Pregame: Illinois vs Nebraska, Sunday, February 4th, 5:30pm CT, BTN

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#101      

Illini2010-11

I
Sugar Grove
Illini2010-11
Second place is 1st loser said:
The likelihood of us running the table with road games versus Wisconsin, Michigan State and yes, I'm going to include Maryland on the list.... isn't great. We don't have one high profile win, yet we're going to bank on three of them in one month(MSU, Wisconsin and Purdue)?

That seems far more unlikely than Purdue running the table until they play us.
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I agree with the general premise...it would be highly improbable but not impossible to run table leading up to Purdue rematch.

My only question is what you would constitute as a high profile win? If a win at Michigan State is considered a high profile win to you (it would certainly be a high quality Quad 1 road win since Mich State is NET 22 right now), then I would think the neutral court win against FAU can still be considered high profile (though much less impressive now than when the game was played). Both Michigan State and FAU are still top 30 NET.
 
#103      

Second place is 1st loser

S
Second place is 1st loser
Birdus said:
Man, what a job Hoiberg is doing this year. I know a lot of people who would vote for Brad for COY. That being said, Hoiberg and maybe even Collins could get a little love. Now, I don't care about either team and I am not saying that I think they will win. Maybe some accolades though. Props, whatever. At this point, they both seem to be going to the dance. Someone had mentioned Painter to me the other day. I told them that if you include him, you might want to throw the home officials in with him :) Their home game officiating can be preposterous at times. I remember last year at Mackey when Bozo help guide Meyer down to the deck when he was in mid air. Should have been a flagrant but was not called. Meyer would up on the deck in some pain.
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Painter was working with a Final Four team to begin the season with. Winning the conference and getting to the Final Four, to me, would be meeting expectations.

BU is meeting expectations with regards to our record, but what he's had to pull us through is unprecedented. The job he's done is remarkable.

Northwestern has been fantastic and are performing above expectations, but their had a conference player of the year candidate on the roster from the jump.

Nebraska, let's face it, they came out of nowhere. People were laughing at the start of their season saying that their undefeated start was a joke and they'd go back to being Nebraska. As we sit today, they have two elite wins and we have none(another poster noted MSU at home and FAU on a neutral site are elite, I think that's fair). If they get into the tournament and piece a few road wins together, Hoiberg will be the runaway coach of the year and deservedly so. He's a good guy who built Iowa State up to a very good program, he made the mistake of going to the Bulls and after they threw him under the bus, he's having success at Nebraska. I don't think that he'll be there much longer. He's going to be a hot commodity if this continues.
 
#104      

Toews

Toews
Toews
My opinion on the atmosphere at the game I think I've said before, but it's good for big games like most teams. This is maybe a newer development but I see it around the country. When I watch MSU games at Breslin, I think the same thing. Purdue is the only big arena that is loud consistently. Stadiums like Rutgers and Northwestern I think are different. And I think certain big games like Iowa, Purdue, OSU and Arizona in 2022, Iowa in 2020, and MSU this season at State Farm Center still have a great atmosphere.
 
#105      

Second place is 1st loser

S
Second place is 1st loser
Illini2010-11 said:
I agree with the general premise...it would be highly improbable but not impossible to run table leading up to Purdue rematch.

My only question is what you would constitute as a high profile win? If a win at Michigan State is considered a high profile win to you (it would certainly be a high quality Quad 1 road win since Mich State is NET 22 right now), then I would think the neutral court win against FAU can still be considered high profile (though much less impressive now than when the game was played). Both Michigan State and FAU are still top 30 NET.
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Fair point. I amended another post to include those. I was defining a marquee win by beating a top 10 team. So, it was more AP rankings vs NET. Using the NET as a baseline, we do have a couple of extremely nice wins there.
 
#106      

RabidDawgClassic

RabidDawgClassic
RabidDawgClassic
Toews said:
My opinion on the atmosphere at the game I think I've said before, but it's good for big games like most teams. This is maybe a newer development but I see it around the country. When I watch MSU games at Breslin, I think the same thing. Purdue is the only big arena that is loud consistently. Stadiums like Rutgers and Northwestern I think are different. And I think certain big games like Iowa, Purdue, OSU and Arizona in 2022, Iowa in 2020, and MSU this season at State Farm Center still have a great atmosphere.
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Well, we should see a tremendous atmosphere when we play Penn State this year at the old Rec Center. Hopefully we won’t give them a reason to storm the court.
 
