Hands Malone
- Quad-Cities, IL
It does if a team presses a little but I don't see that happening with this coach. It should but it won't. Too bad because this team is deep enough.
Pregame: Illinois vs Maryland, Saturday, January 14th, 5:00pm CT, ESPN2
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It does if a team presses a little but I don't see that happening with this coach. It should but it won't. Too bad because this team is deep enough.
JudsonFTSPlay any sport that7 said:
Seriously.....
Play any sport that requires endurance like bball and then start a game like Malcolm Hill did last year knowing you might have to go 38 or 39 minutes. As a player in that situation you have to conserve early energy or be gassed and get crushed in the last five minutes.
Tired players miss shots and don't get the loose ball or the rebound and get beat easier on defense. We don't have that prob this year and if we can make other teams pay for it cuz they have to do it then good for us.
And you don't have to be a run and gun team to wear the other team out. In fact I bet teams who don't sub enough get gassed playing defense against a team like wisconsin or virginia or even the Illini when they are making the other team work hard like they did against scUM.
I wouldn't count Mike Thorne out yet. He wasn't needed against Michigan because they didn't really have a true big guy. I know Thorne hasn't shown much but I still believe he can play well. Remember he was out of shape to start the season so maybe a game or 2 off will get his legs back. Finke still gets pushed around down low, which could be a big problem against teams with true bigs like Maryland, Purdue, Penn St, IU, etc.
Think Coach has been stressing that everyone has a role. You are right Thorne does to. He can be almost automatic on offense. That spin hook is outstanding. We'll need him to be an " aircraft carrier " against those teams. Mav has been pretty automatic lately as well. And right now Mav is quicker on D.
Hope Big Mike gets his legs back cuz he's fun to wiatch
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Thorne will still get time against teams with legitimate bigs. I assume he will get minutes today.
Just got Legacy Club tickets. Can anybody refresh my memory about them? I remember reading about them on one of the game threads recently, but can't remember the details. They appear to be pretty good seats.
Because Maryland is a tad overrated. Freshman laden team playing slightly over their heads going on the road in conference to a tough environment against a team hungry for revenge? I think that line is about right.
We gotta be worth it today though
That would be nice but I have doubts.
I disagree with this. If anything they are underrated. Vegas does not have a good read on them. They are 6-2 against the spread against power 5 teams. They were underdogs against Georgetown, OK St, Michigan, Indiana and won those games outright. Plus they covered by 22 points the last time they played Illinois. This is not a good matchup and unfortunately don't see Illinois winning today.
Think Coach has been stressing that everyone has a role. You are right Thorne does to. He can be almost automatic on offense. That spin hook is outstanding. We'll need him to be an " aircraft carrier " against those teams. Mav has been pretty automatic lately as well. And right now Mav is quicker on D.
Hope Big Mike gets his legs back cuz he's fun to wiatch
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Thorne really hasn't shown much of anything this year. Whether it be due to more tape available to opposing coaches or an injury, his limited offensive repertoire (hook to his right hand towards middle of the paint 90% of the time) and vastly down rebounding numbers just don't warrant him getting minutes over Finke and Mav IMO. He doesn't offer anything defensively those two don't and also is a major ball stopper on offense (with low efficiency numbers for his usage).
Personally, I would rather we see some small ball lineups over seeing Thorne for more than 3-5 mpg, especially because we will likely need Finke (or Black) at the 5 for stretches next year, barring a good 5th year big falling into our laps. I've seen some make the argument that we need to give our best players as many minutes as we can when talking about Malcolm, and I think Mav has earned that status of needing as many minutes as we can get him right now if we want to make a tournament run.
Fair counterpoint. We shall see.
I think there's an argument for both POVs. On one hand, MD only has two losses, one by two points, including a stretch where they were missing their top two bigs. The eye test, if you weight that heavily, probably will tell you MD is fairly or underrated.
However, looking over kenpom numbers, we're looking at a team who is #53 overall, with the #115 overall SoS, and that is #25 overall in KenPom's "Luck" metric, which may, all considered, lead to an assessment that they are likely to regress to a "mean" here and drop some games.
Personally, I think they're likely a little underrated because we're talking about a team playing multiple freshmen heavy minutes that has yet to have outright bad performances and has been fairly consistent. They seem to have a high floor, have a top 6 defensive efficiency in conference per KenPom (impressive considering # of frosh), and if they improve as the other teams do, will likely finish fairly high in the Big Ten (likely top 6, IMO).
I am definitely surprised to see us favored today, although iirc we opened as underdogs (+2.5?) and bettors have since moved the line our way. I certainly wouldn't expect them to finish without at least 6 conference losses, but I do think they will end up above .500 in conference based on what we've seen thus far which should support my belief that they will finish top 6.
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No, we opened as 2 pt favorites.
Ah, ok, must've misremembered, thanks :thumb:
Maryland looked to be one of the best coached team's when we played them last. At the same time we played one of our worst defensive games and shot poorly. Looking for Tracy to shoot better and JCL to defend better.
I hope Kipper gets his minutes at the 3 and 4 position and Hill gets minutes at the 2 and 3 position. Kipper and Hill are two players who will go "mano a mano".
Hope we have the same game discipline we had against Michigan and avoid the few player controlled lapses (poorly timed shots, one on one play, poor/lazy passes).
On a side note the refereeing is much improved from past year. Fouls are more predictable, a lot of the tick tack calls not being called. Allowing the players to play.
I hope Kipper gets his minutes at the 3 and 4 position and Hill gets minutes at the 2 and 3 position. Kipper and Hill are two players who will go "mano a mano".
Hope we have the same game discipline we had against Michigan and avoid the few player controlled lapses (poorly timed shots, one on one play, poor/lazy passes).
On a side note the refereeing is much improved from past year. Fouls are more predictable, a lot of the tick tack calls not being called. Allowing the players to play.
I think you just mean every time we are on a primary ESPN channel the last couple years we get out butts handed to us.
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