Pregame: Illinois vs IUPUI, Tuesday, December 6th, 7:00pm CT, ESPN3

This game just reminds me of a time IUPUI was in the tourney (i think), and I was teasing my young son about their name. He had asked what the team was called and I said they were IUPUI (i pronounced it "oooohweepooohwee") and their nickname was the "Ooooohweees".

So, basically, I convinced my 7-9 year old (can't remember the exact year) that they were the IUPUI "Ooooohwees".

So back to this game, which of the Oooooohweee's will drop 32 on us?
Because Illinois.

Vegas line to Illinois -12
Basically the same as when IUPUI played @ Illinois St. a week ago when line was -10.5. Illinois State won by 14 pts.

Interesting tidbit from the game notes: we've won all our games by 14+ points.

It'll be interesting to see how we play closer games. Obviously the Winthrop game is a scary sign we can't seal the deal when the pressure is on us to put a few last nails in the coffin. I think its important at the end of games to have more than Tracy and Hill to rely on.

Side note: When do we stop using the excuse that this team hasn't played a lot of games together? Seems like we are finally clicking, albeit not for entire games. I personally would say that excuse stops abruptly when conference play starts. Though the addition of Kipper could be used to extend the argument....

ChiefIllini said:

Interesting tidbit from the game notes: we've won all our games by 14+ points.

It'll be interesting to see how we play closer games. Obviously the Winthrop game is a scary sign we can't seal the deal when the pressure is on us to put a few last nails in the coffin. I think its important at the end of games to have more than Tracy and Hill to rely on.

Side note: When do we stop using the excuse that this team hasn't played a lot of games together? Seems like we are finally clicking, albeit not for entire games. I personally would say that excuse stops abruptly when conference play starts. Though the addition of Kipper could be used to extend the argument....

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I'd say did a good job of "sealing the deal" versus VCU. They were within 1 or 2 well into the second half and then we just shut them out the last several minutes of the game and ended up winning by 18.

I think after a few more games we can stop using the "not played a lot of games together" excuse. Let's not forget that Leron just came back 2 or 3 games ago and he's a big part of it. Thorne is still getting back into game shape and TJL has just started becoming a bigger part of the team. One or two more games and I think we can say they should be gelling and developing some chemistry, even with the addition of Kipper, because I think he's probably going to be eased in somewhat slowly.

Hope DJ can get a ton of minutes this game and get his confidence up!

TCTORNADO said:

Vegas line to Illinois -12
Basically the same as when IUPUI played @ Illinois St. a week ago when line was -10.5. Illinois State won by 14 pts.

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Well kenpom has UI at 69 and Ill St at 80 so not terribly surprising that the lines are similar.

Mcochran4275 said:

I agree with many of the posts on our recent wins showing very little. Our offense is horrible and showing no signs of progress. No ball movement and players stand still. I have been happy with the intensity of LB but he shoots 90% of the time he gets the ball. Unless the offense changes we will continue to be a bottom feeder in the big ten.

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While I don't think our offense is where it needs to be, we are showing progress. If you watch the WVU and FSU games, we held the ball much more in those games, and struggled because of it. Against NCST and VCU we've been more aggressive in starting our sets and have looked to the post more, which has helped spread the floor for better ball movement.

I've spent a lot of time think about why our ball movement has been so bad, not only this year but during the entirety of Groce's tenure. I've found it especially interesting given that Groce seems to realize that it's an issue and is trying to correct it.

Here's my working theory:

Weber's motion offense was based on perimeter ball movement and deemphasized the dribble-drive. Weber's love affair with off-ball screens -- especially along the baseline -- to free up shooters on the wings meant the ball moved around the perimeter. In that offense, driving off the bounce meant deviating from the offense and taking it on yourself to create a scoring chance. Over the course of Weber's tenure, we found that when we had the individual talent to effectively do that (i.e. Deron, Dee, and co.) we were successful. When we didn't have that talent, the ball moved around the perimeter, but it lacked purpose, and we ended up late in the shotclock with our PG chucking up a 30 ft three (McCamey style).

