I would love to see Tomi and Z do some hi low action. Any word on what Z said to get the technical? Give LaMarcus credit on that last shot. At the end of the game I thought Z and LaMarcus almost got into it.
Nebraska 83, Illinois 80 Postgame
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Kylan and Brad mentioned that post ups against this team are a waste of time... That is just AWFUL coaching- like utterly blasphemous. Sure- we may not get many post points from post touches to Tomi, as they double every time, BUT Tomi is generally an excellent passer- how about we get him post touches and he, being a good passer, makes skip passes to open guys, who can either shoot an open shot or attack and get the defense scrambling. No wonder we lost the game...
Yep.. Illini never gave up. Love the effort.
I’ve watched that last play ten times now, and have all the same questions.
Plus, why not more pressure? It looked like we were going to press and as soon as they inbounded the ball we backed off and they walked the ball down the floor. Then dribbled at the top of key for like 5 seconds while their offense went into motion.
And all this coming after a timeout.
How long have we asked for that? We never throw it into the post.
The issue is we had just 22 points total besides those three guys (and still, quite miraculously, had over 1.2 points per possession).TBH, putting up 39 minutes, 23&5 in your first B10 game as a 18 y/o freshman… and then following it up with 40 minutes, 19&10 four days later… 79 minutes back to back games… sounds like an EDG to me.
I’m not trying to override a freshman as we did it with KJ last year, but without Wagler we aren’t winning OSU and this is a near blowout. Andrej also had 19&10. Kylan had 20.
I really think we’ll have the advantage in most, if not all games in the backcourt. The problem is our bigs are way too easily beat on D, and inconsistent as a whole. An athletic, fierce PF/C (think Morez prototype) would do wonders for this team right now, IMO.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Yep. If u are too young to know of the early to mid 2000’s run the place was electric. The Hall was a virtual hell hole for the opposition.
The dirty secret is Brad just ain’t that good of a coach in the heat of the game. and as u say we dump home games to good to mediocre teams. We used to only lose at home against the best of the best.
The dirty secret is Brad just ain’t that good of a coach in the heat of the game. and as u say we dump home games to good to mediocre teams. We used to only lose at home against the best of the best.
The offense is not the problem. We can score points against most teams. But we, quite literally, cannot stop anybody from scoring. Giving up 83 to any team at home should really never happen. And Nebraska, specifically, was allowed several warm up level difficulty layups in the second half alone. Credit to them, they also hit some shots, but we were never able to stop them at any point tonight and that is what good teams do to win games. We have nobody on the roster able to do it, or the ability to scheme a defensive set to make it difficult for teams to get easy looks.
Andrej had the same number of points and one less rebound then tomi, mirko, Ben and Big Z combined.
This is about effort and being mentally dialed in.
This is about effort and being mentally dialed in.
Yep - Andrej, Keaton, Kylan, all three are answers. Like it or not.TBH, putting up 39 minutes, 23&5 in your first B10 game as a 18 y/o freshman… and then following it up with 40 minutes, 19&10 four days later… 79 minutes back to back games… sounds like an EDG to me
I’m not trying to override a freshman as we did it with KJ last year, but without Wagler we aren’t winning OSU and this is a near blowout. Andrej also had 19&10. Kylan had 20.
I really think we’ll have the advantage in most, if not all games in the backcourt. The problem is our bigs are way too easily beat on D, and inconsistent as a whole. An athletic, fierce PF/C (think Morez prototype) would do wonders for this team right now, IMO.
Outside of Purdue, Illinois has the best backcourt in the big ten, maybe the country.
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Not developing Lee and/or Petro will be a problem sooner rather than later. Playing Wagler and Kylan most of the backcourt minutes isn't sustainable. At some point, we will need Lee or Petro to bail us out and they won't be ready to help.
I feel differently. When you hear Brad say things like, "Post-ups against (Nebraska) are a waste of time," that means we are choosing to go into offensive sets with our hands tied behind our backs. We should have been using Tomi and Z as passers, cutting, and using that to open up good three point shots. Add that to the fact that the form on our screens is horrid...we rarely create significant separation, our consistent problems with foul shooting among a number of other issues...I feel that there are significant issues with our coaching on the offensive end of the floor.
HFS, to those of you calling for Brad to be fired...
You're all acting like the season ended with this loss. We drop a stinker every year at home...so what? There are A LOT of games to be played.
You're all acting like the season ended with this loss. We drop a stinker every year at home...so what? There are A LOT of games to be played.
Eh? Are you suggesting it isn't fact?
We had over 1.2 points per possession, which is VERY good. The problem is Nebby had over 1.3, which is ridiculous.
I don't disagree with you, especially regarding post ups. We did that against Ohio St several times. Posted up Tomi or Z and played inside out, and it was super effective. Then, for some reason, it was totally scrapped against Nebraska and we never even tried it in an effort to get Tomi going.
I guess I should say, offense is a much less immediate issue as we have shown that we can score in a variety of ways. We have yet to show that we can dig deep and get a stop or two to win a game, let alone impose our will defensively against any team; and that includes cupcakes who have scored over 70 on our floor.
Yep, how many loose balls did they come up with that killed us? How many layups did we allow in crunch time? How many front end 1 and 1 free throws did we miss that resulted in them scoring baskets? It’s just not good enough.
And that isn’t even factoring in @Indy Illini Fan ’s points which are just facts. Brad isn’t a good X’s and O’s coach. We are so scared to go back to the Groce era we act like we can’t criticize Brad and that just isn’t true.
We have a top 10 paid coach in the nation who can’t frickin draw up a go to play in crunch time or out of dead ball situations. We rely on the talent we recruit, which is great, he is good at that. But this isn’t the NBA, talent doesn’t always win. Coaching does. TSJ isn’t walking through that door man. This program is better than 1 second weekend every 10-15 years. At least we believe it is, but maybe it isn’t….
some (not all) of our players lack intensity. We start games and come out after halftime not as energetic and focused as opponents. We should be pressing more, maybe to start games but for sure out of the half. Brad needs gimmicks to augment intensity. We’re deep and talented so pressing should be up our alley. It helped today for the short time it was done.
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
That your comments on Mirk are lazy from a technical game standpoint?
That was the gist of my post. I recommend you check his stats and recalibrate.
Fun fact- Illinois led the game today for a total of 16 seconds at home.. to Nebraska.. Gosh this game is really bothering me..
He got benched for the last 15 minutes and Brad commented that his mind was in Serbia and not with us tonight. That's a pretty straightforward message, no?
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In 23 minutes:
4 points
2 rebounds
1 assist
3 turnovers
And he was a -11 in those 23 minutes.....worst on the roster. He was really bad and everything I noted with regards to athleticism and explosiveness was on display.
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I hear you about the stats, but I feel that we've had high offensive stats in spite of our coaching rather than because of it. We have good shooters and good offensive players out there. I feel that what we see with our eyes shows that we could be a team that could have a good enough offensive game to overcome a defensively deficient outing. For example, our offense would be much more efficient if we utilized the low block the way we should be doing during games like today. It would also be more efficient if we practiced setting proper screens and practiced the necessary movements to get good separation off of those screens.
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