chiefini
- Rockford, Illinois
Illinois 77, Minnesota 67 Postgame
- Status
Goillinikobd
- Southeastern US
On the hand shake line one of the Minny staff had a few words with Wagler, probably promising him 10 mil if he portals to MN next year, but momma didn’t raise no fools.
Loved the call for twin towers at times and putting Ben on bench.
Andrej is useless against zone.
Our frontline was very good today
Andrej is useless against zone.
Our frontline was very good today
I thought this too. Prolly gave the score to the wrong team like 5x and messed up clock several times.
All credit to Minny they looked great I absolutely see why they’ve stuck it to a few good big ten teams.
Absolutely love the game Petrovic played today. Seemed like he made every correct decision offensively and was at least neutral on defense.
Big Z continues to provide championship level bench minutes. Tomi starting to heat up. Mirk, Wagler, and Boswell are just so consistently good.
Definitely flat in the first half and plenty to clean up but it’s really tough on a macro scale to not have high expectations for this team. They’re playing winning basketball.
Absolutely love the game Petrovic played today. Seemed like he made every correct decision offensively and was at least neutral on defense.
Big Z continues to provide championship level bench minutes. Tomi starting to heat up. Mirk, Wagler, and Boswell are just so consistently good.
Definitely flat in the first half and plenty to clean up but it’s really tough on a macro scale to not have high expectations for this team. They’re playing winning basketball.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I've been hard on this team from time to time (the effort during the UConn game remains inexplicably bad and very reminiscent of last season, regardless of how good the Huskies are), but this one will not be remembered as anything other than a closer-than-expected win vs. an opponent that is better than its record. Just to provide some perspective, consider the following wins by the 2005 team vs. objectively inferior opponents, which was almost everyone considering we were that good! 
Every one was at LEAST in some way as close as this Minnesota win, and I will even leave out "excusable" close games (e.g., a rivalry game event like Braggin' Rights, which we won 70-64 vs. a Mizzou team that would finish 17-19).
W 68-59 at Purdue ... This Purdue team would finish the year 7-21 (3-13), but they were up 34-25 with 4:00 until halftime (our largest deficit of the season up to that point) and were still within striking distance (at least as defined by this recent Minnesota game) until the final couple of minutes. It should also be noted that this was simply NOT the current Mackey Arena, so the "tough road environment" excuse holds zero weight. As can be seen by a simple YouTube search, Illini fans absolutely packed that place for this game, and it was a true neutral site environment.
W 73-68 in OT vs. Iowa ... #1 team needs overtime at home to beat a team who would end up a #10 seed in the NCAA Tournament (and would then have a First Round exit via a double digit loss)? I wish I could have seen the message boards, lol.
W 57-51 at Michigan ... In case anyone needs a reminder of this era of basketball, Michigan was a straight-up joke. This specific Michigan team finished the year 13-18, and believe it or not that was only their THIRD worst season in the previous five years, lol. And yet, we trailed by 4 at halftime, and we literally did not score for the final 12 minutes of the first half. When we finally "got it together," it was to achieve a 6-point win where we scored fewer than 60 points for the only time all year up until that point, lol.
There are of course other examples from this very season (e.g., the actual loss at an NIT-level OSU or our 54-43 BTT Championship Game win, where we actually look shockingly pedestrian if you want to go watch that one on YouTube), but the point is teams have off games. Last year's squad probably would have let Minnesota beat us today ... and that is the difference between getting a great seed and settling for a #6/7 and simply ~hoping~ for a good NCAA Tournament run.
Effort in the first half? Not great, lol. Crowd in the first half? Actually embarrassing. Jerseys? I don't need to address that. However, we did what we needed to in order to beat an underrated team on a day when we weren't firing on all cylinders. Onward and upward!
Every one was at LEAST in some way as close as this Minnesota win, and I will even leave out "excusable" close games (e.g., a rivalry game event like Braggin' Rights, which we won 70-64 vs. a Mizzou team that would finish 17-19).W 68-59 at Purdue ... This Purdue team would finish the year 7-21 (3-13), but they were up 34-25 with 4:00 until halftime (our largest deficit of the season up to that point) and were still within striking distance (at least as defined by this recent Minnesota game) until the final couple of minutes. It should also be noted that this was simply NOT the current Mackey Arena, so the "tough road environment" excuse holds zero weight. As can be seen by a simple YouTube search, Illini fans absolutely packed that place for this game, and it was a true neutral site environment.
W 73-68 in OT vs. Iowa ... #1 team needs overtime at home to beat a team who would end up a #10 seed in the NCAA Tournament (and would then have a First Round exit via a double digit loss)? I wish I could have seen the message boards, lol.
