I think Harris is the epitome of heart and the culture Brad wants from this team. His and Epps role needs to expand. There is definitely a disconnect somewhere. The team and staff needs to work through it privately and do some soul searching. The intensity is lacking defensively and the offense is far too much one on one.
Disappointing effort. It was a shitshow.
Stunning how bad this team has been since the impressive win over Texas. As many have said, the talent is there as shown by wins over UCLA & Texas and a strong game against Virginia. But the defensive effort has been lacking in the last three games and combined with sloppy ballhandling and bad shooting has led to dramatically worse overall play.
All we heard from Underwood prior to season was how this team's length and quickness would be really tough on opponents defensively and how many good shooters we had. There were flashes earlier but that has largely disappeared lately. Three-point shooting, so increasingly important today, has been awful. 1-15 to start last night? Might as well have been shooting blindfolded.
Don't know if this mess can be resolved quickly, but here are two moves that would seem to be necessary:
1. Get Hawkins away from the perimeter on offense, put him inside to take advantage of his height and keep reminding him to be more aggressive on offense. I've lost count of how many good shots he's passed up in recent games. He has no business bringing the ball upcourt nearly half the time! How many 6-10 guys do you see playing that role? He is not a good ballhandler (6 turnovers last night!) or 3-point shooter. He should not have most of his shots from beyond the arc in any game (2-8 last night, 0-6 on treys).
2. Replace Clark at point guard with Epps. Clark doesn't run the half-court offense well, way too much dribbling and indecision and has shot poorly. He has been disappointing, struggling at bot ends of the court to adapt to the faster college game against better players. All the talk preseason was how this 5-star guard would give Illinois a true point guard and could be one-and-done. That hype seems way overblown now.. Epps and Harris have both outplayed him & deserve more minutes than him. Potential is there but seems to be lacking confidence, which hopefully he will gain in a backup role.
Finally, don't know what's going on with Melendez, who I thought would really step up in his second season after such a strong finish last year. Know his right shoulder has been bothering him last couple of games, but he has been strangely passive. Need to get him going because kid has too much talent to be playing such a small role.