Illinois 72, Nebraska 56 Postgame

#176      

One Man Fast Break

O
One Man Fast Break
This team has gotta stop attempting so many three pointers. They just aren't that good at it. I know this is a generation that has had it drilled in their heads since AAU that they all need to be elite three point shooters to make it to the NBA. I'm sure everyone is eager to show off their skillset since they all probably don't miss up in open gyms. But we're 55.6 % on two point attempts and 31.7 % of three point attempts. The math just isn't adding up to be attempting as many threes as this team is right now. The final scores against Wisconsin and Nebraska really mask a lot of the offensive struggles in those games (I know that's just college basketball at times, but still). We are going to get burned by it soon enough. Shannon, Hawkins, Melendez especially, all need to stop shooting so many threes. We are at the point in the season where these guys need to put their ego aside a bit more and realize they need to play in a way that will be most beneficial to the team's success.

We attempt the 4th most three points per game in Big Ten Play, and are 14th in three point percentage. Meanwhile, we are 8th in two point attempts and 1st in two point percentage. We need to play to our strengths, and not to our weaknesses!
 
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#177      

EyeoftheIllini

EyeoftheIllini
EyeoftheIllini
stlillinifan said:
No one said anything about not shooting open 3's all together. Too many of those last night were either too early or bad 3's, (off balance, hand in the face, ...

Loved seeing those three freshman last night, going to the rim, they are gonna be strong for the Illini. Hope they all stick around
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Actually quite a few people have. Seen multiple posts that Brad should bench a player for shooting a 3, one recent one that players shouldn’t be allowed to shoot unless one foot in lane. It’s just silly. Yes, they need to have better ball movement and get to rim more, but 3s are an important part of the game and our offense. Have to be more efficient, but the thought of abandoning the 3 or restricting players’ ability to take them with some of the silly edicts I’ve seen here and in game thread is laughable.
 
#178      

GBIllini

G
GBIllini
I feel the announcer missed the mark on criticizing MMs step back threes. Anyone who has watched us play very much knows that step back and side step threes are MMs shot. Its not the best shot but for him its just about as good as anyone else's open three on this team. He also seems to not do as well with threes where he is going fast towards the line when he shoots them. Of course his best ones are from a kickout or off a cut. That being said it would probably be better if he used his dribbling skill to get some closer pull up jumpers or drive it to the basket more often.
 
#179      

En Fuego

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Orland Park
En Fuego
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#180      

aaeismacgychel

A
aaeismacgychel
Honestly, the all or none 3pt shooting conversation is a silly conversation, as I think most people can agree that shot quality and expected shooting percentage of a given shot exists. Analytics are there simply to suggest where a team could take a more beneficial approach to be successful. During conference play Illinois has had 5 high volume three point shooters in TSJ, MM, RJ, Epps, and CoHawk. If each one of them were to decide to pass up an ill-advised low-percentage three just once every other game, you'd see the following effect on theirs and the team's three point shooting:

TSJ: 25.0%-->28.2%
MM: 35.8%-->39.0%
Epps: 29.4%-->35.1%
CoHawk: 30.6%-->34.5%
RJ: 22.6%-->27.5%
Overall Team: 29.3%-->33.0%

No, that's still not lighting the world on fire numbers, but I think most of those players would after reviewing game film be able to pick out one three they took in every other game and say, "yeah, it was a mistake to shoot that" and I also think players could change their shooting behavior to pass up 1 of those shots every other game for an opportunity to run the offense and get the team a higher quality shot. And if that were to happen, Illinois would reasonably be expected to score an additional 3pts per game. Yes, that's a projected ~3pt per game increase if each of the Illini's 5 high volume shooters just not take 1 ill-advised three every other game.

So it's not about eliminating threes altogether, or putting strict quotas or requirements on the shooters, all it's about is getting the players to recognize, "you know what, this is a really low percentage shot, let's run some offense, get some off-ball movement and get a better quality shot." And if each player does that only once every other game, analytically it should have profound effects on our offense, and hell, it may even lead to improved quality of life reading experiences on the game and postgame threads (the analytics are less positive on that one :LOL:)
 
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#181      

Piotyr

P
Piotyr
Regarding the taking of 3 point shots yesterday, a few notes:

- Nebraska's defense is centered around not allowing post opportunities and forcing jumpshots. This is why Dainja wasn't able to get anything going last night.
- Forced into jumpshots, the optiosn are long 2, or 3 point shot. 3 point shot is almost always the better option. They were getting good shots, but they just weren't falling.
- Despite going 5 for 29 from 3, they won by 16, thanks to their relentless defense, particularly in the last 12 minutes of the game. Continue to play defense like this, and even average offense will win games going away.
 
