Penn State 90, Illinois 89 Postgame
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Penn State scored 90 on us…. They also scored 90 against Rider back in December so maybe we’re ok.
You’re right though, the stuff you mentioned shouldn’t have happened (especially with a team full of veterans) but basketball is a fickle sport. Every game is going to have a bunch of plays you can point to and say “that’s the problem.” Defense is the one aspect of the sport that you can hang your hat on every night…. If you’re doing it correctly, which we’re not.
Edit: rebounding is something else you can rely on, but thanks to Ty that obviously isn’t an issue for us.
In the entire Underwood era inbounding the ball has been an issue. Its inexcusable. I like Brad, he does many good things and he can recruit but all his teams have a similar identity year over year. Poor PG play or no PG at all. Too many turnovers and carelessness with the ball. Offenses that go stagnant for significant stretches of time. The last one isn't much of an issue this year so that has improved. Really poor execution or play calling coming out of timeouts or in end of game scenarios where you're just scratching your head. Then of course poor tournament play. Hopefully this is the year! I don't want to see him go. The grass is not always greener but some of these criticisms of him not being a good in game coach are at this point at least fair. Reasonable people can disagree but we have 7 years of data now with many differently constructed teams and yet they all have these commonalities.Wtf? Seriously. We have arguably the Best baller in college ball and can't beat a miserable team in front of 3000 fans. Come on horrible coaching. Substitutions, inbounds plays, to letting a single player whining and causing 4 on 5 situations. Discipline and leadership. Strong
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
cohawk played last night like my ex-wife's menopause routine.....hot and cold , with a lot of emotional stress causing reality to be nonexistent in his/her decision making.................Might be why I battled a migraine all night long.......
We are a very good team with some flaws that will prevent us from much post season success...........Our defense has been atrocious the last 4-5 games and that causes the most concern for me.........Fewer steals and more wide open plays made by our opponents shows that something is very very wrong with our schemes on D.............psu had at least 5 wide open layups and the ones that Kern had in the second half were poorly guarded like he had the plague and we didn't want to catch it.......
When I played my coach would stress if the opponent had a layup that we had to stop the basketball going in and make them earn it at the FT line......What the beloved have been doing is not stopping the shot and even gifting a soft foul to give them a chance at a 3 point play......
Soft D ain't gonna cut it as all the teams will be defending their butts off against us and when they scout our video they will see a yellow brick road to the rim with us waving as they go by.......
I'm being factious there .......or am I ??...........Inquiring fans want to know........we really really do........................
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@Indy Illini Fan @illini0440 @LvilleILL @DB11Headband @sharpshot16
Curious if any of you had the chance to speak with any member of the staff or players yet, and if so, anything you could share to their reaction or feeling going forward.
Curious if any of you had the chance to speak with any member of the staff or players yet, and if so, anything you could share to their reaction or feeling going forward.
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
I mean we are what we are at this point in the season.
We need major changes on D. Effort, scheme, assignments…all of it.
I’m just not sure there’s enough practice and games left?
But I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night so, take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
Then a shot of tequila.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
I had to restrain myself from any imbibing as it would have caused more harm with my meds that it would have helped....In fact , nothing helped last night for me to maintain a balanced calmness.........
I still can't believe THIS ILLINI TEAM lost the game when we had possession of the ball with 40 seconds left and up 7 points .....
I REALLY REALLY REALLY CAN'T.....................JMHO..................
No half measures Pru
I wonder why Goode is out there at the end of games myself. Earlier in the year you thought it meant we would have a better free throw shooter without much lapse in defense. Neither has turned out to be true. Ty has turned out to be just as good at free throws if not better than Luke and has always been a way better defender. Unless we are needing threes to catch up at the end there is no reason to have Goode on the floor.Actually, I was more concerned with Goode being out there at the end. Right or wrong, my perception is that he has been unreliable at the stripe in end-of game situations. (If someone with convenient access to stats can show me that my perception is wrong, I would greatly appreciate it.)
I don't understand why in year 7 BU still doesn't have a zone in his back pocket when it's needed. When your D is a layup line it's obvious your m2m is just not working. Switching to a zone for a few possessions here and there might help. Also not pressuring 35 ft from the basket when your guys can't stop penetration would be a good change to try.
No doubt at this point any 12 or 13 seed we face is going to press from start to finish.
No doubt at this point any 12 or 13 seed we face is going to press from start to finish.
There have been a lot of frustrating losses over BU's tenure, but this one may be the most unsettling I can remember. So many things down the stretch that could have been corrected, but I think the most mind boggling & frustrating thing of them all was Penn State inbounding the ball for easy layup not once, not twice, but three times... That was one of the worst displays of college coaching I've ever seen. We were taught how to protect our basket on that play in the fifth grade...
