Illinois 85, Bethune-Cookman 52 Postgame
- Status
I don't get the physically gifted thing. He has above average athleticism. A lot of guys have that. He is not a very good basketball player. He has below average ball skills. turns it over at a crippling rate, and cannot shoot. He CANNOT create his own shot. He dribbles up by his chin in traffic. He has no real turnaround fade away jumper to take advantage of any matchup advantage, and he is not quick enough to get by bigger slower guys.
His three point shooting % is NOT deceiving. He is career below 30%. It is going to stay there it appears this year. Unless you are hitting at least 33% you are a liability below that.
Houston didn't even guard him outside in the NCAA.
He scored against a bad Syracuse zone that gave him space in the middle at the FT line. It took him over half the game to turn around and look at the basket.
The team overall has one of better 2 point shooting percentages in country (11th). Yet, we take a ton of threes and are shooting them poorly for weeks. He is one of the guys that has no business taking 4 a game.
He also never gets fouled and gets to the line. Only 2 FTs a game. He can't shoot those either.
He is soft. He is not strong with the ball. Get stripped a lot.
He needs to be Option 4 on offense behind TJS,MM,DD, and play defense and quit whining.
It also says he was wearing some sort of shoulder brace as early as the first exhibition game.It said he was withheld due to a left shoulder injury. Also, this has been an ongoing issue.
Skyy Clark - College Basketball News & Rumors | FOX Sports
Get the latest College Basketball news on Skyy Clark. Stay up to date with player news, rumors, analysis, social feeds, and more at FOX Sports.www.foxsports.com
Offensive rating is not and should never be used as a single-player stat.
Doesn't need to be perfect. Productive overall would be nice. He is killing us lately. Luckily staff agree and have pulled him off the ball.
Cohawk's biggest problem IMO is he's watching too many Matthew Mayer highlights and thinks he can do the same things just as well.
He just needs to try to bring his best Cohawk to every game, and let that carry him into his senior year, where, hopefully, he will become the next Matthew Mayer.
It appears the whole NBA scout reports has hung a lot of people up.
“In a study by the NCAA in April 2020, of the 540,769 male high school basketball athletes, 18,816 moved on to play in college, or 3.5%. That number shrinks to 1% when you specify to Division 1 schools.
Making it to the pros is more of a challenge, as of those 18,816, only 1.2% make the jump from the NCAA to the NBA.”
Being on a scout report doesnt mean anything. If you think that dude is in the top…we will even say 2% in college basketball, then yes, the world is definitely flat.
I would love Hawkins to succeed as much as the next guy and frankly we NEED him to turn things around. But at this time..based on body language and effort, id say hes much more likely playing for a different college team next year than on a professional roster.
“In a study by the NCAA in April 2020, of the 540,769 male high school basketball athletes, 18,816 moved on to play in college, or 3.5%. That number shrinks to 1% when you specify to Division 1 schools.
Making it to the pros is more of a challenge, as of those 18,816, only 1.2% make the jump from the NCAA to the NBA.”
Being on a scout report doesnt mean anything. If you think that dude is in the top…we will even say 2% in college basketball, then yes, the world is definitely flat.
I would love Hawkins to succeed as much as the next guy and frankly we NEED him to turn things around. But at this time..based on body language and effort, id say hes much more likely playing for a different college team next year than on a professional roster.
Plus he had 4 TO to lead the team in that department once again. This is frustrating and must improve.
I do cringe when CoHawk bricks an NBA 3 and it leads to a fast break score for the opponent, those are real momentum killers but I only recall that happening once against B-C. I can live with that as once again CoHawk led the team in assists and rebounds. Until someone else steps up in those regards he deserves tick.
I actually at one point this season found myself yelling where is the Matto chart? It is rare that anyone on our team will go to the ground for the ball. It's very un-Illini.
Agreed. Coleman is averaging 3.2 T/Os per game. Which puts him at nearly top (bottom?) 50 of all players in D1 ball. All roughly 4,200 of them. That’s in the worst 1%.
If you only take into account his last 3 games, he is averaging 5 per game. Which would be the #1 spot on that list.
While I love CoHawk and wish him success, he’s playing very poorly when it comes to giving the other team free possessions.
Last edited:
I am not frustrated with Skyy. My only take is to be a bit more assertive and drive the ball. His shot may not be falling now but it looks good and I think it will. He is still adjusting and is only in the first half of his freshman year. I'm much more discouraged by the guys that have been here three years. Skyy will be very good.
blackdog
- Champaign
If he was trying to make some aggressive passes and turning it over that might be one thing. The ones I can forgive are if he is trying to hit a bounce pass to a cutter and it gets knocked away because that's just part of the offense sometimes but some of them are still complete head scratchers. Last night he tried to one hand throw a defensive rebound to Harris while in midair instead of just bringing it down. Of course Harris wasn't expecting it so he was starting to go up the floor and the ball went other team. Hawkins looked like he was mad at Harris but why would he ever expect you to do something random like that? Just grab the rebound.
Totally disagree, our most gifted player is Skyy but he is just a freshman and is not in his third year like Hawkins. Just give him some time. Skyy is just getting started and needs to be a little more assertive. I loved what I saw from Harris again last night and the defensive changes. I am anxious to see how Skyy plays without all the switching. He physical gifts are there just give him some time.Coleman Hawkins is our best all-around player this year.
