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Illinois 85, Texas 78 OT Postgame
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Watching this game again and I gotta say that Jay Bilas must be an absolute menace of a backseat driver. Would not want to drive his Uber.
I thought a heart attack and assistants were trying to revive him.
, the mecca!the national
- the Front Range
Champaign Toast
Fan since Kiwane Garris
I was at the 2010 Texas game at Madison Square Garden that the Illini lost in double overtime. Was so sweet to be there again tonight to see us reverse the result.
Doesn’t Kenpom factor in that we beat the snot out of them though? I don’t see why the system would care that much about beating lindenwood by 40 or a different cupcake ranked around 200 by 20.
the national
- the Front Range
I’ve watched alot of Texas this season and they have been amazing. Legit. Beard is a good coach. He’s got a team like ours only that it’s in year two. Tons of personalities and transfers - blending talent. They have looked lights out. This is a big deal, a big win.
Wins like this are rare and it takes a special combination of ingredients to take place. First you need skill. You gotta have the drive and the will to win. You gotta have some luck. And most importantly, you gotta have an absolute potato making headscratching mistakes. Texas played very well all game right up until the last couple minutes of regulation. Then in OT just some silly mistakes and most everything fell our way. What an incredibly fun game to watch; best Tuesday night in a long time as an Illini fan.
I disagree. While that stat looked bad initially if you think about it as a lower ranked team winning 15-20% of your games against someone ranked top two in the country? That's a pretty good stat. Some of those games you might be #5 and some of those games you might be #40. 9-42 is it now? Looks good to me.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Agreed. Even after tonight’s loss, Texas is #3 in KenPom and #4 in Torvik.
That’s a legit top 5 team
Yeah, I don’t buy the line that Texas isn’t a legit final four contender, and I also think a great deal of why we looked so bad is that they’re a fantastic defensive team, with Beard maybe being the best defensive coach in the NCAA. They turn you over and they make it really difficult to run your stuff.
I think an underrated thing is that while we went ten minutes with only two points, Texas only got 12 in that stretch themselves and we didn’t let them blow it open. That’s all coming with the game being played at a pretty brisk pace. It’s tough to play D when you aren’t scoring at all, just a tremendous defensive performance as a former Illini coaching great would say.
What I saw tonight was a superbly conditioned Illini team simply wearing out their opponent with depth. Texas likely has a very slightly more talented and experienced team, but through 9 players, the Illini get even. And make no mistake, though our Illini got the W, this was no beatdown. A 90%+ FT shooter missed the front end of a bonus FT attempt and a frosh made a 3 pointer. Then, with 8 seconds left, a Texas player slips and falls into Epps who buries two. We defend their final attempt and go to overtime....with joy and energy guiding the Fighting Illini to victory over a worn out by very good Texas squad.
The Illini had to fight through a ton of iffy calls that did not go their way, but in the last minute of this game, which easily could have been a 5-6 pt. Texas win, our guys caught a couple of unexpected breaks that were Looooooooooooooooooong overdue.
What was so uplifting to me was the MM and RJ stepped up big time when needed. If this is what we get when MM is feeling good, then this team is a legit NC contender. And if RJ can be consistent with that type of support on both ends, he is becoming the player I expected and he wants to be...and nothing is in his way except confidence.
Bottom line, count me as one who does not think Texas was over-rated. They earned and deserved their rating, and yet who is to say this time of year. But they are not deep and similar to NC team for Baylor a couple of years ago....which was pretty much a two man team on offense. I am sure they too will learn from this game and would welcome a rematch in April. They will be better then....but we know the Illini will be also.
The Illini had to fight through a ton of iffy calls that did not go their way, but in the last minute of this game, which easily could have been a 5-6 pt. Texas win, our guys caught a couple of unexpected breaks that were Looooooooooooooooooong overdue.
What was so uplifting to me was the MM and RJ stepped up big time when needed. If this is what we get when MM is feeling good, then this team is a legit NC contender. And if RJ can be consistent with that type of support on both ends, he is becoming the player I expected and he wants to be...and nothing is in his way except confidence.
Bottom line, count me as one who does not think Texas was over-rated. They earned and deserved their rating, and yet who is to say this time of year. But they are not deep and similar to NC team for Baylor a couple of years ago....which was pretty much a two man team on offense. I am sure they too will learn from this game and would welcome a rematch in April. They will be better then....but we know the Illini will be also.
Almost Trent-level defense(for the time that he is in) as a freshman is ......very impressive. Can easily be a B10 DPOY candidate if he can grow into doing that consistently for a game next couple of years.
Believe it or not, this is a more complicated question than it looks based on how Kenpom's engine works as there are a couple things to take into account including how would a team overperform against a team rated so lowly, and how he deals with blowouts which is not exactly 1:1. I will oversimplify this, just to show what I mean, so this isn't exactly how the system works, but it's somewhat ballpark. Let's say there's 3 major factors in determining how "good" a win is against a given team:
1. Actual Efficency Margin vs. Predicted Efficiency Margin
2. Was the Margin of Victory 30pts or less?
3. Location of game
Okay, let's start with margin of victory. In Kenpom's engine just know that when you beat a team by more than 30pts, it's considered a "blowout" and you get greatly diminishing return for each point over this margin to the point of it being almost zeroed out. Why is this? Well, most teams when winning by more than 30 in the 2nd half will start putting in their bench. So how much should teams be rewarded for say winning by 60 vs say winning by 35? The short answer in kenpom's system is not all that much. So any margin over this effectively gets muted. Now again, I am oversimplifying it, but let's put the "cap" at around 30pts and "absolute cap" at 35pts as how much beating a team by affects your adjusted efficiency margin in the metrics.
