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.
