Yea…. I may have put 50 out of frustration.
Pregame: Illinois at Indiana, Saturday, February 18th 11:00am CT, ESPN
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Yeah NW really dominated TJD - only got 23 and 10 and 8 assists. Went 8-33 from 3 so they didn't settle from 3 like we do.
IlliniMike_Aurora
Straight outta Champaign
And once again..... our next opponent loses the game before us on the road, and gets to play us on their home court with an added sense of urgency.....
more 3's? I give up!Oh no. The dreaded 11 AM start.
IlliniMike_Aurora
Straight outta Champaign
But it's a Noon start there....
Honestly, that might be the best thing for us if we do decide to double TJD. We can win a first to 50 clankfest, if it turns into a 3pt shooting competition we're in deep trouble. For reference, in conference, when Indiana shoots a 3 they're expected to get 1.16 pts per possession. when we shoot a 3? 0.87pts per possession. 11am -20degree outside day with half of Bloomington snowed into their own houses sounds good to me at this point.
Heaven help us. This one could get ugly.
Indiana will come out blazing after losing at Northwestern on Wed. Future NBA stars will play another terrific game. Defense will collapse on TJD [score 30] and the 3's will rain down on us again. Indiana 85-Illini 61. Freshman like Epps and Ty will shine again.
Retro62
- North Bethesda, Maryland
It's like being at a party with someone who just has to turn the conversation to the death of a pet or relative.
Illinisteve25
- Champaign
About the only effect the IU game had last night on our game Saturday is possible fatigue. Late away game Weds night with a short turnaround for an early Saturday morning game. Plus an exhausting come back then to have them hit a dagger and win it. Need some early momentum in this game. Will also need to hit about 9 3's this game unfortunately to stay in it in my opinion....
We have not had nine or more made three-point shots since the Texas and UCLA games
Hope for luck but do not count on it.
I have never understood the fatigue angle. NBA players play about every other night and their games last longer. The IHSA tournament plays 2 games in the same day. Surely an elite college athlete can be 100% on 2 full night's rest
I agree, however the college athlete has quite a bit to juggle outside of basketball.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
It’s astonishing we are this bad at threes. It’s one thing for the freshmen to be inconsistent, but it’s so frustrating to watch Shannon or Melendez or Mayer have a silky smooth shot one possession and then toss up an absolute brick the next!
BU and his staff has done a great job turning this program around.... That being said, his teams really struggle with game planning and making in game adjustments. Is there any way we can pick up a veteran bench coach this off season that has a clue? Couple that with the underclassmen we have now and pick up a few kids that can shoot?? YES PLEASE 
Loosiers 87 - Good Guys 71 Clown Pants and referees will rain free throws on us while we throw away what look to be easy passes. Gene Hackman would not be pleased.
Loosiers 87 - Good Guys 71 Clown Pants and referees will rain free throws on us while we throw away what look to be easy passes. Gene Hackman would not be pleased.
One wonders how it is even possible.It’s astonishing we are this bad at threes. It’s one thing for the freshmen to be inconsistent, but it’s so frustrating to watch Shannon or Melendez or Mayer have a silky smooth shot one possession and then toss up an absolute brick the next!
NW got a lot of calls by the refs go their way. We all know that TJD will get his calls at home that he didn't get in the first half against NW. NW player got away with a Duke walk when the T's were called. Even the announcers said it was a walk. We have to guard tight, but I bet we have at least 20 fouls called on us by the end of the game. We will have at least 3 starters with 2 fouls by the 8 min TV timeout.
In a lot of ways it's difficult to tell how good or bad our true 3pt shooting is as we take such low quality shots compared to the average team. I half morbidly wonder what the expected 3pt percentage would be if the average shooter were to put up similar shots to the ones we are taking. It might not be all that off from our 28.9% in conference and 31.3% overall. In fact it may be even worse when you consider our very high ratio of "bad threes" to "missed open threes".It’s astonishing we are this bad at threes. It’s one thing for the freshmen to be inconsistent, but it’s so frustrating to watch Shannon or Melendez or Mayer have a silky smooth shot one possession and then toss up an absolute brick the next!
The hilarious thing is we may actually be a decent 3pt shooting team but our shot quality is so low it nukes our percentages. I'd love to see us have a game where we work the ball inside out and get ourselves high quality open looks just to see where our 3pt shooting percentage would be, but that really doesn't seem within our nature this year. We're like a power-hitter who strikes out over 300 times a season- sure, we could reduce those Ks and increase batting average by batting for contact, but man, swinging for the fences is fun, plus chicks dig the long ball.
NBA players coast through the regular season. The B team plays about a quarter of the game. They don't start playing 100% until the playoffs. Look at Steph Curry's mpg. ~35. Similar to top college players.
Brad has done well molding this team with all the youth it has. I wish we could have avoided the whole Clark recruitment and instead, recruited a veteran guard who could giver us shooting and defense. Look at the teams who have beat us. Most have excellent guard play. Nothing against Epps, Harris or Rodgers but it’s been growing pains in some instances. Pickett and the NW guards took our lunch money. Our guards are on a learning curve and have played very well. Epps might be hitting a wall though like many freshmen do. He, Harris and especially Rodgers are going to be special. I think we can beat IU but we need to double down on TJD. Like against PSU and NW, we have issues with high ball screens. I hope we can avoid switching Dain on a guard. I dont know how many times Dain was switched onto Pickett But we cannot let Dain get caught on Hood. Like the previous poster here said, we are not a bad three point shooting team. It’s that we are forced into talking a bad three or a quick three. We need to get back to Finding a way to get the ball into Dain and let him facilitate. If we can get the ball in good look threes instead of off kilter threes, our shot will drop. Look at PSU, in most instances, PSU got the ball into the open shooters hand in s step in situation. We can run the table with the 6 games left but we are going to need to dig deep. IU barely beat a bad Michigan team and lost to a very good NU team. Another loss might take us out of the double bye talk as we are currently tied for 4th with 3 other teams. We are in a grind so Brad and the team needs to dig deep and keep playing hard.
TJD struggled in the first half because NW pushed him away from the spots he likes to get the ball. The double made him uncomfortable and he had several turnovers. NW appeared to tire in the second half and TJD was able to get the ball deeper and doubles were slower to rotate. TJD will score but keeping him frustrated early helped NW win.
Goillinikobd
- Southeastern US
Going inside and then out requires than either 1) DD is in the game or 2) CoHawk posts deeper than the 3 point line and is a legit threat to shoot from in the paint, thereby opening up the outside.
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