Illinois 75, Missouri 66 POSTGAME

#51      

WestIllini

W
University of Iowa
WestIllini
SummerofGeorge said:
Completely unimpressive overall performance tonight. Hard game to watch and this was one of the worst Missouri teams I have seen. They had a wide open 3 that could have cut it to 3 late and wasn't even close. That was a huge miss and we dodged a bullet there. Mav showed up to play and without him I am not sure we win this game. Tracy and Leron disappeared but the bright side is we won despite their performances. Still baffles me that we put Tate out there for such long stretches because every time we do we are playing 4 on 5. I like the way he runs the offense but when everyone else is struggling to score we have to have another scorer on the floor. I realize TA was in foul trouble but there has to be a better solution when we are struggling offensively. A win is a win - on to Maryland!
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No. Tracy and Leron were taken out of the game by a pitiful officiating crew. The terrible fouls called on them effected the way these two played. Glad for the win but those officials should be ashamed of themselves. One of the worst officiated games I have ever seen.
 
#52      

JDHalfrack

J
Springfield, IL
JDHalfrack
I guess I'm in the minority here, but watching the game it never "felt" close. I know the score got to within 3 (I think) in the second, but even then, it felt like we were in control. Had Abrams and Black had better games, we would have won by 20 and no one would be batting an eye.

Like a couple people have said already, we shouldn't need to rely on those two to win a game against Mizzou, and we didn't need to. So why all the negative talk?
 
#53      

HoustonIllini

H
Houston, TX
HoustonIllini
My #1 concern going into BIG play is the number of TO per game - the highest of Groce's tenure here. If we can fix this - Laissez les bons temps rouler :hailtotheorange:
 
#54      

Illinisteve25

Illinisteve25
Champaign
Illinisteve25
This team has won six games in a row. If your not happy with that I truly just don't understand...... Some people just cant be pleased. Lets keep it rolling against Maryland!
 
#56      

ItsFootballTime

ItsFootballTime
ItsFootballTime
7yearillini said:
They're thinking about redcoating Groce
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You mean throwing him a Champagne Party.

Cuz hes 10-3 and #36 rpi with a bullet coaching ......

... a point guard coming back from 2 season ending injuries who was " never any good any way "

... a " out of shape center " coming off season ending surgery

... a shooting guard " who cant drive to the basket "

... a point guard who " doesnt belong in the big ten "

... a star forward who " plays hero ball " when he isnt " taking a game off " and

... another forward who can " never stay in any game ever " because he is so foul prone

SOUNDS LIKE A MIGHTY DUCK CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON TO ME!!!!
 
#58      

SescIllini

SescIllini
SescIllini
A win is a win, but really need to learn how to increase leads and close out games. The last two minutes not too bad, but can't miss free throws or take quick poor shots.

But I'm in the optimistic camp who said this team is deep and represented well at each position. Thought we were a NCAA team at the beginning and still do.

Love what we are getting at the center position. Mav and Thorne going to be effective against most teams.
 
#59      

IWannaBeLikeDee

I
rockford, il
IWannaBeLikeDee
Well I won't lie.. I was worried. Would've been nice to blow them out, but we didn't. We did keep them at arm's length though, and that was good enough. This winning streak is something to be commended and was thoroughly earned by the coach and team. I thought the officiating tonight was bad, call it being a homer if you will... Excited to start the conference this year, we could really make some noise with some early wins and I think it's possible, definitely within grasp if we can put together a 40 minute game. I won't even say everyone needs to click, we can beat legit teams without everyone over-performing and it really does feel good.

I thought the MVP was obviously Mav. I came home from an 8 oclock game myself and my wife told me to keep it quiet and Mav was the only one that elicited screams! Malcolm was efficient which was nice, at points dominant. The 3 pointer followed by the elbow J may have also made me yell now that I think about it. Those two carried.

I think Missouri over-performed, as a whole.

Is our SOS really 13th? Seems like a really solid number that should hold through conference and help if we're still on the bubble. Would be so nice to not have to worry about being on the bubble..... Heh, soon. :shield:
 
#60      

JudsonFTS

J
JudsonFTS
Illinithad said:
Mizzou really played inspired in the second half and hit us with all they had, and we fought hard and held them off. Team showed good fight.

Officiating was awful...

Being from Missouri and living in Missouri, this is always a huge win for my family and I.
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credit miznoz with battling, but they are a terrible shooting team.

We need some more dawg in our players. The tigers were more agreesive than us.

Need a Kenny Battle like guy...Lucas Johnson.

Black and Abrams prolly have that more than the rest. Maybe TJL and JCL?

But we need to be far tougher and quicker to the 50-50 balls.
 
#61      

molinefan

molinefan
molinefan
Nice to see that for the first time in quite a while we have a team that has a number of players who can be difference makers on certain nights. No one has a good night every night. We now have at least 5 or 6 players who can be impact players on a good night!
 
#62      

Illini B-Ball Fan

Illini B-Ball Fan
Illini B-Ball Fan
We won, which was good. Held the refs at bay barely, the MO coach was talking to them a lot. Sorry to see Tracy foul out in his last time he'll play in St Louis, looked like he was pretty bummed-out. Onto to MD - go Illini!
 