W 57-51 at Michigan ... In case anyone needs a reminder of this era of basketball, Michigan was a straight-up joke. This specific Michigan team finished the year 13-18, and believe it or not that was only their THIRD worst season in the previous five years, lol. And yet, we trailed by 4 at halftime, and we literally did not score for the final 12 minutes of the first half. When we finally "got it together," it was to achieve a 6-point win where we scored fewer than 60 points for the only time all year up until that point, lol.
There are of course other examples from this very season (e.g., the actual loss at an NIT-level OSU or our 54-43 BTT Championship Game win, where we actually look shockingly pedestrian if you want to go watch that one on YouTube), but the point is teams have off games. Last year's squad probably would have let Minnesota beat us today ... and that is the difference between getting a great seed and settling for a #6/7 and simply ~hoping~ for a good NCAA Tournament run.
Effort in the first half? Not great, lol. Crowd in the first half? Actually embarrassing. Jerseys? I don't need to address that.
However, we did what we needed to in order to beat an underrated team on a day when we weren't firing on all cylinders. Onward and upward!NASchamp
- Atlanta
Way to fight today and find the win. Shots finally started to go down for us but Minnesota just shot lights out today. We have to learn how to take the 3 away from hot teams or we will go down because of it.
Refs called a frustrating game. Allowed tons of contact and then called ticky tack fouls sometimes as well. Minnesota definitely took more advantage of the refs than we did. They were pushing, shoving, and running moving “screens” all game.
At the end of the day, we have to be tougher than we were. Especially on our home court.
Refs called a frustrating game. Allowed tons of contact and then called ticky tack fouls sometimes as well. Minnesota definitely took more advantage of the refs than we did. They were pushing, shoving, and running moving “screens” all game.
At the end of the day, we have to be tougher than we were. Especially on our home court.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
I have to wonder if this, ironically, ends up working against us. Because we don’t foul much, do officials feel some level of pressure to keep the fouls relatively even? There were at least three times today when what appears to be obvious fouls against our guys weren’t called.
chiefini
- Rockford, Illinois
Nice! That will be us soon as we get out of this traffic!!!
That is skewed by early poor play. Their play of late has been much better.
As someone mentioned in the game thread, the flu may be impacting some players. Explains the listless play. Or maybe Kam’s had a bottle special last night.
pruman91
- interviewing new NL's daily....I really really am
Solid win by a poised , well coached and very talented Illini team..........The zone caused some problems early but the insertion of Big Z along with using a pass to the free throw to open up that zone was masterful..........another big adjustment was putting Mirko-Man on the goofer lefty center who was killing us early........
Keaton Waglar should win the B$G FOTY by a wide margin.........
was impressed when Tomi and Big Z were on the court together..........
Mirko-Man with 3 big threes in the 2nd half.......
Petro was very good today....good change of pace and scored 4 points.............
that was a good win pru , especially against a zone D............call you later papi............
okay my love..................
win and on to the next one...........read some harsh remarks early in this thread that were not warranted but I have no problem with anyone posting their opinion.........my advice is just CHiLL...........we won by 10.......
season record : 15-3
B$G record : 6-1
I'm getting closer to my home...................the more you know............
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
It can be a dangerous thing to do if egregious but it’s getting silly and disruptive to constantly go to replay on those.
Bench minutes Illini 52, field rats 20 - Minny was gassed at the end. I am very happy for Petro, he was working his a** off on D, and seemed in the flow on O.
On AS, the scout is clearly out on him. Teams are packing the paint when he drives. Presumably they are coaching him to pass out rather than try and score over 3 guys?
Boeheim is retired
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Minnesota isn’t a great team and that certainly wasn’t our best game. But Minnesota has been playing better lately.
As @jrichisamazing pointed out in the pre-game thread, over their past 6 games, Minnesota is ranked #36 in T-Rank.
Would love to see us play better at home, but I’ll take any B1G win.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Yeah, 16 point favorite. Won by 10. So you’re going to drop a bit. Looks like offense stayed the same (#3), but defense fell 4 spots (#19-#23). Still at +30.28, which would be a 1 seed almost any other year.
Sluggish start, struggled with the zone on offense (mostly by taking open 3s that weren't falling). Minnesota also seemed to key on taking away driving penetration, which affected Andrej more than anyone.
Nice to get some positive minutes for Petro, who looked to be the only guard equipped to deal with the zone.
Nice to get some positive minutes for Petro, who looked to be the only guard equipped to deal with the zone.
- Status