Pregame: Illinois at Rutgers, Saturday, February 15th, 3:30pm CT, BTN

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#1      

Dan

Admin
Illinois at Rutgers
Saturday, February 15th
3:30pm CT
BTN

:illinois:
 
#7      
Start Feliz. Give Tevian more minutes and just pray he makes an impact. Get Giorgi back on track. Then maybe we can win this game.
 
#8      
I feel this game is possible for us to pull out. Low scoring, grind it out on defense and play tough as nails. Definitely need one of these road games to boost morale
 
#9      
This one will be a grind, as will the PSU game. I feel like even without Ayo both are winnable...but it is going to take an exceptional effort and several players stepping up. We've still got a reasonable path to a double bye...but we've gotta bring our A game each night. That starts with Rutgers.
 
#10      
We're more talented than Rutgers, think we should win this game. But, they're undefeated at the RAC, and we'll be without Ayo... hopefully, we can really play for Ayo and start a new win streak.
 
#11      

illini80

Forgottonia
Funny (not really) how just a few short months ago this looked like a pretty easy stretch of the season. The intensity is going to have to be at last nights comeback level every minute of every game from here on out. It’s also time to start taking advantage of Kofi much more than we have so far. He didn’t have many points, but I liked seeing Trent driving the lane last night. It has to be more than just Feliz driving so that will be a big help if he can continue to probe that defense.
 
#12      
Kofi gets his double double mojo back 14-11
Giorgi finds a way to score (not 3's) and gets at least 10
Feliz bulldogs his way to a team high 19
Frazier becomes a heat check at least twice to net us 15-18
Jones steps in and contributes hustle and 6-8
Griffin reignites and gets us 12-14


By my count we win with around 78-71 ILLINI WHY NOT US NOW FOR AYO!!!
 
#13      
Seen it countless times in sports when a fallen brother goes down, his teammates step up and come together to make up for the injury, at least in the short term. Long term is a different story. However, I think Dre takes on an elevated role in the offense and leads us to an emotional win for Ayo.
 
#16      

Illiniaaron

Geneseo, IL
It's hard for me to make a case right now that they can beat Rutgers or PSU on the road and that takes you to 8-7 in the league. The biggest negative on the season has been Giorgi's disappearance, and its clear Kofi has hit some type of freshman wall that he's going to have to fight through. If those two play like this the rest of the way it's going to be really difficult to win games.
 
#17      
Seen it countless times in sports when a fallen brother goes down, his teammates step up and come together to make up for the injury, at least in the short term. Long term is a different story. However, I think Dre takes on an elevated role in the offense and leads us to an emotional win for Ayo.
Agreed, I would not like this if I'm a Rutgers' fan.
 
#18      
It's hard for me to make a case right now that they can beat Rutgers or PSU on the road and that takes you to 8-7 in the league. The biggest negative on the season has been Giorgi's disappearance, and its clear Kofi has hit some type of freshman wall that he's going to have to fight through. If those two play like this the rest of the way it's going to be really difficult to win games.
PSU I get, but Rutgers just barely avoided losing at home to the Cats, so you aren't trying very hard if you are having trouble making the case that we beat Rutgers. IN my time following sports, teams generally rally and play very well when a teammate goes down. I expect that and a win on Saturday.
 
#21      
Weird way to look at it but the glasses half full angle is Giorgi/Kipper/DMW get extra minutes while Ayo is out - we already know Feliz and Griffin are gonna be 25 minutes plus without him/Trent and Kofi are constants - so possibly the 8 man rotation with Ayo is clicking well heading into the tourney. That is as long as Giorgi emerges from his rah-rah but sucking-on-court coma.
 
#22      
There's still no guarantee Ayo will miss any time at all but his own text makes me believe he'll probably be missing at least a little bit of practice and probably at least 1 game... If Ayo's out who starts?
 
#23      
Has a reporter asked BU why he stopped running the spread offense? I think we ran it twice against MSU. I understand the defensive switch. But offensively I was excited to see how the spread could work with a better and deeper team.

The improvement defensively is very exciting, but I was expecting a lot more creativity on offense in year 3.
 
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