I see moments that are inspiring.. Underwood will learn from this, both in how he assembles his roster, and how much he's willing to risk alienating a talented player to get the level of buy-in he needs... Have enjoyed watching these guys despite the high expectations not fully materializing. I have no idea what to expect for these last games...
It’s tough to put a puzzle together when the pieces don’t quite seem to fit.
First, you have to know and embrace your role as a player. What kind of player are you? What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Then you have to know how to blend those into the team structure. And then not just know it, but do it. Every game.
Then you have to have some kind of consistent offensive team strategy that carries over from game to game. The only consistent feature of the Illini this year is to shoot lots of Threes. And when they’re draining, you win. And when they’re not...
Coaches can have a general idea of how a player will fit in to a system when he brings them in. And he can try to make those pieces fit together. But again, it’s the human factor. You can never tell how unpredictable human beings are going to act and work with each other. The randomness of Life in brilliant display under the bright lights of the roundball arena with no place to hide.
What’s been frustrating for the team and fans is that there is a feeling that this team has been capable of more. This may or may not be true. But what we do know is that there have been too-frequent stretches where the team has just not adequately shown up.
There are two things you can always control: Your Effort, and your Defensive Intensity (a form of Effort). You can bring these every day and every night. And the best teams do.
Is Illini Nation happy with the Season’s Effort and level of defense intensity? Again, yes and no. As always, some will blame the Coach. But if you want to do that it’s only fair to identify exactly where the Coach has fallen short and what he needs to do to fix that in coach-speak detail.
In truth, there is always some mixture of responsibility for how the Illini have performed so far. Whether it is 50-50 between Coach and player or 5% Coach and 95% Players is in the eye of the beholder.
Bottom line... 100% of Everyone wants the Illini to use the great ball season of March Madness to put a good cap on this wild-ride of a season. Everyone from Coaches to players have learned a lot from the last few months. And they will all carry that knowledge going forward and will no doubt be better than they were coming in to this Season.
This Season will either have an Orange ending... or a 'Blue' one.
