Nebraska 83, Illinois 80 Postgame

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#551      
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I'm not saying Brad should be fired because if we're honest, that's just not going to happen. That said, I do think this sort of pattern has played out over multiple seasons now. I will say that I love what Brad has done for our program. I am ecstatic that we are complaining about consistently being in the top 5 of the B1G conference and going to the NCAA tourney year in and year out. That was a pipe dream for the decade or so before Brad got here. I also think that if anyone needs to get hyped up or motivated, Brad does a heck of a job showing a garbage can whose boss and also defends his players and hypes them up publicly so he really has been fantastic for us.

All that said, this appears to be the ceiling. Maybe I'm wrong. I think this is similar to how KU fans felt about Self for the first 5 years until he finally won a natty. I think I just have to accept that Brad is good - not great - and that our on court results are going to be in line with that. To me, it's clear that the one big area of weakness (because the large majority of things BU does at a very high level) comparing BU to the elite (used somewhat tongue in cheek) HCs around the country is that most of them are significantly stronger from an Xs/Os standpoint. Again, I'm so much. happier with where we are at now than how terrible the lost 2010 decade was, but it's still frustrating to feel like we are so close and we just won't be able to do it.
 
#552      
BretMyBeachHouse
Chase321 said:
Exactly. The selective memory is insane.
And there is an exemplary EDG that Brad retained. He’s on the bench and I suppose it’s somehow Brad’s fault that he badly injured his knee in the offseason.
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Yep. That EDG was on the bench last year as well. But we decided Booth was the path to success.
 
#553      
Fly Illini Fly!
Second place is 1st loser said:
BINGO!!!!!

WINNER!!!!

POTD!!!!!!

This is 1000000000% what it is. We have a lot of skill and height, which is fun to watch, but we have no intangibles, no speed, no quickness, no explosiveness, no grittiness and no nastiness. You either have to cultivate those guys as freshmen and have them grow in your system (MSU) or you go out and pay for it and our NIL funds are that of a top 15 - 20 program, and low and behold.....here we are.
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It’s just the bigs if we’re being honest. There aren’t many teams we’ll play where Stojakovic won’t be the best overall athlete on the court. Kylan and Keaton don’t seem too stiff either.

Mirkovic and Tomi can just get attacked via designed actions. Zvonimir is clearly the most sound from a run and jump standpoint, but is often out of position and lacks instincts guarding in space.
 
#556      
Vinegarben
I think there are some serious questions that the coaching staff has never answered about several Illini teams.
1. Why does it seem that Illini teams over the years have games they just are not ready to play, they have no emotion?
2. Why do these all of these teams get off to slow starts?
3. Why does it seem they are never a good defensive team?
4. Why does it seem they never play 2 halves.
5. Why does it seem the coaches never seem to have a set play for game on the line time on defense or offense? [Teen. driving ball 60ft with 6 seconds left for a layup and not touched, wide open 3 yesterday, where was the pressure on ball?
6. The excuse that this team has had injuries and hasn't had practice time together is boloney. These guys with the exception of Wagler and Lee are SEMI-PRO players, They look like high school kids who have never played ball at times.
7. I am sure Brad's post-game he will just say Nebraska was a better team, I don't think so. I do think the Illini were outplayed, outhustled, outcoached.
Put the 5 best players on the floor and leave them there. Stok. Mirk setting on the bench?
play Big Z over Tommi if he isn't ready to play. Get mad, throw a chair across the floor ala Bobby Knight and wake this team and coaches up!
I heard Brad say he benched Mirkovic because his head was in Serbia. Hey Brad why don't you bench yourself? There are a lot of games I wonder where your head is, although I have a pretty good idea-where the sun don't shine!
 
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#557      
PasadenaIllini
Second place is 1st loser said:
A players only meeting? We just came off of two quad 1 road/neutral wins and we lost a heartbreaker, on a buzzer beater, by a team that dropped a 46% three point shooting night on our heads. We won pretty much every other statistical category.

