Can someone help me share the excitement? I'm not saying the coaches don't know what they're doing, or that this isn't going to work. I'm just not sure what others are seeing...
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Illinois was elite on offense this past year due to being pretty good at all three of: TS% (50th in the nation), ORB (21st) and low turnovers (35th). So our 57%TS was good, but not great on its own.
Looking at the "year prior to transfer" stats of this past season's key players, you can see how they promised value in one/more of those categories, except maybe Harmon (we could hope he'd be more efficient with less usage, but that didn't pan out). TSJ and Domask had about the same TS% in their first year with us as they did prior to transferring. Guerrier improved from 53%->56%. TSJ improved from 58%->62% in his 2nd year with us.
For the rumored incoming transfers, I'm struggling with the low TS% of Boswell, Storr, and Hill. Maddox and Davis have great TS%, but Davis doesn't seem like a high-volume guy. FWIW, the Sports-Reference defensive metrics for this group (except maybe Boswell) are also worse than our previous transfers. Our returning players don't look any better at TS%, though Rodgers and Hansberry were good rebounders, so it looks like we're really counting on some transfers for scoring.
So is the excitement that:
- Maddox already is a high-efficiency higher-volume scorer
- Hopefully at least one of Storr/Hill improve significantly with less usage
- Boswell had a 58%TS prior to this year and still had a good 3P% this year, so hopefully he just took some dumb 2pt shots that we can eliminate. Plus he can at least be a good ball handler and capable defender regardless of his efficiency
- Davis can hit some 3s (and hopefully be ok on defense)
- Hopefully DGL/Hansberry will improve and/or are already much better than their stats
If so, there are a lot of "hopefullys", so I don't think I will be excited until I see the results. I get that college players can improve significantly, but looking at our recent transfers (and those of Alabama, since someone mentioned them), that's far from guaranteed.