And one of the greatest albums of all time.
Illinois 75, Tennessee 62 Postgame
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I will happily eat crow on Wagler. I really thought after the UConn game he wasn’t mature enough for this level. Boy was I wrong. He looked ready and then some. Clearly he took what happened against UConn and Alabama and learned. He looked great tonight. Excited to see him the rest of the year.
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
I don't post often (longtime lurker way before I got an account) , but i have greatly enjoyed your posts over the years. I appreciate your good vibes, win or lose. You add a unique seasoning to this community that can't be replicated. Take care, man. And, Go Illini.
Noblesville Illini
- Nappanee, IN
Rankings are flawed! lol
That was the most together and cohesive performance I’ve seen in a while. Great game. This team needs to play a half court game they’re too efficient.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Why are our fans so much louder at neutral site games than they are at homes?
FYI, whatever it’s worth, Mihalo and Brad got into it. So much to the point OA had to separate them and OA got in Mihalo’s face. Mihalo understood he was in the wrong. He and OA were cool but Mihalo did not go back into the game after that.
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Our alumni are very spread out and we also travel well
Three Key Observations From Illinois Basketball's 75-62 Victory Over Tennessee
Illinois earned a major bounce-back win in Nashville, defeating the Volunteers with defense, grit and late-game toughness
www.si.com
The good:
- BAM
- We played much better defense. We fought through screens better (still needs work). We packed the lane since their bigs had no range. We helped on defense, mostly without reaching fouling.
- We ran a more variety on offense. (Even though some of the plays never seemed to generate even 1/2 a look. It was a welcome sight.)
- Z did a much better job of not leaving his feet. Those two fouls in the first half looked like clean blocks to me. Underwood was talking to the ref and pointing at the overhead screen after the second one.
- When they caught a pass and were not properly set and in rhythm, they did not shoot the three! They reset, or made the extra pass to the other open person.
Oh, and we won.
Unlike what others seem to be saying, I don't think think there was that huge of a difference between the halves in terms of play. I thought we won the first half in pretty much every way other than rebounding and the score. It was like watching TN do their best IL imitation; tank everything and survive on rebounds. In the second half:
- The team started boxing out on defense. Once they started boxing out the rebounds seemed pretty much even.
- Fewer Mirk WTF moments. (There were several in the first half that had me out of my chair. I only remember one in the second half.)
- Wagler calmed down and played within the game vs. trying to force tempo.
Going forward:
- Keep working on alternative offensive schemes for when the 3s aren't falling. I like BAM running more cuts. His cutting angle seemed slightly off enabling the defender to force him back out.
- Play smart and within yourself. (This applies to multiple team members. In particular, I'm looking at you Mirk.)
- Remember to play hard defense the whole game.
Go team.
- BAM
- We played much better defense. We fought through screens better (still needs work). We packed the lane since their bigs had no range. We helped on defense, mostly without reaching fouling.
- We ran a more variety on offense. (Even though some of the plays never seemed to generate even 1/2 a look. It was a welcome sight.)
- Z did a much better job of not leaving his feet. Those two fouls in the first half looked like clean blocks to me. Underwood was talking to the ref and pointing at the overhead screen after the second one.
- When they caught a pass and were not properly set and in rhythm, they did not shoot the three! They reset, or made the extra pass to the other open person.
Oh, and we won.
Unlike what others seem to be saying, I don't think think there was that huge of a difference between the halves in terms of play. I thought we won the first half in pretty much every way other than rebounding and the score. It was like watching TN do their best IL imitation; tank everything and survive on rebounds. In the second half:
- The team started boxing out on defense. Once they started boxing out the rebounds seemed pretty much even.
- Fewer Mirk WTF moments. (There were several in the first half that had me out of my chair. I only remember one in the second half.)
- Wagler calmed down and played within the game vs. trying to force tempo.
Going forward:
- Keep working on alternative offensive schemes for when the 3s aren't falling. I like BAM running more cuts. His cutting angle seemed slightly off enabling the defender to force him back out.
- Play smart and within yourself. (This applies to multiple team members. In particular, I'm looking at you Mirk.)
- Remember to play hard defense the whole game.
Go team.
He seems to be getting into it with coaches a lot and causing himself to loose playing time.
What happened to Brandon Lee tonight? Zero minutes? Injury? Doghouse? What?
Sometimes the 10th man doesn't get into the game.
Thanks for the in-person insight there. I will say, this cannot possibly be an easy position for Petrovic to be in given his experience and it will certainly be something to keep an eye on. He almost certainly came here to start and to be a bench player with limited minutes is a tough one to swallow. He has been working his way back from injury but he has really struggled defensively and outside of one game the offense he has provided just hasn't come close to offsetting it. It's still early in the season, but he really has some work to do, especially when it comes to buying in defensively.
And just so people understand with data. As of right now:
Petrovic:
Offensively (including today): 0.934ppp on 25.4% possessions. (Lowest on team by a country mile.)
-Roughly translates to Illinois scoring 64.0ppg when he contributes
-Illinois when he's on the bench averages 1.293ppp roughly translating to 88.7ppg!
Defensively (not including today): Illinois allows 1.158ppp when he's on the floor (Worst on the team- only him and Andrej negative)
-Roughly translates to opponents scoring 79.4ppg when he's on the floor
-When he's on bench, Illinois opponents average 0.969ppp roughly translating to 66.5ppg!
Those are in the extremely unheard of metrics territory where you basically have a player that is just struggling compared to the rest of the team on both sides of the ball. Now again, this is all very early, but it is fair to say he's had a rough go of it here so far. Gotta put his head down, increase defensive intensity and the rest will follow including playing time.
As someone that was courtside, as best as I can understand is that he was forcing things offensively rather than running offense. That wasn’t the bad part and the coaching staff was working with him. The bad part was Brad subbed him twice for bad defensive possessions. The second one is the one where he got VERY upset. He’s clearly not adjusted to the speed or physicality. Not sure what but he was late and misreading on literally every possession.
Get better soon Pru! Loyalty and the Neighbor Ladies both miss you so!
Shout out to Knoxville. Moved here and am a better sports fan for it. The only reason Bridgestone woke up is because Knoxville was in the house
State Farm Center is not built well for loudness. It's maybe the widest basketball arena I've ever seen. If you want loudness and size, you want to build tall, not wide, with the crowd on top of itself. If you want an example, look at the old Chicago Stadium.
I actually appreciate how spacious Space Farm Center feels, but that's the downside of that quality.
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That was pretty fricking hilarious. Andrej and underwood are at first like whoa. Wtf. Then they all go nuts. Hilarious.The way everyone froze when he smashed it
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