I'm not sure what you expect? Do you want to see them flipping chairs over or hear reports of them punching each other and tearing up the locker room? I'm sure it wasn't a fun post game speech and I'm sure plenty of guys were upset.....if that makes you feel better.

It's a loss and breaking news, we're going to lose more games this year, but we're going to win a lot more games than we lose.

Thank God you're not a coach. Part of the job is managing the emotions of 18-22 year old kids/young men so that one loss doesn't turn into two. This would not be a good line of work for you or many on this board.

Just give Nebraska credit for an outrageously good shooting night and focus on the next one. No team only, soul searching speeches required.

P.s....they shot 54% in their 30 point win over Wisconsin last week. I wonder if their staff is being run out of Madison?
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How good those wins are...whether they are actually "quad 1" remains to be seen. Ohio State just barely fended off a mediocre West Virginia team in OT at home. Tennessee has not looked good at all since their upset of Houston.

As for "what do (I) expect," I expect our top-10-nationally-paid coach to coach like he's a top-10-nationally-paid-coach. For example, rather than moaning during postgame interviews about how bad practices were during the week, I expect Brad to have done something about how those practices were going in real time. When a player is absolutely destroying us, I expect Brad to adjust our defensive scheme rather than wait until we're in a big hole. And I expect Brad to utilize all of our players' strengths on offense rather than spouting post-game head scratchers like, "Going into the low post was a waste of time." And I expect him to accept the responsibility for a loss like this onto his own shoulders rather than trashing players in his postgame interviews.
 
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#558      
Illini in Italy
Second place is 1st loser said:
I'm trying to find where all of the criticism was after beating Tennessee on a neutral floor and OSU on the road. Are we going down the path that we won despite of our coaches there?

I know it's a what have you done for me lately profession, but I think this board takes dual personalities to a whole new level.

Did we play a great game? No. Were we awful? No. Was Nebraska really good and are they currently on a heater? Absolutely.

Not sure why we're not giving them a ton of credit, tipping our cap, then moving on? We beat them in pretty much every statistical category, but one. Three point shooting. They knocked down 46% and the vast majority weren't of the blown coverage, stand and line it up variety. They were pulling up for three on fast breaks, shooting them over 7 footers, shooting balls from 24/25 feet.....

That type of shooting is insanely hard to do and they probably will not come close to replicating that again this year and if they do, they'll win. I don't care if they're playing Purdue or Michigan.

That one stat was the game. We need to quit the chicken little stuff, quit the ridiculous finger pointing and just give those guys credit. We dropped games like this on Oregon and Indiana last year. Everything we put up found net. It's not sustainable, but it was one of those nights for them. Tough that it came against us.
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NO!. Loyalty can NEVER give the other team credit for playing a great game, we MUST degrade and ridicule our players and coaches, because . . Well . . . That's what Loyalty does dammit!

It would have been great to pull out a comeback win, but they hit a contested, off-balance shot to win. Tip o' the cap, and on to the next game. As you say, don't let this win turn into 2. Too many posters here have turned this L into the end of the season. Want to know what's wrong with college basketball and the firing of coaches willy-nilly? Read this entire thread, and you'll see the pressure to win that drives fans, boosters, and administrators to demand a coach be fired after unreasonable expectations aren't met . . . Less than a 3rd of the way through what is going to be a very promising season.
 
#560      
JoeJ
skyIdub said:
We are a tough team for 35 min.

Time to recalibrate expectations.
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Maybe 15-20
First 10 horrible
Why we can't sell out defensively on the scorching hot hand in the first half is beyond me. Two games in a row!
 
#561      
blackdog
Second place is 1st loser said:
I'm trying to find where all of the criticism was after beating Tennessee on a neutral floor and OSU on the road. Are we going down the path that we won despite of our coaches there?

I know it's a what have you done for me lately profession, but I think this board takes dual personalities to a whole new level.

Did we play a great game? No. Were we awful? No. Was Nebraska really good and are they currently on a heater? Absolutely.