#63      

UrbanaIsTheShiz

U
UrbanaIsTheShiz
kuhl84 said:
That was probably the worst officiated game I have ever watched...not just against the Illini, they were absolutely terrible. They made the game almost unwatchable.

Have to cut down on bad turnovers, not going to fly against real teams.

Love that Mav has gotten aggressive last few games. Totally different player.
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I agree the refs were an absolute joke on both ends in the second half. Its like they watched 30 straight hours of NFL tape and then were told - go do THAT, call every stupid thing you think you see, and ruin the game. morons.
 
#64      

FiveStar

F
FiveStar
JudsonFTS said:
We need some more dawg in our players. The tigers were more agreesive than us.
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I felt like this all game long. Part of it is cause miznoz is so bad it doesn't matter. We were just off Until the random points we needed to turn it on.
 
#65      

Paigncake

P
Paigncake
JudsonFTS said:
credit miznoz with battling, but they are a terrible shooting team.

We need some more dawg in our players. The tigers were more agreesive than us.

Need a Kenny Battle like guy...Lucas Johnson.

Black and Abrams prolly have that more than the rest. Maybe TJL and JCL?

But we need to be far tougher and quicker to the 50-50 balls.
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The only quick move TJL gets, unfortunately, is a return to the bench.
 
#66      

WestIllini

W
University of Iowa
WestIllini
A lot of people are still being pretty negative even after this win. After the thanksgiving week disaster I'll gladly take 10-3. Was this a good Missouri team? Absolutely not. But we won by 9 in a game where we couldn't make a free throw to save our lives, with very questionable calls from the refs, and where Tracy and Leron scored 3 points combined. On top of all that, Missouri knows they had nothing to lose and they played a tough competitive game. Good win. Now on to Maryland.
 
#67      

TriCityBurbs

T
TriCityBurbs
We really need to work on our free throws. Good thing we gutted this one out, and proud of the guys for playing through the horrid officiating. If we made free throws consistently we would be sitting at 11-2 right now, and maybe even 12-1. Hope that is emphasized in practice this week. GO ILLII! F&^%$ MIZNOZ
 
#68      

IlliniFandom

IlliniFandom
IlliniFandom
So I get a win is a win, but this team worries me because we are unable to put teams away. You could see this at the outset of the game. They couldn't buy a shot yet they were still within striking distance. We pulled ahead by 10-12 points and could never push any further. This team by all means should've had their number and been able to control Mizzou's offense, but they somehow keep crawling back. This will definitely come back to bite us and ultimately we will have some winnable games that slip through our grasp because of this. It's what the Villanova's, Dukes, Kansas's of the world can do...extend that lead on teams that they know can't match up! We should've won this game by >16-20 points but kept making boneheaded turnovers, mistakes, and ball handling plays that just put us out of rhythm. We can't have that happen during the B1G season. I really hope we can learn how to do this and quickly!!
 
#69      

IlliniRon

IlliniRon
Illini Basketball Fan Forever
Ft Worth, Texas
IlliniRon
Overall, another very nice game for the Illini. I'm really impressed with Maverick Morgan thus far, never thought he would make this much progress so quickly from last year. The rebounding was very solid this game and recently, nice to see. Not sure what happened to our free throw shooting, coach needs to get them shooting more FT at practice, I guess.

I like the rotation used by Coach Groce in these recent games, with the 4 bigs rotating, the guards rotating and Malcolm Hill seems like the constant big minutes guy, which makes sense. Malcolm seemed to take control whenever we needed it tonight, so that was the difference, having him and Maverick playing so well.

Tough calls on Abrams and Black tonight, but that was the story most of the game.
 
#73      

vabeachbear

V
vabeachbear
HoustonIllini said:
My #1 concern going into BIG play is the number of TO per game - the highest of Groce's tenure here. If we can fix this - Laissez les bons temps rouler :hailtotheorange:
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And it should be. Extremely sloppy with the ball, not a lot of rhythm.

Frazier can't get on campus fast enough!
 
#74      

westms77

W
Gilbert, AZ
westms77
ItsFootballTime said:
You mean throwing him a Champagne Party.

Cuz hes 10-3 and #36 rpi with a bullet coaching ......

... a point guard coming back from 2 season ending injuries who was " never any good any way "

... a " out of shape center " coming off season ending surgery

... a shooting guard " who cant drive to the basket "

... a point guard who " doesnt belong in the big ten "

... a star forward who " plays hero ball " when he isnt " taking a game off " and

... another forward who can " never stay in any game ever " because he is so foul prone

SOUNDS LIKE A MIGHTY DUCK CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON TO ME!!!!
Click to expand...

After the loss to FSU this is the best scenario we could have hoped for. Now let's go do something we've never done under JFG..have a winning BIG season!!
 
#75      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
Excellent game from Mav and very good games from Hill and Tate. Tate was very steady, 6 assists and 1 turnover, played with poise. That is not the game to complain about Tate.