Illinois 85, Texas 78 OT Postgame

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#501      

EllderIlliniFan

EllderIlliniFan
EllderIlliniFan
In addition to winning the game, what was really telling about this team was their ability to deal with adversity and not fold
1. Going from 3 up to 10 down in the second half.
2. Not folding with the bad goal tending call.
3. Not folding when the 3 pointer was taken off the board by the time out under a minute and down 5.
4. Shannon not getting down for spending time on the bench in the second half.
5. Many questionable charging calls.

Fighting thru adversity will go a long way toward success in March when things don't always go according to plan.
 
#502      

One Man Fast Break

O
One Man Fast Break
EllderIlliniFan said:
In addition to winning the game, what was really telling about this team was their ability to deal with adversity and not fold
1. Going from 3 up to 10 down in the second half.
2. Not folding with the bad goal tending call.
3. Not folding when the 3 pointer was taken off the board by the time out under a minute and down 5.
4. Shannon not getting down for spending time on the bench in the second half.
5. Many questionable charging calls.

Fighting thru adversity will go a long way toward success in March when things don't always go according to plan.
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Yes, this team is remarkable resilient. They are good at getting punched in the mouth and staying calm and coming back. In boxing, you'd say they have a strong chin.
 
#504      

bavanga3

B
bavanga3
Manual3for4peat said:
It’s a great win. But, with no fans, I’m not sure it was more of a road game than this one.

2020 was such a weird year.
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Good point. Not a normal true road game that was. However, it was still against #2 in the country on their home court. Last night was a better atmosphere, but I would go out on a limb and say neutral sites lean towards a home court advantage for us. To ME, the game against Michigan was bigger than last night and we had 2 freshman guards that contributed greatly which was initially what I was responding to.

My point was this... seems like a lot of times people say "not since the '05 team". Just because the last 2 seasons didn't end the way we want doesn't mean we should discredit and forget the magnitute of some of their accomplishments. This team was unbelievably good the last 2 years. This team MAY have more potential than either of those teams but they need to keep growing. Too many mistakes last night that we just can't have if we want to win in March.

I trust Underwood and the senior transfers to help keep these kids humble..
 
#507      

zentrails

Z
zentrails
Nohops 73 said:
Texas played excellent defense for most of regulation, but do think that they wore out at the end. Their guards cramping was a sign of that.
Surprised no one has talked about our excellent free throw defense on Hunter’s 1 & 1 with 20 seconds left to get the ball back…../s but let’s face it, that was huge.
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That FT was short, another sign of fatigue
 
#508      

ChiefIllinois

C
ChiefIllinois
HensonHall71 said:
I don't necessarily agree it was hard to overturn - either you see it double bounce off the backboard or you don't. If you didn't see a double contact with the backboard it was clean - which is clearly was, then you can check if it was in the cylinder or coming down, etc.

But my bigger issue is with calling it a goaltend in the first place. Goal tending calls are very rare - and reserved for the most egregious cases - a clean block against the backboard should be let go - either you see a clear double bounce against the board or you don't - "assuming a goal tend" in live action is just an awful call

The Epps pass that was deflected out is another example - usually they would use logic to say, he probably didn't just throw it 10 feet out of bounds on his own and someone deflected it - even if they didn't see it, another awful call. There were a couple of other out of bounds calls that should have been our ball that didn't go our way - it seemed lopsided watching it live

In general, they were letting them play, not calling a lot of contact, which is a better way to call the game, they just missed a lot of the out of bounds calls
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Goaltending can also come through touching the ball on its way down, now I’m assuming that’s what they were looking at (contact before backboard v after), it doesn’t have to bounce back and hit the backboard again.

I agree that the initial call shouldn’t have been goaltending but I think there were about 7 call last game alone that didn’t go our way and honestly the goaltending one was low on that list of crappy decisions.
 
#509      

Poe's Law

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Poe's Law
combes said:
Ervin Small and PJ Bowman both got 10 minutes a game for the 89 team.

Nick Smith played in 38 games and averaged 11 minutes a game for the 2005 team. Warren Carter got 8 minutes a game.
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How many of those minutes were after the game was no longer in doubt. I don’t remember seeing Warren much in what I would call the regular rotation.
 
#510      

hoopsfan47

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hoopsfan47
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. kind
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This is an exceptionally good observation. When opposing players are made to work their tails off on both ends of the floor, it is discouraging and offers no opportunity for recovery.

Strength and conditioning were a critical factor in that game and paid off for the Illini. Harris played a huge role in the victory and I am not sure that I have seen a better defensive effort in 65 years as a hoops fan. Not only does he have the quickness and ability to mimic offensive moves of lightning quick and skilled offensive players, but at 6' 4" has size to go with that elite ability. I just hope he understands his value and somebody can teach him important FT shooting fundamentals which will be needed at some point.
 
