I mean they brought Purdue to 2OT and lost a very close game to a top ranked Arizona . Our lineups and rotations have been in constant flux from injury/sickness/suspension and the Marquette loss for example is a result of that. Last year's team was more talented and even they had some bad losses. I still belive we can go further than last year.
Maryland 81, Illinois 65 Postgame
Tacomallini
- Washington State
I think, by now, we all miss Giorgi. May we find some comfort that Georgi will stick around on Loyalty for many years to come.
Your takes have been littered with negative hyperbole. To boot, they don’t seem to include much concrete logic, so I’d reconsider telling other posters to speak from their minds and not their hearts.
“As we sit here today, that's just about where they belong....mid tier, looking to secure a tournament birth, trying to stay off the bubble.”
I could see your argument if we knew Kofi definitively was out for an extended period of time. But we don’t know that, it’s possible he’s back as soon as Tuesday. We will know soon enough. But as of today, we are tied for 2nd place in the conference and have spent a good chunk of the season in the top 15 in NET rankings, with some analytic heads like Torvik even projecting us to win the BIG10, all while missing key contributors in multiple games... “mid-teir, trying to stay off the bubble”? We are not even close to that. Also, it’s not like other BIG10 teams aren’t capable of dropping the ball against us even if we’re not fully healthy- see Northwestern vs MSU and Purdue vs Indiana. Getting quality wins here on out is not some far off fantasy.
The thing is, there are only so many hours in the off season and pre-season the coaches are allowed to practice with these guys.
So do you use those precious hours setting up, practicing, developing muscle memory and mentally engraining an offense you would use for 2 scrubs and (what was thought to be) a weak power 5 opponent? (BTW, a healthy Belo probably stops that loss from happening)
Or do you spend those precious hours setting up, practicing, developing muscle memory and mentally engraining the offense you plan to use for 95% of the season? This is especially important for the freshmen/new guys, which we had quite a few of.
So no, I wouldn’t expect us to have developed and really gotten good at an offense that wasn’t this season’s planned offense and 100% believe Brad’s comments.
As an analogy, this is like college football teams playing the service academies. They spend no time (until that game week) preparing for the game against Air Force/Army/Navy. It’s just not a good return on investment to prepare more than that considering it’s only 1 game out of 12. That’s why P5 teams often “underperform” against service academies (even if they still win). Coaches are banking on their ability to out-talent/out scheme these option teams with little prep. Often times it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
BU took the same risk. It’s biting us because of the plethora of random “this player is out” circumstances he’s had to deal with.
Da’Monte still lacks confidence in his game. Honestly, it’s still hard to get a feel for what the talent ceiling level is for him even after all these years.
A confident shooter does not go long stretches not looking for his shot as he tends to do. I suppose if it turns out he really isn’t a good shooter then that’s a plus (we know he is capable of hitting Threes). But for whatever reason, this is not the way to contribute on the offense side.
Defenses can forget about him and the Illini are a shooter-down when they have the ball. And some better scorer on the Illini gets things more clogged up.
Because Da’Monte is such a hard worker and a great teammate it’s hard to want to find fault with him. But the Illini freshman MUST play more from now on.
When Coach stays with the veteran-heavy lineup, we have seen the results. The Illini are a good team but can’t get over on the Top Ten-type teams. This does not bode well for March.
With the ‘kids’, there is great talent there and the Illini ceiling gets higher. Sure they will make mistakes, but many in Illini Nation will tolerate more than seeing the veteran lineup not being able to close out games against the more ‘elite’ teams.
With the quickly shifting sands in College ball these days with the transfer portal and such, you’ve got to strike hard with what you have because you won’t have the same group tomorrow. Kofi and Belo and Trent wont be here forever. Reshuffle the Illini deck with younger dudes and play your cards for a better result.
Damonte’s best season was with Ayo. I feel like DMW is the ultimate glue guy and enforcer. But he’s not the Alpha. He best performs when he has an Alpha, like Ayo, backing him up and legitimizing his role on the team.
Ayo said at least a few times he wanted DMW shooting the ball. That he’d actively be looking for him knowing DMW would make it.
Sometimes when an Alpha (like Ayo) has such extreme confidence it bleeds over to the other guys.
Now, DMW is no slouch…but I do think he benefited both from Ayo’s game (slashing that drew DMW’s defender away) as well as his team leader confidence.
Ayo said at least a few times he wanted DMW shooting the ball. That he’d actively be looking for him knowing DMW would make it.
Sometimes when an Alpha (like Ayo) has such extreme confidence it bleeds over to the other guys.
Now, DMW is no slouch…but I do think he benefited both from Ayo’s game (slashing that drew DMW’s defender away) as well as his team leader confidence.
I think we just look tired and that does mean we need to get some guys more time. Hawkins and Goode need to play more and someone needs to let Coleman know it is ok to make mistakes. Our main problem is that when Curbello is in the game it is tough to have both Trent and Plummer in also. We are just so small then if DMW is in with them we have zero length.