Not sure why we're not giving them a ton of credit, tipping our cap, then moving on? We beat them in pretty much every statistical category, but one. Three point shooting. They knocked down 46% and the vast majority weren't of the blown coverage, stand and line it up variety. They were pulling up for three on fast breaks, shooting them over 7 footers, shooting balls from 24/25 feet.....

That type of shooting is insanely hard to do and they probably will not come close to replicating that again this year and if they do, they'll win. I don't care if they're playing Purdue or Michigan.

That one stat was the game. We need to quit the chicken little stuff, quit the ridiculous finger pointing and just give those guys credit. We dropped games like this on Oregon and Indiana last year. Everything we put up found net. It's not sustainable, but it was one of those nights for them. Tough that it came against us.
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Yea Sandfort and Mast in particular made several absolutely insane shots. Sandfort had one in the first half where he was basically behind the basket in the corner with a guy in his face. Mast had one in the second where Nebraska had bobbled the ball around all possession and he chucked it up from 28 with a hand in his face and .8 on the clock. Sure they were given some easy ones too but the difficult shot making made the defense look worse than it was.
 
#562      
21ChampaignSt
PasadenaIllini said:
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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I agree we could've played through the post more with how skilled our bigs are at passing.

But saying that our top 5 offense needs to get better for us to win these games proves that our offense isn't the problem.

Our defense demands that our offense be damn near perfect. That's the problem.
 
#563      
stlrunner
skyIdub said:
A trap game. Not a trap team.

A game like this doesn’t get away from a top 3 B1G team. All credit to Nebby, they were the better team today.

But Illinois best game wins that game by 10.
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Sometimes “Top 3” teams lose games at home that they shouldn’t…

www.espn.com

Indiana 71-67 Michigan State (Feb 11, 2025) Final Score - ESPN

Game summary of the Indiana Hoosiers vs. Michigan State Spartans NCAAM game, final score 71-67, from February 11, 2025 on ESPN.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
 
#564      
GoodePodzMelendez
Because we misuse our bigs. Brad and Tyler do not know how to run an offense with the players we have. This 5 out crap is easily defensed. We will never get to elite level with this poor coaching game in and game out. I do not understand why Brad is so stubborn that his square peg in the round hole. We cannot be satisfied with this. We are now Iowa, can score points but with an Ole’ defense. I wish Brad would look at film of the 05 team and the movement and passing this team used. The 16 pass three pointer is basketball at its best. If we adjust the offense to a motion high low offense, we would wear teams down. Plus, our second best on ball defender is Lee. He is so far down the bench that Brad cannot see him. Complete mismanagement of another season. Whoopie, we win another 20 plus games and get knocked out by the third weekend in March. Thats the Round of 32 for you calculating what I meant LOL. That is Iowa or OSU. It would not surprise me that we will fall around the 6th seed in the B1G and lose to a Purdue or MSU in the Friday QFs. We can do better and I hope Josh understands that we can do better.
 
#565      
Fly Illini Fly!
Second place is 1st loser said:
I'm trying to find where all of the criticism was after beating Tennessee on a neutral floor and OSU on the road. Are we going down the path that we won despite of our coaches there?

I know it's a what have you done for me lately profession, but I think this board takes dual personalities to a whole new level.

Did we play a great game? No. Were we awful? No. Was Nebraska really good and are they currently on a heater? Absolutely.

Not sure why we're not giving them a ton of credit, tipping our cap, then moving on? We beat them in pretty much every statistical category, but one. Three point shooting. They knocked down 46% and the vast majority weren't of the blown coverage, stand and line it up variety. They were pulling up for three on fast breaks, shooting them over 7 footers, shooting balls from 24/25 feet.....

That type of shooting is insanely hard to do and they probably will not come close to replicating that again this year and if they do, they'll win. I don't care if they're playing Purdue or Michigan.