#107      

Icy veins

I
Icy veins
Second place is 1st loser said:
The likelihood of us running the table with road games versus Wisconsin, Michigan State and yes, I'm going to include Maryland on the list.... isn't great. We don't have one high profile win, yet we're going to bank on three of them in one month(MSU, Wisconsin and Purdue)?

That seems far more unlikely than Purdue running the table until they play us.
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I don’t disagree with this. But you’re saying that we need to go 9-1 with Purdue and Wisconsin wins to have a CHANCE at the title. In this scenario, the only way we wouldn’t at least have a share of the title is if Purdue or Wisconsin go 9-0 in games not against us. I think that’s unlikely to happen
 
#108      

jumpingjack

J
jumpingjack
Second place is 1st loser said:
Painter was working with a Final Four team to begin the season with. Winning the conference and getting to the Final Four, to me, would be meeting expectations.

BU is meeting expectations with regards to our record, but what he's had to pull us through is unprecedented. The job he's done is remarkable.

Northwestern has been fantastic and are performing above expectations, but their had a conference player of the year candidate on the roster from the jump.

Nebraska, let's face it, they came out of nowhere. People were laughing at the start of their season saying that their undefeated start was a joke and they'd go back to being Nebraska. As we sit today, they have two elite wins and we have none(another poster noted MSU at home and FAU on a neutral site are elite, I think that's fair). If they get into the tournament and piece a few road wins together, Hoiberg will be the runaway coach of the year and deservedly so. He's a good guy who built Iowa State up to a very good program, he made the mistake of going to the Bulls and after they threw him under the bus, he's having success at Nebraska. I don't think that he'll be there much longer. He's going to be a hot commodity if this continues.
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He's got one road win this entire season.
Stop It Michael Jordan GIF
 
#111      

Second place is 1st loser

S
Second place is 1st loser
jumpingjack said:
He's got one road win this entire season.
Stop It Michael Jordan GIF
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SI was predicted to finish 12th in the preseason. Understanding that their home and road splits are awful, if they get to the NCAA Tournament, with the wins they've had(albeit at home) he isn't coach of the year?

By picking and choosing criteria, shouldn't Collins be eliminated because they lost to Chicago State....at home?

They have, BY FAR, exceeded what anyone thought was reasonable and at the end of that day, that's what counts....regardless of when, where and by how much.
 
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#112      

Hondo

H
Hondo
LuckyIllini said:
Random thought. How come BU doesn’t run any zone? They have the length, size, athleticism to disrupt passing lanes or double and recover. Why not force teams to shoot over you?
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Maybe rebounding? They are well above average in that department.
 
#113      

jumpingjack

J
jumpingjack
Second place is 1st loser said:
SI was predicted to finish 12th in the preseason. Understanding that their home and road splits are awful, if they get to the NCAA Tournament, with the wins they've had(albeit at home) he isn't coach of the year?

By picking and choosing criteria, shouldn't Collins be eliminated because they lost to Chicago State....at home?

They have, BY FAR, exceeded what anyone thought was reasonable and at the end of that day, that's what counts....regardless of when, where and by how much.
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No, he's not.
 
#114      

altgeld88

altgeld88
Arlington, Virginia
altgeld88
Regarding what will earn the BT reg season title or a share of it, 15-5 or even 14-6. I'll be very surprised if anyone ends up 16-4. And yes, I have looked closely at Purdue and Wisconsin's schedules.

It's a long five weeks to March 10th. Am delighted that we once again close up the regular season shop, on behalf of the entire BT, against Iowa that Sunday evening. Am looking forward to celebrating a share of the crown that evening drinking a thirst-quenching goblet of Hawkeye tears. :illinois:
 
#115      

grantlab

G
grantlab
Second place is 1st loser said:
Fair point. I amended another post to include those. I was defining a marquee win by beating a top 10 team. So, it was more AP rankings vs NET. Using the NET as a baseline, we do have a couple of extremely nice wins there.
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NET defines “Q1A” as beating 1-15 at home, 1-25 on neutral and 1-40 on the road. We’re 0-3 in Q1A this year with 3 opportunities remaining: Purdue, @Wisc, @MSU. Any of those feel like a marquee win to me.
 
#116      

jumpingjack

J
jumpingjack
Battle89 said:
Collins would be the leader is my guess. Think Brad will have some shade against him for playing TSJ. I don't agree that he should, but I think he will.
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On their merits, I would put it Collins, Brad, and then Gard at this point. I think Brad's going to win one soon so why not now?
 
