Pregame: Illinois vs Iowa, Saturday, March 28th, 5:09pm CT, TBS

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#276      
Mr. Roberts
Illinifan74 said:
Breaking out the Maui jersey for this one.

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I am not changing a thing. The same illinois shirt I wore for the first 3 games.

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#280      
abchew2
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I will be REALLY curious to see what the crowd will look like on Saturday. From accounts I read online, the following combos effectively iced out Illini and Iowa fans to being a clearly smaller contingent in the crowd:

(1) Houston being local. This not only allows local UH fans to pay a bit more for tickets due to having air travel and lodging removed from their budgets, but they are also just more likely to be locals who have connections to third parties with corporate tickets or whatever.

(2) Nebraska fans recognizing this as a truly historic and special season for them and moving hell or high water to get there. In a similar fashion to Indiana Football fans taking over every stadium in the CFP, I think they just couldn't believe they were in this spot, and their years of passionate support for their "other sport" amidst constant mediocrity just boiled over into this intense desire to do whatever it took to be there for these postseason games.


Those two factors led to insane ticket prices and a crowd makeup that was probably 90%+ Houston or Nebraska fans ... and now both of those fan bases are heading home. There will literally be 15K+ tickets just being dumped. We will either have a bland, Super-Bowl-esque crowd full of folks with random T-shirts on who don't really care who wins, or Illini / Iowa fans are going to be descending on Houston. I REALLY hope Illini Nation can show up. We have such a good reputation for traveling well, and I do think we will have noticeably more fans in the building than Thursday night. However, there are two things that concern me (I guess I really felt like numbered lists in this post, lol...).

(1) This is objectively more special for Iowa. We like to talk about how we've had some postseason heartbreak and that's true, but this is our second Elite Eight in just three seasons, and we have been to the Elite Eight five times since Iowa's last trip in 1987. They would also be playing for their first Final Four since 1980, and while a Final Four is special to absolutely everyone, we have been to two of them since then. The only Illini fans who have no memory of seeing us in a Final Four are pretty darn young ... you'd have to have been born no later than 1965-1970 to remember Iowa's last trip. That is hardly old or anything, but I am just saying that there have been several generations of Iowa fans who probably just assumed it might never happen again (trust me, I grew up with them!). I could see a similar thing to Nebraska, where Iowa fans who'd previously invested all of that energy into only football now are desperate to descend upon Houston to possibly witness a win vs. hated Illinois to break a 46+ year Final Four drought...

(2) I am worried that some Illini fans are now SO intent on taking over Indy if we are able to win on Saturday that it will subdue the turnout in Houston. Illini fans can get to Indy so much more easily, and those that are not inclined to enjoy some adult beverages can even drive there and back in one day without hotel costs. Getting down to Houston is an entirely different ballgame. I'm not excusing this by any means, but how many Illini fans would be on the fence about going to Houston but are hedging their bets that #9 seed Iowa runs out of Cinderella magic, and they'll just wait to see Illinois play in our neighbor's backyard for the "real main event." I could totally see someone like my dad talk himself into the attitude of, "Well, if we lose to Iowa of all teams to not make the Final Four, I don't want to be there for that anyway!" Lol.

TL;DR

There is now ample opportunity for Illini OR Iowa fans (or maybe both) to take over Houston for a much lower ticket cost ... and I really hope we show up. However, I am a little worried that a lot of Illini fans will "wait for Indy," a lot of Iowa fans will take a Nebraska-like approach of selling the farm to see their team in a game they never thought they'd experience and we will be at a crowd disadvantage on Saturday ... something we would have thought unthinkable vs. Iowa at a neutral site in any other year, considering we regularly bring a few thousand fans to their own home court, haha. I'm confident the guys will bring it regardless of the crowd (hell, we just beat UH in Houston!), but I also really hope Illini Nation surprises me and floods that arena with orange!
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I’m also very interested in how the fan support shakes out. Another consideration is Iowa will be significant underdogs against a team they already lost to in a largely uncompetitive game in their house. I know as a fan I tend to be more excited to be a part of a win than a loss and that is going to be something Iowa fans are likely going to weigh that may discourage many. Ultimately it will not matter because look what we just did against a significant Houston crowd!
 