#183      

New Creation

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New Creation
aaeismacgychel said:
A few additional analytical points of note/oddities after this game:

-Currently there are 0 players on the Illini roster who are hitting threes at an efficiency rate above our team average. Meaning that technically the average three any of our players take is a poor shot. I'm not sure I've seen that before. So reducing quantity of threes and increasing the shot quality of threes taken is advised for every single player.

-Our Team 3pt percentage is one of the 5 worst in the B10 in the past 5 years and one of the 10 worst in the B10 in the past 10 years

-Over the past 2 seasons, Kenpom has us having the worst home court advantage of any team in the B10. Rutgers and Iowa have the best.

-Over the past 2 seasons, only Northwestern and MSU have a worse home foul call to road foul call disparity than us, so for the conspiracy theorists thinking we've been screwed hard by refs on the road and still screwed at home, there actually is some statistical credence to that, haha. Maryland, Rutgers, Iowa, and Wisconsin all have Top 30 in the nation home cooking during that time

-We have the best 2pt shooting percentage offense in the B10 and the worst 3pt shooting percentage offense in the B10. Hilariously, OSU has the worst 2pt shooting percentage offense in the B10 and the best 3pt shooting percentage offense in the B10. The last time either of those happened? 2008. And it was the only time in the past 25years.
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And after all this, still missed the biggest stat. We have won the most BIG games in the pass 3-4 years. I could be wrong, because I didn’t look this up, maybe Purdue change that this year.
 
#184      

illinitiger

I
illinitiger
danbor said:
Obviously you can't completely stop threatening from there, but if I'm playing against Illinois I'm sure as hell not going to come out guarding you from beyond the arc. Maybe just shoot like 15 per game FFS.
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Our foes' best strategy against us....

"dare them (illini) to shoot 3Ps..
....invite them to clank at least 30 3p shots over course of game"
 
#185      

One Man Fast Break

O
One Man Fast Break
Luckily, Coleman is a very good passer out of the high post so teams can't go full 2-3 zone on us (this was the key to the game against Syracuse). But agreed, baiting the Illini into taking a bunch of open threes is a great defensive strategy right now.
 
#186      

727ill

7
727ill
One Man Fast Break said:
Luckily, Coleman is a very good passer out of the high post so teams can't go full 2-3 zone on us (this was the key to the game against Syracuse). But agreed, baiting the Illini into taking a bunch of open threes is a great defensive strategy right now.
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It's a difficult strategy because teams know Matt & Epps (our two best three-point shooters) are not going to go 3-17 from three every single night. You adjust those numbers back to the mean and that suddenly becomes a different story.

I think teams will continue to bait Terrance into threes.
 
#187      

FromTheLogo

F
FromTheLogo
Piotyr said:
Regarding the taking of 3 point shots yesterday, a few notes:

- Nebraska's defense is centered around not allowing post opportunities and forcing jumpshots. This is why Dainja wasn't able to get anything going last night.
- Forced into jumpshots, the optiosn are long 2, or 3 point shot. 3 point shot is almost always the better option. They were getting good shots, but they just weren't falling.
- Despite going 5 for 29 from 3, they won by 16, thanks to their relentless defense, particularly in the last 12 minutes of the game. Continue to play defense like this, and even average offense will win games going away.
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First. Enjoy your posts.

This is spot on, but I think this is the blueprint to beat us IF you have an inside presence. Nebraska does not.

In essence, let the poor 3 pt shooting team chuck it up and if they wanna come into the paint, they'll have to deal with our shot blocker.
 
#188      

Piotyr

P
Piotyr
FromTheLogo said:
First. Enjoy your posts.

This is spot on, but I think this is the blueprint to beat us IF you have an inside presence. Nebraska does not.

In essence, let the poor 3 pt shooting team chuck it up and if they wanna come into the paint, they'll have to deal with our shot blocker.
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Nebraska was doubling in the post and forcing catches 15 feet away from the basket. There just weren't paint opportunities yesterday, by design.

Illinois' most effective offense, particularly in the second half, was to keep shooting 3's and get layups via offensive rebounds (thanks, Ty!) ... and transition buckets via turnovers.

With Goode coming back, Melendez a better shooter than he's been, and Epps and Mayer better shooters than they got yesterday, the shooting strategy itself wasn't the problem, it was just that shots weren't falling, and the rebounding needed to step up late to make the offense function at an average level.
 