#117      

genxrex

G
genxrex
LuckyIllini said:
Random thought. How come BU doesn’t run any zone? They have the length, size, athleticism to disrupt passing lanes or double and recover. Why not force teams to shoot over you?
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We just ran zone during 1st half of IU game and it helped. Hummel finally mentioned it close to half.

Feel like we'd be 18-3 or better right now, if we gave NW, PU, and Marquette some different D looks and get them out of their rhythm. But anyway, it's good we might have zone now, because penetrating guards/tons of cutters appear to be a kryptonite for our switch all D.
 
#118      

Navy_illini

N
Navy_illini
grantlab said:
NET defines “Q1A” as beating 1-15 at home, 1-25 on neutral and 1-40 on the road. We’re 0-3 in Q1A this year with 3 opportunities remaining: Purdue, @Wisc, @MSU. Any of those feel like a marquee win to me.
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@MSU from a NET perspective would be a good win. But I think beating Nebraska at home who just beat Wisky is a good win. We need to stack good wins. I understand NET is important but whose resume would you want
MSU or Nebraska? Nebraska has the better wins and right now I don’t think MSU has the wins to make the tournament. To me quality win is beating a potential tournament team
 
#119      

Illini2010-11

I
Sugar Grove
Illini2010-11
grantlab said:
NET defines “Q1A” as beating 1-15 at home, 1-25 on neutral and 1-40 on the road. We’re 0-3 in Q1A this year with 3 opportunities remaining: Purdue, @Wisc, @MSU. Any of those feel like a marquee win to me.
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What is so difficult about using NET rankings is that the classification of games is volatile based on date (so it truly does not matter until conference tournament week). For example:

If Marquette only drops two positions and FAU gains 4 spots (both very conceivable in next few weeks), then the Q1A record would actually be 1-2 with the two losses being true road games at Tennessee and at Purdue (both top 5 NET teams -- hard to complain about losing those two).

At this point, I would softly mark the FAU win as the only marquee win (I believe it will end up being Q1A by end of year) with a couple ok Quad 1 wins. Illini simply need to take care of the games going forward. The only true disappointment game for me this year is at home against Maryland (you could include IU game, but a win is a win). This is quite the turnaround from last season.

I personally do not get too caught up in Q1A category until early March, and even then, it is more for top seeding purposes.
 
#120      

PepeSilvia

P
PepeSilvia
Second place is 1st loser said:
The likelihood of us running the table with road games versus Wisconsin, Michigan State and yes, I'm going to include Maryland on the list.... isn't great. We don't have one high profile win, yet we're going to bank on three of them in one month(MSU, Wisconsin and Purdue)?

That seems far more unlikely than Purdue running the table until they play us.
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Can't have any letdown games and gotta beat the teams in front of you but @MSU is the big one. Get that win first and Maryland is tough at home but you gotta avenge that home loss.

Take care of business at home and they should really be riding a 9 game win streak and 14-3 in conference into the Kohl center. Now the way this season has gone i expect that they will drop at least one before then but if they're as dangerous as a lot of us think they should be capable of going on a run here.
 
#121      

Illini2010-11

I
Sugar Grove
Illini2010-11
Navy_illini said:
@MSU from a NET perspective would be a good win. But I think beating Nebraska at home who just beat Wisky is a good win. We need to stack good wins. I understand NET is important but whose resume would you want
MSU or Nebraska? Nebraska has the better wins and right now I don’t think MSU has the wins to make the tournament. To me quality win is beating a potential tournament team
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Road win at Mich State is by far superior for Illini resume, though winning this game vs Nebraska is very important (must hold serve at home), as a loss here looks worse for resume (Quad 2 game). Not to mention Nebraska has yet to win a road B1G game (and has looked awful in process), so I simply cannot see a win on Sunday as a "good" win.

Since NET is an important metric used by selection committee, even with two great wins for Nebraska, I would much rather be in MSU's position than Nebraska. Nebraska simply does not have as much wiggle room as does Michigan State. However, both of these teams still have work to do. Nebraska is going to have to start winning some road games (after Sunday of course).
 
#123      

Goldtop

Goldtop
Goldtop
genxrex said:
We just ran zone during 1st half of IU game and it helped. Hummel finally mentioned it close to half.

Feel like we'd be 18-3 or better right now, if we gave NW, PU, and Marquette some different D looks and get them out of their rhythm. But anyway, it's good we might have zone now, because penetrating guards/tons of cutters appear to be a kryptonite for our switch all D.
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Underwood in his post game presser specifically said this was not zone. A different defensive look, but still man to man.
 
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