see if we can handle their press and if we can slow down Kolek.
 
#122      

HailtotheChief

H
HailtotheChief
The one moment that I was most encouraged by was when Ty hit a 12 ft floater in the lane. That was very good to see. I know he must improve his FT shooting but him hitting that shot was something I noticed and made me reflect. I hope that Ty can build on this and I think Ty has been working a lot in that shot. I honestly don't recall Ty hitting any shots from outside a few feet as an Illini before that timely shot last night. I am sure he has but dont remember any. I was glad to see Ty take and hit that shot. Hopefully that is something he can build on
 
#123      

Loyalillini10

L
Urbana, IL
Loyalillini10
RockfordIllini said:
Clunky, but that’s partly due to the zone.

2 things I was most encouraged by was that we only took 12 3s and we only had 9 TOs. For those of you that are saying last year’s team was better, I dare you to find a single game where we had less of either. Even in wins, we were a hot mess.

Biggest disappointment was Coleman clearly didn’t have his head in the game. Was getting scored on at will by the kid from Naperville. He should have locked that kid up the way TJ locked up their chucker.

Otherwise defensively we were pretty good. If they take and make their normal volume of 3’s this game is way more interesting.

Domask and Goode struggled but they will come around.

I think we will see a much better effort on Tuesday and will provide a great early test/contrast to our PG by committee. Will be interested to see if we can handle their press and if we can slow down Kolek.
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I was also encouraged by the 13 assists on 26 made buckets.

I think CH’s on-court demeanor puts a “fan hate” target on his back—meaning when he does good things, fans still only focus on what he did wrong. He made a lot of good decisions last night and certainly helped his team win. Shot selection was good (still hesitant on some shots but otherwise good), hit the glass, 5 assists to 2 turnovers, hit both of his FTs, and actually played good D for much of the game.

Two things he did that I wish he didn’t:

1. Punching the post in frustration at Harmon at the end of the first.

2. Hanging on the rim on the missed 3, instead of hustling back on D, allowing his man to score an easy transition bucket.

But make no mistake, he helped us win last night.