There, I said it… Come at me, haters.
Is he a bit of a head case? Mercurial, I’d say. His shot selection (and more so, non-selection) is head-scratching at times, I’ll admit. But he does so much else that puts us in the best chance to win consistently. He plays smart and he plays hard. Really hard.
TSJ is our most dynamic piece. He is who I want to take THAT shot, if you know what I mean…
The plug-in of Dain over RJ yielded very positive results, and I would like to see them stick with that if DD‘s conditioning allows (he seems to be up for it).
Is Goode ready to step up from role player to key man? We’ll see, but I’m gonna guess not this season. He adds great leadership and plus outside shooting, but I’m not buying his defense until I see it. Hope I’m wrong about the latter - either way, it will be awesome to see him back in the rotation.
Whenever both Skyy and Epps are on the bench, I start to worry about who is going to bring the ball up under pressure. That said, Sencire is just flat-out ballin’ right now. As a viewer, your eyes are drawn to him, lest you might miss something spectacular. Who doesn’t love that kid?
Just one sneakin’ lyin’ awful dirty evil man’s observations…
Last edited:
Watched replay of 1988 Illinois-Mizzou game. Illini had 26 turnovers and still won 87-84. Amazing game...Illini attempted only 4 three pointers in the game...making 3. Continually pounded the ball inside to Hamilton, Battle and Anderson, then attacked the boards...wouldn't be a bad strategy for the current team considering the poor 3 point shooting. Also, got after it defensively!
Whoa. Skyy has been pretty disappointing. The learning curve is normal, but he is lost out there on both sides of the ball.
The way he has been used is questiomable, but he has not been good and really lacks quickness.
Disagree, he is plenty quick and can get by guys. He just has not been as assertive. He is just a freshman. I recall DWill as a freshman when he only averaged 6 points and wasn't driving and creating initially.. Give him some time. His athletic ability and skill is not an issue. He is adjusting. BU and others did not miss evaluate him as one of the best guards in the country. He most certainly can be great. It's early on for him much like many other Illini greats. Often fans expect far to much from incoming players right away. Fans toss out all this one or two n done talk like it happens all the time as an expectation but its unfair to expect that like fans often do .
Last edited:
The highest A/TO ratio on the team is Mayer at 1.4........Coleman is 1.2. You'd think the man had a .1 A/TO ratio or something the way it's harped on. If youre going to hammer him on the 3 TO/per game (and yes id love him to get that down to 2 per game), give some credit on the 4 assists per game as well.
As for him being a net negative.........IDK man...he's 1st on D boards, 2nd on O boards, 1st in blocks and steals, 1st in assists (and yes turnovers), 4th in points.
He needs to shore up teh shot selection for sure.
I'd also cut him a little slack on his learning curve. He has NEVER, not even in high school, been one of the focal points of an offense like this.
As for him being a net negative.........IDK man...he's 1st on D boards, 2nd on O boards, 1st in blocks and steals, 1st in assists (and yes turnovers), 4th in points.
He needs to shore up teh shot selection for sure.
I'd also cut him a little slack on his learning curve. He has NEVER, not even in high school, been one of the focal points of an offense like this.
As a team we have major TO issues. I will agree with the fact that nobody has a good Assist/TO ratio.
We don't have a true reliable lead guard. It sure as he11 is not Hawkins.
Need to develop Epps and Harris and hope Clark gets it together.
Sky was ranked 35 in RSCI:
Here are how the top 25-50 ranked players who are PGs are faring so far (only included if getting 10+ mpg)
Chance Westry, Auburn: 2.7 PPG, 1.1 Assists, 32% FG, 0% 3FG
Seth Trimble, UNC: 2.6 PPG, .8 Assists, 39% FG, 25% 3Fg
Dylan Andrews: 3.5 ppg, 1.3 assists, 42% FG, 15% 3 FG
Mark Armstrong 4.7 ppg, .7 assists, 35% FG, 26% 3p
Bruce Thornton: 10.8 ppg, 3.3 assists, 50% FG, 47% 3FG
SKyy: 7ppg, 43%, 36% 3, 2 assists
He seems on decent track based on this but has much to learn as you alluded to. Now maybe you were expecting more based on the fact he used to be ranked 20?
#21 ranked guy is JJ starling: 13 ppg, 1 assist, 44%, 33%
19th guy was Morris at texas: 8 ppg, 1 assist 43%, 28% from 3
SKy is basicaly in between performance between the two guys in range of his old ranking
I'd bet most of these freshman are on some spectrum of lost........with the exception of Thornton and Starling
Coleman Hawkins is currently projected by many(including Givony at ESPN) as being a 1st round pick and as an early 2nd rounder by the rest(like at NBA.com for example). I know many of you can't imagine he's got NBA talent. But I think the people who actually know what they are talking about think you are wrong. You know, the same people who said Kofi should not enter the draft? They tend to be right.
Has he played perfect? Certainly not. But he has the potential to be unbelievably good and the NBA loves potential. The only question is can the staff unlock his potential before someone in the NBA does?
It's not the water at Ubben. The Illini girls went 22 for 23 last night on the road. They are at 78% on the year.
- Status