Maryland 91, Illinois 70 Postgame

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#476      
21ChampaignSt
EyeoftheIllini said:
I agree with the first 3 sentences in your last paragraph, but I really don’t see all that many similarities between this year’s team and the 2022-23 team.
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This would be one similarity.

EyeoftheIllini said:
At full strength and when playing well, this team can beat anyone. At full strength and playing just OK, it can beat most teams. Play poorly or not at full strength, going to be some bumps. All of that is still true and great success in B1G and NCAA tournaments is still firmly on the table.
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Another is that we have a completely new and young roster. Which, in 2023, presumably contributed to having more games closer to our floor than our ceiling.

No one is arguing our potential. The concern is whether or not we can play to that potential consistently enough to achieve anything this year. It's a question that is yet to be answered. But there is no Illinois team more similar to this one than 2023. So, naturally people look at that team to see what they can glean.

For the record, I'll only be disappointed in this season if we fail to carry over a decent portion of this roster to the 25-26 season. If we have a mass exodus, then all these "bumps" and the season in general will be in vain. Without next year these growing pains just become pains.
 
#477      
the juiceman cometh
Fly Illini Fly! said:
You're not making your argument any relative if you're labeling MSU (or any of those other games for that matter) in the same category as last night in terms of "disinterested and sloppy", because they're not even remotely comparable in terms of the effort.

We've had two games that we looked like we didn't belong - USC and MD, and both were without significant components of our team, and guys sick.
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I know it's all the refs' fault but if you objectively look at that game, we were sloppy. 20.8% from 3. 10 missed FTs. KB with 5 turnovers. The refs didn't do any of that.
 
#478      
Rap47
How many games has this team lost when at full strength. You seem to love stats but how about checking out how much better Ivisic is in a game when KJ is on the floor versus when he isn't. They have both been available for about 9 minutes outside of the Indiana game. Hold some criticism until they get healthy.
 
#479      
RollChief
mattcoldagelli said:
That wasn't really a secret. I think if you asked our coaching staff they would say their goal is to force the other team into midrange Js (obviously not the easy buckets in the paint that we were giving up hand over fist last night).

This is going to sound like excuse-making and I swear it's not but that was just the worst possible game for Ivisic to miss - it prevented us from getting anywhere close to what we wanted to do on either end of the floor.
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Yeah I posted in the pregame thread that it wasn’t a huge deal because we still had positional size and I was pretty much flat wrong about that hahahaha… I think it was a bad game to not have Tomi but there also wasn’t really a game plan for how do we defend without Tomi…

I try to think back to games last year and how we performed so well on balance with Coleman and Dain rotating at the 5 and Quincy and Luke Goode rotating at the 4… I think I found the reason why our defensive efficiency dropped 70 spots in kenpom once we got to B1G play
 
#480      
Se Il Illini
gibb52 said:
6-28 on 3's. This has happened repeatedly throughout the season. We have one good arc game here and there but more often than not we don't and make things more difficult. If you can't make them perhaps stop shooting them? Seems logical to me.
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Exactly. Illinois has an offensive scheme to shoot 30 threes per game. However, they are not a good consistent 3 point shooting team. Thus inconsistent offensive performance.
 
#481      
Yes33
They have an offensive dream to shoot 30 threes a game, not so sure their scheme facilitates that.
 
#482      
CoalCity
Illinimark said:
No, we are not sickos. We are just people who care. The season is far from over. To me I see opportunities to get better. It seems that too many of us are just letting their worries get in the way of enjoying a team that can still surprise. The book on this season is yet to be written. Relax! Let it play out.
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I take sicko as a compliment
 
#483      
Turpin & Tate in 2008!
Illinois_in_MD said:
Well, they did beat 'em in College Park last year, but if I remember correctly, even that game MD played above their level and we needed a bit of luck at the end to pull it out.
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Complaining that Illinois has not beaten Maryland in my lifetime was a bit of hyperbole for sure, but since MD became part of the B1G they have very annoyingly had our number.

I remember the first ever meeting between the two schools. Illinois beat Maryland in the 1984 Sweet Sixteen. We then lost a very close game to Kentucky in the Elite Eight played on their home court at Rupp Arena.
 
#484      
hooraybeer
This Is Fine GIF
 
#485      
Se Il Illini
Turpin & Tate in 2008! said:
Complaining that Illinois has not beaten Maryland in my lifetime was a bit of hyperbole for sure, but since MD became part of the B1G they have very annoyingly had our number.

I remember the first ever meeting between the two schools. Illinois beat Maryland in the 1984 Sweet Sixteen. We then lost a very close game to Kentucky in the Elite Eight played on their home court at Rupp Arena.
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And the NCAA changed the home court advantage in the tournament thereafter.
 
#486      
OrangeKrush1981
Illini in Italy said:
Yeah, and if you believe those numbers, I’ve got some dry land in the Everglades to sell you. Queen is one happy meal short of being clinically obese and Reece is an athletic masterpiece, but both those guys are quite a bit bigger than Morez and Ben.
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I see. So a nearly clinically-obese Queen is too much for our Fletched athletes to keep up with? If true, that is a discouraging conclusion.

And what about your suggestion that our bigs are too short to compete effectively against Maryland's Reese and Queen. Did we need some 7'3 guys? Cause our guys were the same height as theirs.

I think we had enough size to compete more effectively than what we saw, so I am very suspicious that our guys were probably more ill than has been indicated; I especially wonder about Morez.
 
#488      
RML
the juiceman cometh said:
I know it's all the refs' fault but if you objectively look at that game, we were sloppy. 20.8% from 3. 10 missed FTs. KB with 5 turnovers. The refs didn't do any of that.
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I'm not sure that I would characterize a poor shooting percentage (on either 3's or ft's) as "sloppy". But whatever word you use for it, I understand your point.
(To me, "sloppy" means (more or less) careless. They didn't miss those shots because they were careless. (Well, maybe some of the ill-advised 3's). To me, players at this level miss good shots primarily because they are thinking too much rather than just letting muscle memory do it's thing. But that's just my impression. Guys who actually played at a high level would know better.)
(I also think it's fair to say that playing with your head on wrong (thinking too much) is a type of "sloppiness").
 
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