Illinois 85, Texas 78 OT Postgame

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#451      
trtl
pruman91 said:
www.stltoday.com

No. 17 Illinois rallies late, hands No. 2 Texas its first loss of the season

Terrence Shannon Jr. scored 12 of his 16 points in overtime, including the tiebreaking 3-pointer with 3:34 remaining, and No. 17 Illinois rallied for a win.
www.stltoday.com www.stltoday.com

By LARRY FLEISHER Associated Press
NEW YORK — Terrence Shannon Jr. scored 12 of his 16 points in overtime, including the tiebreaking 3-pointer with 3:34 remaining, and No. 17 Illinois rallied to hand second-ranked Texas its first loss of the season, 85-78 on Tuesday night in the Jimmy V Classic.
Jayden Epps added 11 points, including the final five points of regulation — a 3-pointer with 35 seconds left and two tying free throws with 8 seconds remaining. Epps then blocked Marcus Carr's jumper in the lane just before the buzzer to force overtime in an entertaining showdown at Madison Square Garden.
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To beat #2 in the Jimmy V at MSG on ESPN is huge for the brand.
 
#453      
Emerson Bigguns
IlliniFandom said:
My Takeaways from this game:

4) We needn't get down on Ty. He's playing and should have time to adjust as all freshman should have. it's just our other 3 freshman are like anomalies and it's unfair to compare him to them. They just figured out/found their roles quickly.
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Ty is giving us decent minutes when he gets them. He fits into what we are doing stylistically and is rebounding at an admirable rate. His issue is that we have a bunch of other 6'6"-6'9" dudes who are farther along in their development. Skyy and Epps were basically guaranteed minutes based on positional need. (It helps that they are also really good) One of the two is almost always on the court.
Harris is such a wild card. He's like a defensive shot of expresso. It's really fun to see how Brad deploys him when we get stagnant. It wasn't as obvious as the UCLA game, but I felt his pestering defense got Texas out of sync the last 7 minutes or so and allowed us to sneak back into it. By OT Hunter and Carr were physically exhausted. They were much easier to guard down the stretch.
 
#454      
sulli
The potential undoing of this team is that they don't move away from the ball on offense (consistently). Way too many possessions feature several people standing on the wing or in the corner (especially the wing), no back picks, not even a v cut to get open.

When Kofi was on the team he stifled movement sometimes because he took up so much space in the middle and began posting up right away. Now he isn't there, which should free them up to do more movement away from the ball. Unfortunately, they've been inconsistent in changing. Sometimes they do. Hopefully, by season-end they will. The turnovers (aside from the charges which are sort of a one-off) are often because even making that first pass to start the offense is difficult due to the lack of movement. Pressure defenses make that pass hard and the counter is to do more work to free up the first pass and occasionally get an easy bucket since the guys producing the pressure can't see the movement behind them. If they know where you are they don't need to see you.
 
#457      
aaeismacgychel
Butters said:
I'm pretty sure this is wrong, as Kenpom shows it's predicted scores for all of Illinois' games, and the remaining ones do not match what your computing. I know it's not a straightforward calculation, but the first that strikes me about your math is that you listed 60 possessions per game, but then failed to adjust the margin of victory based on that. ajEM is per 100 I believe, so you'd get much closer to Kenpom predictions by multiplying those by ~.7 (we are averaging 72 possessions so far this year, but the number is still not exactly correct though). Once you do that, you see that Kenpom doesn't predict a 35+ point margin of victory for us against anyone all year.
Part of your point is correct though. If Kenpom predicts we will beat Alabama A&M by 31 and gives us a 99.8% chance of winning, it will be basically impossible to improve our standing by beating them.
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You are correct that what I wrote is a greatly oversimplified version of how his system works. I tried saying as much, but maybe it didn't come across. I was basically trying to explain the main concepts as simply as I thought they were able to easily understand. So a few responses to the points you brought up:

1. Tempo: This one I did mention in my post is a factor in EM. So EM is a pts per possession metric. Our adjusted offense metric is 111.9 which roughly means we're expected to get 1.119 pts per possession on offense. When you multiply this by tempo (possessions per game) that'll be your pts per game. If you are a subscriber, check out the Illinois-Texas box score and you'll see Illinois scored 85pts in 80 possessions and two- I haven't gotten a look under the hood of Ken's system since the shot clock was reduced from 35 to 30s so he might have changed score effects in adj EM in that time.

2. Predicted EM is not simply your adj EM minus your opponent's adj. EM. That's only true in a vacuum if your opponent doesn't affect your play at all and your play and their play are completely independent variables. This is not true so additional calculations are made to account for these variable's dependence.

3. Ken's predictive results that he lists in his FanMatch is actually dissociated from his adjusted efficiency metrics. Well, somewhat. FanMatch is a pet project for him and it includes many additional variables that the adj. EM does not include so there actually is no direct calculation from the EM metrics to the predictive score that can be done without significant additional info.

4. How do I know anything about this? I am a random person on the internet after all... So, years ago when Ken was in his final stages of formulating his FanMatch predictive system, I had the opportunity to work with him in doing some performance testing on it. That said, this is now closing in on 10years ago, so it's been a while. But on this topic, just know I'm not saying stuff just to say stuff, but that I also do need to balance what I say for educational purposes with what is actually going on in the engine, and to do my best to try not misleading people. Again, hope that explains things.
 
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#458      
lstewart53x3
Monticello said:
They had the 2 seed and played the 8 seed for the championship. They were studs, but they weren't playing #2. They went 2-2 during the regular season against ranked teams and lost to lower-seeded Notre Dame in the tourney.
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Crazy, that team went 2-2 against top 25 opponents in 32 games played.