That one stat was the game. We need to quit the chicken little stuff, quit the ridiculous finger pointing and just give those guys credit. We dropped games like this on Oregon and Indiana last year. Everything we put up found net. It's not sustainable, but it was one of those nights for them. Tough that it came against us.
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This....

46% 3pt is an extremely high (and fairly unsustainable) rate. On high volume too. That percentage itself, all things considered, may not happen again this year. It's not like we COMPLETELY hung it up defensively either.... they just made everything.... end of clock, off the dribble, catch and shoot, you name it... the buzzer beater was the icing on cake.

And it wasn't like we couldn't hit anything, I'll certainly take 34% today. The shooting for us has been much improved, outside of UConn.

We even won the rebound battle by 7, and I thought had tremendous poise to come back. It's funny because last year the entire talk was "it's okay to lose.... but why are we not even competitive." And this year all three losses... all to very good teams.... with all of them very competitive games (minus UConn) and we're still here acting like we're below .500.
 
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#566      
Geno33
BoiseBaller said:
Brad said in the postgame he was "unplayable". One of the few Underwood takes I didn't disagree with today. Mirk needs to figure out what he can and can't do. Getting a defensive rebound and dribbling up the floor into traffic is not very smart.
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I was screaming get the ball to a guard, then he lost it. He's done it in almost every game.
 
#567      
fulton steamer
Not blaming Brad, not blaming new defensive guy, not blaming individual players, however, what is obvious to me, what I see with my own eyes is that we cannot get a defensive stop when we badly need it. Showed up in all three of our losses. I"m not advanced enough in Xs and Os, or player motivation to have any answers, (and nobody is asking my advise anyway), but it is painfully apparent to me that we aren't able to get a "STOP" at crucial times. I don't know why - but we have to be able to accomplish this if we want to compete with the elites.
 
#568      
Roundball Sage
So... Nebraska is a basketball force now? Guess so... since they’ve done nothing in football for 25 years.

And both the Illini basketball and football programs seem stuck in between being ‘Better than Average’ but not quite ‘Top Shelf’ either.

At least the roundball season is still young and salvageable.
 
#569      
ILL-Intentions
zentrails said:
He was gassed and asked to come out. Can't blame EVERYTHING on Brad
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I guess that it was kind of inferred I blame Brad but I really don’t. There is only so much Brad can do, the players have to show up. I didn’t catch he asked to come out, I simply said it seemed like poor timing. If we want to talk about Brad, we could talk timeout management.
 
#572      
AugustWest
So we’re back to the “they won’t be able to do that again this season.” How many times have we said that already this year? How many times last year? Sure, Nebraska may not shoot like that again but the fact is teams are consistently having those heater games against us. Like I said earlier, at this point it’s not being unlucky it’s that we can’t guard and teams are way too comfortable against us.
 
#573      
Geno33
fantasydaily708 said:
Kid is a lottery pick best player on the team so far this season. Dare I say he is looking better than Will Riley was at this point?? Lets see if he can keep it up in the B1G meat grinder.
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I've said the same thing about Keaton being better than Will was at this stage of the season, only to be ridiculed. Not sure he's lottery pick level yet, but he is something else.
 
#574      
Fly Illini Fly!
21ChampaignSt said:
Guys, teams shooting well against our defense isn't flukey. Since Trent Frazier left the program, the highest our 3p defense has ranked is 132. Right now it's ranked 171st.

It's not a coincidence that teams have their best shooting nights against us. This is who we are.
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For the entirety of last season - for as much criticism the defense took - only two teams shot above 45% from 3 against us: Iowa (game we won) and Duke.

Metrics wise we could be better, but Nebraska going 12/26 on our homecourt is absolutely an anomaly. Same for any other team going 46% in a high major game. It's absolutely not sustainable, but it was their night - just like us against Oregon.
 
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#575      
Geno33
Indy Illini Fan said:
Lee not getting any tick is beyond me … Kid brings the fire defensively …
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I agree, I can't remember the game, but he came in and shut down a player that was torching us. I kept saying to put him on the kid in the 1st half that was going off on us.
 
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