Nebraska 80, Illinois 74 OT Postgame

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#601      
FloridaMan
aaeismacgychel said:
If that's really the case, and I don't doubt your closeness to the situation, DB, that's the problem with the team right there. You give out assured minutes to a transfer who just is struggling to compete at a B10 level while icing out and making no promises to your guys who you recruited and bought into your program and play hard as nails, this is exactly what happens.

Every player sees it, and knows it's not a meritocracy, it's playing the new favorite, deserved or not. So no matter how much sweat you leave on the court it doesn't matter. Hard to blame Ty or Amani or Sencire. We gave them up for this garbage and we shoved the everyday guy vulture out the door with it. And man could we use their heart, fire, and leadership right now. Maybe it's the staff that needs to be running windsprints until they puke right now.
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Indy Illini Fan said:
Tough when you lose 2 starters every year before the season starts …

They aren’t doing any worse than us …

I’m not saying fire Brad and hire Sean but let’s just be realistic here … Brad is a top 10 paid coach … Our NIL is top 10 … Our ROI so far … Not great …

If Brad refuses to make staff changes after the year … That will be a major issue with the donors …
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BU figured out the transfer portal and can attract players, but he has yet to figure out how to navigate NIL and assemble and keep a staff in my eyes. Hope Whitman helps him figure it out, cuz like Indy says, the ROI is sub optimal to state the painfully obvious. If I had a couple hundred thou invested I would be in Whitman's ear big time.
 
#602      
Orangeandblue72
Indy Illini Fan said:
Tough when you lose 2 starters every year before the season starts …

They aren’t doing any worse than us …

I’m not saying fire Brad and hire Sean but let’s just be realistic here … Brad is a top 10 paid coach … Our NIL is top 10 … Our ROI so far … Not great …

If Brad refuses to make staff changes after the year … That will be a major issue with the donors …
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This is exactly right. He’s got damn near an open check book. I will say this, if Bret had top 10 NIL money for football would he be looking like Brad?
 
#603      
Heisenbobble
What transfer would want to come play with this mess of a team? I'm not sure how many of these guys I as a fan want back next year.
 
#604      
TheodoreRex
Zorak said:
I believe that was our boy Derek Piper, and it was bush league from Brad.
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ya, this kind of crap from Brad ain't it... I'd argue our Illini beat reporters do a good job but are arguably a little too "kid gloves" with the questions sometimes. The fact that Brad got defensive and isn't taking full responsibility for how terrible his team is right now... just oozes arrogance
 
#605      
Illiniam1984
At this point, if the basketball team continues to play like it has and absolutely craters I wouldn’t mind seeing Bret with top 10 NIL money for football.
 
#606      
BalloonsTheElephant
Something I tell my 8-9yr old players is that good shooters who take bad shots are bad shooters. We take so many bad shots. Especially in end of game or OT where each possession is so crucial.

Will Riley is basically Mayer with how badly the ball sticks in his hand. We are so willing to just take bad shots (I understand that we are also rebound hunting) and you add that to the turnovers (mostly unforced) and it's just a nightmare.

Then we can also add our lack of help defense and awareness on back picks for inbound plays. My goodness that was just gross.

Finally, the end of regulation possession was something Bruce Weber would been embarrassed to watch.

I've been positive up until now, but watching the lack of basketball IQ and situational awareness is just sad and frustrating. A lot our issues in a vacuum aren't bad, but in context of time and situation, they are so killer. Missed free throws, forced threes, bad turnovers.

This is what happens when you go from an old team to a young team. I still have high hopes for the rest of the season, but talent is not the problem, an immaturity of game sense is.
 
#607      
TheodoreRex
Sean Miller can run circles around Brad with his in game coaching... And I honestly think he could recruit just as good as Brad (if not better).
 
#608      
CoachHooleyHoo
Indy Illini Fan said:
Tough when you lose 2 starters every year before the season starts …

They aren’t doing any worse than us …

I’m not saying fire Brad and hire Sean but let’s just be realistic here … Brad is a top 10 paid coach … Our NIL is top 10 … Our ROI so far … Not great …

If Brad refuses to make staff changes after the year … That will be a major issue with the donors …
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Sure...but the "losing key players" argument is the same thing BU is saying about this year's team. 5-6 in a pretty mediocre Big East doesn't scream significant improvement over what we have. I think Miller is very, very good....but I don' think he's elite. :ROFLMAO:

I 100% agree on all the rest you said. At some point, that has to come to a head.
 
#609      
Illini-Rule
illinois1515 said:
Dra should obviously be playing more than Ben. But is there a thought that Brad may be thinking of next year?

Dra is more than likely going to enter the transfer portal. If you play him a lot and he plays well, which he has. He would most likely leave for a program that will pay him well and play him. If you don't play him a lot this year, his value is not as high as it could be. But Illinois would probably be able to offer him the most money and tell him he will be playing more.
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I agree DGL needs to be getting more tic than Ben and IMHO should be starting.

I can't believe any head coach of a major college basketball program would work avoid next year ahead of winning this year. Dra had every reason to leave the program last year and didn't, he seems to be loyal and love U of I. But NIL changes everything.
 
#612      
altgeld88
americanoutlaw11 said:
Glad we played to our strengths and made pretty awesome use of that last timeout to set us up to have to inbound the ball 4 straight times.
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Nebraska had three fouls to give in the final 16 seconds. Even the most disciplined basketball for 19:44 of a half doesn't often yield that. Props to Hoiberg's coaching and his players' focus.

And, yeah: think ahead. What do think is going to happen when you call TO in that situation in a tie game when your opponent has that sort of slack to work with to shut down any attempt to set up a game-winner?