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
My perspective is that by no means is the team full of clowns. However:
- much of the team are men in their 20s making tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not kids.
- "clowns", in the dictionary of insults, is pretty light. "Personal attacks on the kids" sounds more inflammatory to me.
- and one team member does in fact act like a complete clown whenever he is called for a foul and therefore has earned a reputation where he now gets technical fouls for talking to the crowd. This clown-like behavior further allows for easy opponent transition points while he debates the refs on their eyesight.
Now I know the team will be worse off after this player moves on to a professional career; his good does far outweigh his bad. And I am grateful for his positive contributions here. But he could and should be so much better.
TL; DR - If the shoe fits...
biglug58
- Chicago, IL
Forget about a guy named Trent Frazier? Andres Feliz?
Well I am going to give my two cents as like the rest of you I am seeking some catharsis after last night. If it is any consolation, Kentucky gave up an 18 point second half lead to also lose by 1 point to powerhouse LSU, so we aren't the only fan base crying in their beer. Hope the fans and players can both put this game out of their minds and focus on the next one. But I do think the coaching staff needs to take a hard look at this game, and make adjustments.
This highlighted part of the quote is one of the two major issues with our defense in my opinion. Hawkins' rim protection is now to put his arms straight up and back away from the driving player. I understand he wants to stay on the floor and in previous seasons was a foul magnet, but it is not working. Put Amani and Dain in when teams start to get points by penetrating the paint and have them defend aggressively if nothing else. Haven't looked, but IIRC CH had a lot more blocks early this season (and last year as well) than he is getting now.
The other issue is that we do not change up our schemes during the game. We play straight man-to-man, no trapping, and its seems the same ball screen coverages for the entire game. Once the other team finds something that works (i.e. Kern) they can just keep going back to it. We need to change up things from play to play during the game to keep the other team guessing. We did it against Maryland and, though we still gave up 80 points, it did seem to cause Maryland some problems.
Maybe our coaching staff looked past this one as well - maybe spending their time on recruiting instead of on game prep. Or maybe they want to save all their super secret defensive schemes, OOB plays and adjustments for the NCAA tourney. PSU seemed to have scouted us very well, had chose a good scheme of Baldwin on Domask, and had OOB plays ready. Our OOB plays were the same as always and involved mostly our players standing in one place while waiting for the ball to be throw in opposite of their defender. Late game I expected to see picks being set and players moving across the floor, but they mostly just stood around or waited and then ran 10 feet to get sort of open. I understand the frustration of our fans watching the poor execution on the inbounds plays. We have a lot of cleaning up to do.
As someone else stated - the good thing is that TSJ is definitely BACK. We need the others to step up now.
GrayGhost77
- Centennial, CO
I agree it's not working. Didn't last year and we abandoned it after the non-con and went back to the pack line defense (and the same at least one of the seasons where we had Ayo and Kofi if I recall). Not sure why we haven't done that this year because it just feels like we're regressing on D each and every week.
Maryland was different imo they just fouled us.
Could they loan us a couple out of bounds plays?Fortunately I had to miss last night's game to attend my grandson's Jr. High basketball game, followed by my granddaughter's 6th grade basketball game. I did peek at the score in between games and saw the Beloved up by 7 (?) at the half. I didn't check again until I got home around 9 last night, only to see that we lost by one. I checked the box score and play by play on the ESPN, and decided that I didn't need to watch the turd that we laid in the last few minutes.
However, I the think that turd is dwarfed by the 29 pages of steaming, stinking fecal matter in this thread. Maybe unprecedented.
Like all, I'm, sad, hurt, depressed, whatever . . . But the amount of "hot" takes and downright idiotic comments here rivals the game threads . . . nay, EXCEEDS the game threads by a factor of oh, say, a million. According to various posters here, Brad should be fired; Luke, Marcus, Hawkins, Ty, Q, Dain, DGL, Moretti, Harmon all should be thrown out . . . I'm sure I missed some other stupid take . . .
Purdue lost to Ohio State (and Nebraska and Northwestern) . . . UCONN lost to Creighton . . . we lost. Fix the problems and on to the next game.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
Make it a bottle after last evening.
After reading through all this, I’m surprised the Sun came up this morning.
…. but it did! … AND there’s baseball tomorrow!
…. but it did! … AND there’s baseball tomorrow!
A man to man defense that "switches everything" could be fairly described as a very active match-up zone. In other words, the switching man-to-man defense our team is playing is incorporating some fundamental principles of a (match-up) zone.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t believe I have ever heard Underwood say I didn’t do a good job tonight or I could or should have done things differently. He seems very proud and stubborn in my opinion. Like his ego is getting in the way in a similar fashion like a lot of people I know. At least Izzo does that from time to time. Can remember several instances of him saying things along those lines.
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