Coleman and Goode provide this. Plummer looked so tired at the end last night, and that says nothing of Trent who played 47 minutes against Purdue.
On sportsline this morning the MSU play by play guy was talking about how Izzo is playing 10-11 players because of injuries/Covid. I really wish we would have taken that approach more this year.
Coleman and Goode provide this. Plummer looked so tired at the end last night, and that says nothing of Trent who played 47 minutes against Purdue.
On sportsline this morning the MSU play by play guy was talking about how Izzo is playing 10-11 players because of injuries/Covid. I really wish we would have taken that approach more this year.
InDaAZ
- Eugene, Oregon
)I agree about the fatigue thing. I’d like to get our guys some more rest if able.
But we also need to win games…and BU might be afraid to let the freshmen make their mistakes in a year where we should be a top 15 ish team.
I’ve always felt next year would be a rebuild, so that would be the best year to get our younger guys (including this year’s freshman) more tick.
Obviously playing the seniors didn’t help us last night…so it might be time to spell some of our guys that have been playing heavy minutes.
But I will say it’s tough to do that when we can’t even have our consistent starting lineup set so we can have a consistent freshman rotation as well.
I feel like a lot of the people saying "BU should let the freshmen show what they got. Other guys aren't doing enough" really mean "let me see the freshmen myself so I can evaluate them". BU sees them in practice everyday. I'm sure he has an idea of what he's got. And he's shown in the past a willingness to switch lineups. Grandison being a good example of someone who worked himself into the rotation. And he plays freshmen a lot - even had 2 freshmen as key pieces of the rotation last year.
Goode played a decent amount yesterday until he had that nasty fall. If he's not putting RJ on the court, I trust he knows what he's doing. He sees what goes on in practice and knows what he wants to run.
Goode played a decent amount yesterday until he had that nasty fall. If he's not putting RJ on the court, I trust he knows what he's doing. He sees what goes on in practice and knows what he wants to run.
Cook
- Richmond, VA
This isn't about practice prep time before the season when you're installing your system. It's about adjusting when a key player is out (which having a key player out at any given time this year was pretty much a guarantee everyone knew after seeing how football went.)
Further, any respectable D1 offense system is fungible enough to be adapted for a "if we don't have Kofi" scenario (even within game, it's not like Kofi was ever going to play every minute of every game.) So we're not talking about "to have developed and really gotten good at an offense that wasn’t this season’s planned offense."
Your service academy analogy is also about systems like triple option, wishbone offenses. Totally different than adjusting for a player being out. A better analogy would have been having your QB1 out, albeit a Heisman candidate level QB1. And my point was that we've already been there and done that for 3 games this year. So yes, "adjusting on the fly" to not having Kofi sucks but not like Brad had to reinvent the proverbial wheel for one game.
Before this season started our two best players were expected to be Kofi and Andre. The only time they have played in the same game was against Purdue. Why don't we give this team time to play at full strength before we bad mouth them so much. I doubt that any other team in the country has been without one of their two best players for 17 of 18 games. Imagine how good this team could be if Kofi played an average game and Andre performed like he did against Purdue.
Technically they played together when we played Cincy and KSU but with Curbelo’s head injury that wasn’t really “him.” I’d argue despite his heroics that he wasn’t “himself” for the Purdue game either due to conditioning. So in my view that haven’t played together at all this season.
He specifically talked about the difficulties of designing the team vs adjusting on the fly to a full game (or more) absence. You said you didn’t buy it and the reasons were COVID/Kofi’s suspension. (I won’t reference the “Kofi taking a breather/Kofi in foul trouble because they probably do practice that.)
Designing the team would have been done in the pre-season, Sep/Oct (Nov finishing touches) and there is no way he could have had the foresight of the Omicron variant while building the team/designing offensive sets.
My response to your debate, however, was more aimed at the 2nd reason. By your logic, BU should have already installed a better “Kofi is out” contingency plan that we could adjust to quickly since Kofi had a suspension to serve, which I argued meant he would have to be using those valuable hours of the pre-season prep.
Also, we found out Kofi had a 3 game suspension only like a week before the season started. Not a lot of time to install anything even if he wanted to. Again, spending precious time preparing for something in Sep/Oct that may not happen (and may be minimal if it does happen) was a calculated risk that normally pays off. (Which is why I likened it to the service academy analogy. Not an exact replica of this situation but more of an analogy to show how coaches take calculated risks)
The other part about adjusting on the fly that I think Brad is trying to articulate is the game prep in the days leading up to a game. I think it was the Michigan postgame where BU said something like “UM not having Hunter Dickinson threw off a TON of the game plan, making it tough to adjust”. If you read articles from Illiniboard, one of the writers (a former Illini walkon) talks to the frustrations of prepping for one thing and then having to switch to something else quickly. It’s VERY difficult.