When Weber left, Groce brought a style from the opposite end of the spectrum. Whereas Weber's offense required off-ball screens to create ball movement, Groce's offense relies almost entirely on on-ball screens and dribble penetration to create ball movement (i.e. the pick and roll/slip/pop and drive and dish). For our players, especially those that were ingrained in the Weber offense, this was a totally foreign concept. As a result, we saw players standing around waiting for someone to get open, which rarely happened. Then late in the shot clock, we saw a lot of one-on-one (Brandon Paul style).

All that being said, it's taken Groce too long to address this issue and get players to buy in. It's harder than most think to change the culture and philosophy of a program, and nearly ten years of Weber-ball wasn't going to change overnight. However, we're five years in now with almost entirely Groce recruits and still waiting for an Illini team to really succeed offensively in this system. I still think it can work, but my concern is that it takes a level of individual talent that is difficult to attract to Illinois. Seeing players succeed in this offense, especially the younger guys like TJL, JCL, LB, MF, etc., will be really important for Groce moving forward.

Newman said:

We're able to get many good looks on offense when we're not being pressured full court and I don't expect that to happen often at all during conference play. Our bigs are still in a funk, so that's my primary concern heading too conference play. We still have a few games for JCL and Finke to get out of their shooting slump too but I'm not as concerned about that. There are some teams like Indiana and Wisconsin that are capable of tearing us a new one, but I expect us to be competitive in most games. We have a favorable schedule. There aren't many great teams in the conference but it's still good enough to get 7-8 teams in the dance. Most will be high single digits IMO so we need to be able to win a few against those types of teams.

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perhaps, but the point stands that there still isnt much of an oofensive system. roughly, to me, the offensive scheme looks like this:

See who has the hot hand in the first half.
Go to those guys (+Malcolm, regardless of his first half) in the second half.

it can be a reasonable approach to keep the planning on the offense light, so players stay loose on that end of the court, and dont feel every movement is scripted, and this can help shift the intensity and "Buckled Down" approach to the defensive side of the court. However, in a loose offense you have to be able to depend on some athleticism and some ability (and willingness) to pass the ball and be creative, else you get pretty easy to guard.

Newman said:

Keep in mind that KenPom has IUPUI in the top 150 so being favored by 10 is pretty much expected considering our ranking.

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That is good scheduling -- exactly the caliber of team we should be playing. Likely win that forces us to play honest and at least does not bring our RPI etc down.

I'll echo some of the sentiments on here and hope that DJW, AJ, and Lucas can all get at least 10 minutes in this one.

CAHALL15 said:

I'll echo some of the sentiments on here and hope that DJW, AJ, and Lucas can all get at least 10 minutes in this one.

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I would really like to see DJW get his minutes. I think Lucas definitely will get a few and then based on how those go depends on if he gets more, obviously. I don't care if AJ gets minutes at this point. He just isn't there yet. He needed a redshirt. He has the potential to be a great contributor as an upperclassmen.

TownieMatt said:

Weber's motion offense was based on perimeter ball movement and deemphasized the dribble-drive. Weber's love affair with off-ball screens -- especially along the baseline -- to free up shooters on the wings meant the ball moved around the perimeter. In that offense, driving off the bounce meant deviating from the offense and taking it on yourself to create a scoring chance. Over the course of Weber's tenure, we found that when we had the individual talent to effectively do that (i.e. Deron, Dee, and co.) we were successful. When we didn't have that talent, the ball moved around the perimeter, but it lacked purpose, and we ended up late in the shotclock with our PG chucking up a 30 ft three (McCamey style).

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I agree with a fair amount of this. But a good motion have drive reads (slide, lift, cut, fill, etc) worked in. The benefit of a motion is for the defense to never actually know when those can come. Because I agree with you on much of this, I found it interesting that when I saw Bruce Weber at a clinic a couple years, his segment was mostly about how to use ball screens in the flow of the motion and how everyone off the ball needs to read it.