#281      
Illini2010-11
Battle89 said:
Let the kids party, jeez. All you're doing is hurting the bars anyway, it's not like you can't go off campus to purchase.

Hmmmm, sensing a moneymaking opportunity here...

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I feel like there are plenty of workarounds here, unless bars are told to shutdown. Either way, the parties on campus are going to be raging.
 
#283      
Fan Since '70
Illinois can beat Iowa if they continue to play their best, stick to game plan and give max effort.
 
#288      
TheOx76
illini510 said:
Illinois vs Iowa would've been more likely when they had Luka Garza or the Murray twins but this is quite an unexpected matchup. But love the Big 10 classic rivalry in an Elite 8 matchup for all the marbles. We all know Illinois has more talent and the better overall team but so did Florida and so did Nebraska so let's hope our guys don't take it easy. They need to come in with the same intensity and the same focus+effort as they did tonight and they should be able to take care of business.
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Don’t use Iowa and Marble in the same sentence. IYKYK
 
#291      
Second place is 1st loser
Illinois can beat Iowa if they continue to play their best, stick to game plan and give max effort.
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This shouldn't be "can". Illinois is the better team. Period. This should be a win and a fairly comfortable one. That said, should doesn't mean will. The game isn't played on paper. Florida didn't show up to play, fell significantly behind before finally kicking it into gear. They took a lead, but at that point.... anything can happen. If they would have taken them seriously from the start, we'd be playing Florida tomorrow.

Again, ON PAPER, this should be a very matter of fact win.
 
#295      
ChiefGritty
#296      
wc_illini
ChiefGritty said:
I gotta be honest, I have a hard time squaring the box scores of their three tourney games with that absurd Torvik 142 offensive efficiency number 🤷‍♂️

But to bring it down to the human level, they are just really feeling themselves and playing with a ton of freedom and confidence right now. They have survived some haymakers in this tourney so far too, they're not going to just go away tomorrow.

The way we turn into the worst team in America every time we get a 15 point lead is worrying, you gotta say.
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They're getting a really big boost for opponent D rating. Their raw numbers are worse than Arizona's and ours (and perhaps others- only checked those two), but Clemson, FL, and Nebraska are (on average) tougher than Penn, VCU, and Hou, or LIU, Ut St, and Arkansas.

I'm also not sure how Torvik calculates the opponent ratings for such small sample sizes (1st rd losers play only one game)- does he use season averages for those, or just the games included in the ranking filter?
 
#297      
wc_illini
IlliniwekKDR said:
We've also already advanced to a round past Duke and Michigan. I would imagine a win for those teams tonight bumps their championship odds above ours. Even sitting 4th in odds is a good place to be! Or Duke and Michigan just lose tonight. That's even better.
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Betting markets currently have us at 4th around 10-13%
 
#298      
wc_illini
One Man Fast Break said:
4th (if Michigan/Duke win tonight). Illinois favored over Iowa, and if they won, there's only 4 teams left at that point, lol

Getting about three steps ahead of myself but curious on what a line between Illlinois and UConn/MSU would be. Illinois lost to both already but is about +5 better in KP than both
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There is a way to estimate head-to-head odds between all teams using futures odds for all remaining rounds. Obviously lots of assumptions and estimations, but here are the results from FanDuel futures odds:

Arizona 30%
Michigan 31%
Duke 32%
Purdue 50%
Iowa State 50%
Connecticut 53%
St. John's 54%
Michigan State 55%
Tennessee 62%
Alabama 64%
Iowa 72%
 
#299      
STLIlliniMike
There was an interesting discussion on this board a while back where everyone was discussing rivals and how who you viewed as Illinois’ main rival was dependent on what era and what part of the state you grew up in. I grew up in the metro east and was raised to dislike all things Mizzou and the Indiana schools but Iowa has always just been another team on the schedule. I imagine there’s a correlation between people's anxiety level and how highly they rank Iowa as rival.
 
#300      
RIP_Chief_2003
I don’t know what thread to even put this in, so my apologies if a bit off topic - one thing I’ve noticed in interviews and social media is Big Z is always wearing glasses. But on the court he has nothing. Recently I’ve also noticed Big Z have trouble timing and grabbing loose balls and rebounds. We all also have noticed his significant decline in 3pt shooting.

Does Brad need to go all “Ricky Vaughn” and get Z some Rec Specs?
 
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