Kofi played Monday, and would have traveled Thursday meaning the team only had 2 practices in between. I’m not sure when they tested him for the concussion and if he practiced at all, but BU seemed frustrated like he was expecting to have Kofi back and had been prepping as such. So again, not a lot of time to adjust on the fly and probably bungled up his whole game plan.
BU also has that “next man up” philosophy. So while Kofi is out, he expects Payne to be at least serviceable in his place. That’s the real kicker here. In my opinion, BU is more at fault for not recruiting a serviceable (yet anyway) backup to Kofi. We thought Payne would be ready, but he’s not, and that’s on BU.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
This is just a really good post. People think designing an offense and game planning is easy and can be adjusted on the fly. That's fundamentally not how BU does things for better or worse. He's meticulous. He's exacting. If you've listened to him speak for any length of time, you understand that he believes he needs an extended period of time to implement new systems and create enough muscle memory to run those systems efficiently.
Unfortunately, it's not ideal in a season where we've faced, frankly, an absurd amount of adversity. From head injuries to omicron, this team hasn't had the chance to commit to muscle memory everything that BU is trying to implement. I think BU's style is fundamentally the right way to do things, just, unfortunately, we've faced a ridiculous level of bad luck up until this point. Ultimately, I still think BU's philosophy will prove to be correct in the end.
And yeah, I agree that Omar doesn't quite seem to be as far along as we, and especially BU, hoped. We need him to make some significant strides to be as successful as we want to be in March. There's still time, but it's fleeting. My fingers are crossed that things finally click for him. The talent is there, he just needs to get to a point where the game slows down and he understands how physically imposing he is. And, you know, maybe stop leaving his feet for every freaking pump fake.
Cook
- Richmond, VA
Appreciate the thoughtful response, and I get what you're saying about coaches' allocation decisions (I wouldn't call that calculated risk though). If you go back and listen to the presser 6:39-7:54, I think Brad's answer actually supports what I think we're both trying to say. Look at my OP: I said Brad wasn't wrong, but I wasn't buying attributing how poorly this veteran team showed up and performed on the difficulty of adjusting on the fly to not having a key player. We've seen our own team handle it better at different times and other teams too (Minnesota just today).
I wasn't getting into the overall aspects of "difficulties of designing the team vs adjusting on the fly" because I totally agree with what he said there. My point was more that this year, more than ever, every coach in America knew full well they'd need to be agile and could have key player absences at any time. And broken record here as I'll say for the 3rd or 4th time, we've already played 3 games without this specific player so imo it can't be cited as that big of a reason for how poorly we played. I get it's difficult, not ideal to adjust to surprises but that comes with the territory. If someone goes out with an injury in the middle of a game, I expect the coaches and other players to adjust, not just throw their hands up and say well that wasn't in the plan so we'll just proceed like it never happened. Perhaps my fundamental point here is simply that overcoming adversity is a trait of a great team, and we didn't exhibit that vs. Maryland.
Give me a break on needing Omicron variant foresight. Long before Omicron, players, coaches, and support staff of sports teams all across the country at all levels have been missing time from protocols and whatnot. Bielema had to go out on Nov. 16.
Werner's podcast said they knew sometime on Monday after the Purdue game that Kofi would be out. Also, I agree with what you said about next man up, Payne, and getting a serviceable backup.
Payne commited to Illinois 3 months before Kofi decided to come back and probably thought he’d see 25 minutes a game.
So at the time Payne committed, playing time limitation wasn’t a factor.
I tried to wait awhile so I wouldn’t end up double posting but I don’t think anyone else is chomping at the bit to post right now.
I’ll agree to disagree on a few points here and there but collectively I think we both agree that, for whatever the reason, we didn’t play up to our standards with or without Kofi.
I’m honestly thinking fatigue may be a part of it as I posited earlier in this thread. The guys looked almost disinterested at times. Like the hardships of this season are starting to get to them.
Or maybe a double OT loss just zapped em? Let’s bounce back against MSU!
I realize when Payne committed. I was saying what big was coming here after Kofi decided to return.
There were three or four plays where Payne sold out for the block when just securing the rebound was the smart play. Sometimes these guys have to make the smart play and stay with their man. Have to have some faith that the man guarding the shooter will do his job. Omar's commitment to the blocks gave Maryland's center very easy put back baskets. Yes, the starters were gassed at the end. Sure wish we could have zoned them for different sections of the game. I believe it would have extended the endurance of certain players. Plummer needed some rest. He still is not a top notch on ball defender. With what he brings though I sure can live with it. Still in second place with many opportunities to win this thing. Onward and upward.
MD lost their coach a short time into the season. They had to adjust to a new way of doing things and different expectations. Manning had to discover who he had expectations for in the style he invoked. It takes time. Some of those guys are very good players and they had to gel while doing it Manning's way. That takes time. Their success against us will definitely help them.