Now, let's consider Location of game. Kenpom adjusted metrics are based on neutral court matchups and know that playing at home gives you around 3 points (not exact but again, ballpark).
And now let's talk about predicted efficiency margin which again I'm oversimplifying it but ballpark we'll say it's your adjusted efficiency margin minus your opponent's adjusted efficiency margin (note in reality that tempo plays a part in this, but I am omitting it as it will just make things even more skewed).
Alright, so let's now look at Illinois' 300+ ranked opponents and see what Illinois would be predicted to beat them by (pretending tempo is 60 poss per game):
vEIU: [+22.58] (ILL adjEM) - [-21.53] (EIU ajEM) + [3.0] (Home game) =+47.1pt predicted margin of victory
vMonmouth: 22.58 + 12.52 + 3.0 = +38.1pt
vLindenwood: 22.58 + 16.94 + 3.0 = +42.5pt
vAlabama A&M: 22.58 + 16.94 + 3.0 = +42.5pt
vBethune Cookman: 22.58 + 12.98 + 3.0 = +38.6pt
Now remember what I told you earlier, that your "absolute cap" for how much your margin of victory will affect your adjusted Efficiency Margin in any game is somewhere in the ballpark of about 35pts. And note how in every single one of those games for a "good win" you'd need to beat those teams by over 35pts, which from an adjusted efficiency standpoint can't happen no matter how much you beat them by. So, in other words, every single game you play against a 300+ ranked team in Kenpom's system is for all intents and purposes a win that is worse than you are expected to beat them by, hence why your metrics are artifically deflated for playing teams of this caliber. Now compare this to say a team ranked 250 who you should beat just as easily and your predicted margin of victory is +32.1pt. In other words, you can still get a better than predicted win against them.
One other thing to note is that when it comes to SOS and non-conf SOS most system metrics weight all teams equally, which when you consider the average B10 team you're playing is ranked #32 and the median non-conf opponent is #181, games against #300+ teams skews your average hard. Hence while we've played 3 Kenpom Top 10 team on neutral courts, our non-conference SOS is still only 217th in the country.
I apologize to everyone for the long post, but that is about as simple and efficient a summary I can give for why in Kenpom's metrics, playing 300+ ranked teams will always negatively affect your adjusted EM and SOS metrics regardless of how much you beat them by. Basically, you automatically lose just by scheduling them. Also know that this is a known "issue" (it's not really an issue or bug, it's just a limitation when it comes to how your system deals with blowouts) with Kenpom and most other metric based systems and when you schedule opponents coaching staffs and administrations in power conferences are well aware that you want to schedule cupcakes to get wins, but you don't want to schedule cupcakes that are too fatty. Hope that explains things.
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Agreed. I think the Illini play a bit frenetically also that at times can or seemingly can border on out of control. They push it on both ends. I thought that was the case with the early offensive fouls. Those are bang-bang plays and if the ref is seeing a somewhat seemingly out of control player, they’re more likely to call the foul on them.
The other factor is perception. Ninety-five percent of the time a fan thinks his team is being jobbed by refs. There are always bad and borderline calls. Officiating is never going to be perfect. Fans always notice/remember those that go against their team, but far less notice the ones that go against the other team — or consider those calls “correct.”
As to perception, in the Maryland game I saw several posters point to the fact that Maryland took more foul shots (10 more I think) as “proof” officiating was one sided. But Illini fouled 3-point shooter twice, accounting for 6 of those extra shots. Against Texas, tons of posts about how bad refs were and that they were killing the Illini and how Texas was committing fouls but weren’t getting called for them. This despite the fact Texas was whistled for 4 more fouls and Illini took 12 more foul shots.
Was the officiating great? No, it never is. We’re there some bad or missed calls? Yes, there always are. was the officiating as bad as all the complaining on here would indicate? No, and it rarely is. I’ve come to learn that there are four things that are inevitable: death, taxes, and griping on here that 1) refs are jobbing the Illini and 2) that the announcers are terrible cuz they don’t talk about or say enough good things about the Illini.
All that aside, great win by the Illini and fun game to watch.
Couldn’t like this enough.
Thanks.
You need glasses because he slapped the ball into the backboard,he blocked the shot. Both announcers showed you the play multiple times from different angles,that clearly showed the block. You must have a standard definition tv.
Be hard pressed to find in the history books where two Illini freshman pay a key role in knocking off a highly rated team.
A traditional point guard is not going to get many assists or looks with as little movement the illini demostrated much of the game
As Bilas pointed out, dramatic difference down the stretch and particularly in OT.
One of the commentators said he knew team would be good, just not this soon
Excellent post. It’s funny to go to the game thread here and read about how the Illini are being jobbed by the refs, then go to an opponents game thread and learn how the refs have it out for them as well.
But I do think there is often a serious lack of quality in certain refereeing squads that’s felt by both teams. The first two charges against the illini were ludicrous. The defensive players weren’t just sliding their feet, they weren’t even close to establishing position. And it appears the goaltending call wasn’t because the refs didn’t have large enough monitors. Why aren’t reviews handled elsewhere anyway???
But all in all, I don’t believe refs go into a game with an eye on “jobbing” a particular team. It’s just that there’s so many games in college basketball on a given night that, by nature of the beast, some crews are going to be worse than others..
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