Far be it from me to second-guess BU (which, of course, I just did.) But geez. That was just horrible.
 
#614      
SescIllini
DeeIL89 said:
The amount of open shots that this team keep missing is so worrisome.
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A high Div 1 team shouldn't be missing these wide open 3s. Some were guarded or poor shot selection, but most were open good shots. When we zoned Maryland, a non-3pt shooting team they quickly hit 2 3s.

We out underplayed Nebraska to lose. Nebraska was worse than I thought and we lost.
 
#615      
WyattEarp
CoachHooleyHoo said:
BH Is getting a ton of hate right now & deservedly so. I've defended him quite a bit b/c I think some of it was overblown. Tonight...he deserves everything coming his way. Just awful in every possible way. Having said that, he was far from the only one to blame. Let's not forget:

* Brad Underwood got MASSIVELY outcoached by FRED FREAKING HOIBERG who is about to get fired after this season. Go back and watch...he got outcoached as bad as any game I've seen in a really really long time. BU was TERRIBLE tonight. He's getting paid a crap load of money...he's gotta be better.

* One of the worst defensive performances I can remember. So many missed assignments, bad position, etc. Boswell & White aren't giving you hardly anything on offense (except turnovers), they better be playing better D. You want to talk about bad investments? Boswell should be at the top of that list.

* KJ is such an enigma at times. He can be fabulous, best guy on the court. And then have some of the most ridiculous, dumb turnovers imaginable. You cannot have that from you best player nearly every game and expect to be a championship contender.

It's January. With or without Tomi, this team is what it is. What an absolutely frustrating season.
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Okay, agreed.

Are you NOW saying that some of thise those people that were concerned with the letdown in the last 2.5-5 minutes of the most recent Northwestern game might of actually seen some valid/concerning issues at the time? Even when Brad himself has admitted we “often take our foot off the gas”…so that was a pretty weird narrative to begin with.)

Or are we still doing the shame and silence people…that never competed at the highest level thing? Generally speaking being a great D1 player, & “ competing at the highest levels” guarantees nothing and has VERY little bearing on being a successful coach. There is a mountain of evidence on that subject at this point.


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#616      
BalloonsTheElephant
TheodoreRex said:
Surprised the fanbase is so silent on how much KJ is costing us with his awful TO's and how careless he is with the ball. I know the dude is a stud talent wise, but he shouldn't be immune from criticism. To be fair, Brad has already crowned him the next messiah with his praise and flowers for KJ.

I love the kid, but at some point he needs tough coaching..
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I mean, when you are an 18yr old true freshman who isn't given much support from your team or coaching, I don't blame him. I love More, but KJ has 2-3 assists a game bounce off his hands.

KJ definitely needs to improve ball security, but he's basically Caleb Williams back there with Eberflus running the offense.
 
#619      
Illini-Rule
Like everyone else on here, I don't understand BU taking DGL out at the end and not starting him in OT. Even all the writers are saying it. DGL was one of the few making shots for us. So hey let's put Ben in for DGL, when Ben was 0-fer. Someone please help me make sense of this.
 
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#620      
bluemountain
As I said earlier in the year, on a single game basis we have a high ceiling and low floor - we are a team that could beat Duke and lose to Nebraska in the same week. Over the course of a full season we will have a good enough record to get to the tournament and win a game or two, but we won't go more than 3 games before having a bad game that knocks us out.

With a healthy Ivisic we have top 10 caliber talent but game prep and in game coaching continues to be below average.

We know what we have with Brad. He just isn't a good enough coach to get us past the Elite 8 (IMO) but he is good enough at building a roster where we will be an NCAA tourney caliber team 9 times out of 10.
 
#622      
Bevoillini
NASchamp said:
After we called that timeout at the end of regulation watch how long it took the coaching staff to begin drawing up a play. They talked/argued among themselves about what to do and walked around. Finally, at the end, they were frantically scribbling it out on the whiteboard as the timeout was ending.

This is just basic level stuff. You know this is coming. You should have a dozen or a half dozen plays in your pocket you can go to here.
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I’m wondering about the overall ability of the coaching staff to give Brad advice during in game situations.
 
#623      
FloridaMan
Watched BU's press conference. Boy, was that a rough 8 minutes. He is clearly as frustrated as us. But "everyday guys" and "next man up" have become "we miss Tomi" and "we gotta get whole" to have a chance. Don't really like the culture that is being created by saying that game after game. Coach the guys that are able to play. Design some semblance of an offense that doesn't rely on a terrible shooting team to make lower percentage, late clock shots. Come up with some situational out of bounds plays. Make better on court personnel decisions and hold guys accountable for the boneheaded mistakes they are making! Real frustrating season shaping up when expectations were set so high.
 
#624      
illiram
My son and I were visibly dismayed when DGL was pulled in regulation for that last play. We both stood up and said what the hell are they doing. We needed people that could drive the basket and get fouled to win the game. What in the hell was Brad thinking?

To me, this was old school overthinking. Forget your starting lineup, and conform to what is happening on the court. You have to be a critical thinker. Brad is an outstanding coach and recruiter, but lacks the analytics and critical thinking. Get someone on the bench next to him that can handle that and be in his ear!!!!!!
 
#625      
Nuke Dukem
illinois1515 said:
Dra should obviously be playing more than Ben. But is there a thought that Brad may be thinking of next year?

Dra is more than likely going to enter the transfer portal. If you play him a lot and he plays well, which he has. He would most likely leave for a program that will pay him well and play him. If you don't play him a lot this year, his value is not as high as it could be. But Illinois would probably be able to offer him the most money and tell him he will be playing more.
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So why not play him now, pay him next year and actually try to win some games this year and next?
 
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