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#191      

727ill

7
727ill
Piotyr said:
On the subject of Ty yesterday, he earned the team MVP on KenPom's box score: View attachment 23294

He becomes the 6th Illini player to get a game MVP this season. The rest:

Shannon - 5
Mayer - 3
Dainja - 3
Hawkins - 2
Clark - 1
Rodgers - 1
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That stat line for Ty is insane for playing 18 minutes.
 
#192      

Battle89

Battle89
Battle89
EyeoftheIllini said:
Actually quite a few people have. Seen multiple posts that Brad should bench a player for shooting a 3, one recent one that players shouldn’t be allowed to shoot unless one foot in lane. It’s just silly. Yes, they need to have better ball movement and get to rim more, but 3s are an important part of the game and our offense. Have to be more efficient, but the thought of abandoning the 3 or restricting players’ ability to take them with some of the silly edicts I’ve seen here and in game thread is laughable.
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I don't disagree @EyeoftheIllini, but I also don't disagree with @FreshlySqueezed about the snark. Sometimes folks are just letting off steam, and as long as it's not vulgar or directly attacking a player, it should be okay to do so (with Dan as final arbiter of course). There seems to be more (mild) name calling (hotshot, ace), reaching back to a poster's comments from long ago to call them out, etc., lately.

Not directed at you of course @EyeoftheIllini. And yes I'm aware that I'm now criticizing the criticizers. And the circle of life goes on.

Back to topic, we are a bad 3-point shooting team. Whatever the reason, be it the system, the situation, the confidence, they are not falling. I wish we'd take fewer. But we are in second place in conference and that is terrific given where we were a month ago.
 
#193      

One Man Fast Break

O
One Man Fast Break
Deservedly so, that was Rodgers best performance for sure. His defense and hustle on the offensive rebounds will make him a fan favorite. I can't recall the Assist he is credited for. Was that in transition off a turnover?
 
#195      

Bbuck21

B
Bbuck21
dbeverly26 said:
The problem is that they're taking bad threes. There are a good number of folks on here who have assumed we'd get the same result regardless of the quality of threes we're taking, and that we'd get the same result on our twos even if we forced the issue and took more bad shots from inside the arc. You can't ignore that Shannon hit 38% of his threes last year and just say he's a bad shooter, because he isn't. The difference is that he's taking a ton of threes off the dribble and under duress, and he needs to cut that out. But he's not a bad shooter, and this team is not a bad shooting team. They're just not great at creating good shots a lot of the time because they're freelancing way too much.

Run the offense and it will get you better threes, and open up driving lanes as well. Until they do that, they're going to keep looking bad on half of their possessions.
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This is really it. I don't care how many 3's they put up. I understand the statistical benefits and the strategic benefits for other scoring opportunities. But, when my first reaction is , "WTF was that shot?!", that's not good. When I see a shot go up that is not in the rythym of the offensive movement, it puts all the other players in a brief mode of scrambling to figure out where they should go.
 
#196      

mysterio2525

mysterio2525
mysterio2525
FreshlySqueezed said:
Iowa hasn't technically scored under 75 points at home all season (they scored 75 against Wisconsin but that took OT to get there). They dropped 92 on Rutgers who has one of the best defenses in the nation (#2 on KenPom).

They're pretty similar to Missouri. I'm not sure that kind of team is a great matchup for us this year. I'm nervous for Saturday but would love to be surprised.
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I think all of our losses have been to top 50 Ken pom offenses except northwestern. Iowa is number 3
 
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#198      

Bbuck21

B
Bbuck21
Piotyr said:
Nebraska was doubling in the post and forcing catches 15 feet away from the basket. There just weren't paint opportunities yesterday, by design.

Illinois' most effective offense, particularly in the second half, was to keep shooting 3's and get layups via offensive rebounds (thanks, Ty!) ... and transition buckets via turnovers.

With Goode coming back, Melendez a better shooter than he's been, and Epps and Mayer better shooters than they got yesterday, the shooting strategy itself wasn't the problem, it was just that shots weren't falling, and the rebounding needed to step up late to make the offense function at an average level.
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"Illinois' most effective offense, particularly in the second half, was to keep shooting 3's and get layups via offensive rebounds (thanks, Ty!) ... and transition buckets via turnovers." I assume this is sarcasm inferring it was a strategy?
 
#199      

fuggles

F
fuggles
mysterio2525 said:
I think all of our losses have been to top 50 Ken pom offenses except northwestern. Iowa is number 3
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How many have we played?
Beaten:
OSU #10
Texas #12
UCLA #20

Lost to:
Mizzou #5
Penn St #28
MD #48

Missouri is a terrible team. That loss was a freak show. We'll see about Iowa.