We’ve played 9 games so far this year and we’re already 2-2 against top 25 teams (all 4 games away from home).
 
#459      
SampsonRelpenk
lstewart53x3 said:
Crazy, that team went 2-2 against top 25 opponents in 32 games played.

We’ve played 9 games so far this year and we’re already 2-2 against top 25 teams (all 4 games away from home).
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Yeah, we tend not to acknowledge how down the conference was during the Dee/Deron years...but it makes the run we're on now all the more impressive.
 
#460      
NASchamp
What I continue to love about this team is that different players step up each night, which makes us really hard to game plan against. Yes, there were some blown switches, but I did start to see the 'automatic' switches that will be key as we get more experienced. Players are still making a lot of unneeded fouls that are usually the result of frustration (see: MM 4th foul). I hope we can cut down on these as the guys mature. TBH, I almost lost it when he committed that dumb 4th foul but was really happy to see he calmed down and could play with 4 fouls for the rest of the game. I also hope we start to learn to find more consistent offense and go-to sets. I had wished we took more advantage of Dain down in the post down the stretch.
 
#462      
JFGsCoffeeMug
I saw a Texas fan consoling other fans with the idea that it's not a big deal to lose to an "athletic veteran team" like Illinois.

I consider that a huge compliment. Texas knows a thing or two about athleticism. And even though we're not "veteran" in the traditional sense, I do agree that our staff has done a great job of preparing our players to consistently play hard and fight through adversity - two common hallmarks of veteran teams.

Season 9 Thank You GIF by The Office
 
#466      
Bbuck21
aaeismacgychel said:
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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Thanks for this effort. I think our SOS at #217 is surprising, but understandable. I don't feel like reviewing every teams early schedules, but I wonder how basketball fans across the country would answer this question, "Which teams have played a tough early season schedule so far? I think Illinois, Texas, and Gonzaga would be on the short list. Who else? (Remember I don't feel like looking it up)

Also, we should have been matched with Miami or VA Tech in the challenge.
 
#467      
the national
Genesis said:
I hate to say this but we didn't win just because we just kept fighting. We won because when we took Clark out in the second half, our offense ran better and the defense tightened up considerably. As a result, I predicted Clark would not come back in during overtime and he didn't. I'm surprised Jay didn't catch that. Posters did notice the effort of Harris and Epps and they deserve lots of credit. This will be a good opportunity to teach Clark some lessons. Ignore the one great game that he had recently. He'll sit to start the next game.
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I agree with your assessment except one thing, Coach doesn’t use starting as a motivator. His minutes and role matters more. I think Epps will be Mr Clutch until Sky can show that kind of composure under the big lights. Sky had a few freshman moments in the game to learn from (as Epps had in his previous game).
 
#470      
lstewart53x3
What’s a more impressive feat by BU:

Losing his entire assistant coaching staff in the off-season, then having the most missed minutes due to injury of any team in the P5 last year, yet still winning the B1G?

Or losing his entire starting 5 and 86% of points scored from a B1G championship team, yet still having his team ranked top 10 in Net 9 games into the season?
 
#471      
Bbuck21
IllinoisssssssVarsity said:
If Texas would have won they would have had a legit argument to be number 1 with a considerably better resume than Houston.

I hate Texas. I hate their fans. I hate their culture. I hate their arrogance and entitlement.

So if I have a positive thing to say about Texas, it probably has some merit to it.

On a side note I can not wait until Texas takes multiple @$$ whoopings in SEC football. I think aTm is a weird place, but it will be even more awesome when one of those whoopings comes from them.
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"I hate Texas". -"I hate their culture. I hate their arrogance and entitlement".
Me too. Are you talking about the school or the state?
 
#472      
altgeld88
lstewart53x3 said:
What’s a more impressive feat by BU:

Losing his entire assistant coaching staff in the off-season, then having the most missed minutes due to injury of any team in the P5 last year, yet still winning the B1G?

Or losing his entire starting 5 and 86% of points scored from a B1G championship team, yet still having his team ranked top 10 in Net 9 games into the season?
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why-dont-we-have-both-both.gif
 
#474      
Bbuck21
Emerson Bigguns said:
Ty is giving us decent minutes when he gets them. He fits into what we are doing stylistically and is rebounding at an admirable rate. His issue is that we have a bunch of other 6'6"-6'9" dudes who are farther along in their development. Skyy and Epps were basically guaranteed minutes based on positional need. (It helps that they are also really good) One of the two is almost always on the court.
Harris is such a wild card. He's like a defensive shot of expresso. It's really fun to see how Brad deploys him when we get stagnant. It wasn't as obvious as the UCLA game, but I felt his pestering defense got Texas out of sync the last 7 minutes or so and allowed us to sneak back into it. By OT Hunter and Carr were physically exhausted. They were much easier to guard down the stretch.
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I am always happy with Ty's play. You nailed it. He's playing as freshmen. You can see the talent. He also has seen minutes at effectively 4 different positions on the court. Just think, he will probably be playing even better later in the season, but he will probably see even less minutes when Goode returns.
 
#475      
Chillinini
Still on a high from the game. Just a few things.

This is the Mayer I’ve been expecting and waiting for. He is a difference maker. Not only his offense, but his defense was exceptional.

Speaking of defense, might be one the best defenses I’ve seen at Illinois. Sencire, RJ, CoHawk, Mayer, Epps, TJ, etc were just relentless and most importantly, in control.

So glad that Epps had that ending in the second half. So solid and nails. Nice bounce back from the MD game. It’s going to do wonders for his confidence.

This team is going to be fun to watch like the ‘05 and ‘89 teams.
 
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