#511      

BRucks

BRucks
BRucks
hoopsfan47 said:
Skyy may play in the NBA at some point and I hope he does....but it will not be next year. A lot of skills need a lot of work. But all it takes is a good attitude and hard work. He had 5 pts. that were all needed and 4 boards which is not bad for a pg. Players play at a level at both ends of a bell curve....every one of them. Some curves are wider than others. Tonight was hopefully at his very left end.
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He's not afraid to stick his nose in there and fight for a rebound.
 
#514      

BRucks

BRucks
BRucks
InDaAZ said:
List of 6’10” guys who can play all over the court for 42 productive minutes:

1. Coleman Hawkins, Illinois
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We've seen both Hawk and Mayer dribble the full length of the court for a fast break bucket. Very smooth. Dain----not so much.
 
#515      

Bbuck21

B
Bbuck21
Poe's Law said:
How many of those minutes were after the game was no longer in doubt. I don’t remember seeing Warren much in what I would call the regular rotation.
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Bowman, Small, and Smith's minutes were not just in mop up. Carter probably yes. It doesn't change the point of the original post. The 1989 and 2005 team played 8 mostly. This team will end the season playing 10 regularly.
 
#516      

bluemountain

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bluemountain
EyeoftheIllini said:
Spot on analysis. Been wanting to post something like this and would not have wrote it nearly as well. There are so many times they have to commence their offense so far out because of the defensive pressure — and lack of movement and back cuts.
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Yep. This has been a recurring achilles heel for Illini teams under BU. We play hard, almost always defend well, we rebound well. But we are prone to having long stretches of time in which our offense becomes stagnant because ball and player movement is lacking
 
#518      

BBIQ

B
Texas
BBIQ
bluemountain said:
Yep. This has been a recurring achilles heel for Illini teams under BU. We play hard, almost always defend well, we rebound well. But we are prone to having long stretches of time in which our offense becomes stagnant because ball and player movement is lacking
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and turnovers and poor shot selection.
 
#519      

BRucks

BRucks
BRucks
billybaroo said:
Totally agree. The crack stats crew at ESPN decided it was more relevant to highlight our all-time record against top 2 teams (or something like that). I’m pretty sure every team’s record against those teams is crap.
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The game announcers don't actually do much of their own research. Each team provides the media with a set of notes prior to the game. If you read those notes, yourself, prior to the game, you will already know a good portion of the on-air commentary that you will be hearing. We included that particular stat on page 1 of the 35 that we provided:

• Illinois is a combined 7-40 all-time against teams ranked in the top 2 of the AP polls

 
#520      

GForce

GForce
GForce
john1952 said:
Be hard pressed to find in the history books where two Illini freshman pay a key role in knocking off a highly rated team.
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Without looking it up, Efrem Winters and Bruce Douglas were pretty good as freshmen.
 
#521      

Bigtex

Bigtex
DFW
Bigtex
NASchamp said:
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.
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Hard to play dain down the stretch - because of free throws

Same could be said for Harris and Rodgers
 
#522      

Ga65

G
Ga65
BWA said:
It's especially true for our bench guys. Hawk and Shannon are gonna get 33+ MPG, but the rest of the guys can really go all out. It lets guys like Sencire and Rodgers go nuts on the defensive end.

Hard to believe we are actually rolling 9 deep and everyone is contributing. Especially with four freshman. Rodgers is the only one who hasn't quite figured things out.
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And the one people were taunting as a starter. Think the emergence of Harris has cost him minutes. Never saw him as a four when we have much bigger men ahead of him that can shoot. Really thought he was TJ’s backup but Epps and Harris have seemed to cover that. Still expect heavy contribution but maybe not this year.
 
#523      

CV Illini

C
CV Illini
One Man Fast Break said:
Nobody really plays 10. Shannon and Hawkins aren't going to be leaving the court much in big games (like yesterday). We'll figure out our 7 or 8 by season end.
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Nobody........except us. We played 9 against the #2 team in the nation with Rodgers logging the least time at 7 minutes and Dain with the second fewest at 16. I would agree with you if these minutes played were against Lindenwood but this was against Texas. Goode will get his when he returns and Rodgers will only improve as the season goes on. So as crazy as it sounds, we will legitimately be running 5 fresh bodies in at every 4vminute time out. Crazy!
 
#524      

BRucks

BRucks
BRucks
sdiver68 said:
The strength of this team is numbers. We have 2 legit superstars and another 7 who are capable of being the star of the game on any given night. Which adds up to the "big 3" so often talked about in pro basketball.

9 like that minimizes the chances that off nights from even 2-3 sink the squad. And maximizes the chances we will have more left in the tank during the late 2nd half.
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To illustrate your point we have played 9 games and have had 7 different leading scorers: Melendez, Hawkins, Dain, Shannon, Epps, Clark and Mayer.
 
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