Pregame: Illinois vs Northwestern, Thursday, February 23rd, 8:00pm CT, BTN

Status
Not open for further replies.
#251      

Roundball Sage

R
Roundball Sage
Illini in Italy said:
... wins and losses don't always come down to just hard work and talent... It could come down to one instance where neither talent nor hard work have the slightest impact on the result.
Click to expand...

When two equally matched teams go head to head for forty minutes it’s usually the team with the stronger will/’belief’ that bags the ‘W’. That’s why the home team wins so many of those close games. They ‘believe’ (and so does the home crowd) that they ‘should’ win and so they do (think ‘Indiana’ game and so many others).

Some say that 'bad calls' are bad luck. I don’t classify bad calls as bad luck but a lack of (proper) execution by the Ref. Yes you are negatively impacted by that. But ‘luck’ would be the Ref didn’t know what to call and just flipped a coin to decide. In this case, he just was not competent in making the right call. I guess it’s just a matter of viewing this same game event from differing angles... one calling it bad execution and another calling that luck.

We know that ‘randomness’ (‘luck’?) is an inseparable feature of all sports. But settling for ‘randomness’ or ‘luck’ as a determining factor is putting the outcome outside of one’s control when your team had 39 minutes (or more) to seize control and did not and let things come down to one or two plays.

I would like to hear more about, ‘where neither talent nor hard work have the slightest impact on the result.’ Every instance I can think of right now still has an element of talent or work (not just ‘raw’ physical talent but ‘court-thinking’ awareness talent) to every situation on the floor.

Maybe slipping on the court on a wet spot that wasn’t cleaned and making a turnover? That would be bad luck? Or was that not using your ‘thinking talent’ to know to avoid that spot on the floor? Or not paying attention to the condition of the floor?

Every Coach, player, and fan is going to see and frame what happens differently.
 
#253      

HailtotheChief

H
HailtotheChief
S
Illinivek23 said:
Thx 0440. Is Dain good to go tomorrow? (This 60+ y.o. body would be out for a few months after landing like that)
Click to expand...
When your 20 something you can run some dirt on it and go! I see players step on defenders feet and I remember that happening and it hurting like hell but in 3 minutes I was running again! Not anymore my friend. I loved when someone asked BU about stamina and he said he is 22 he is fine if not there’s a problem!
 
#254      

Tacomallini

T
Washington State
Tacomallini
illini80 said:
I don’t think the tv has that capability. I have my laptop but didn’t think to put an hdmi cable in the bag.
Frustrated Season 3 GIF by The Simpsons
Click to expand...
Join Homer at the bar then
 
#255      

dbeverly26

dbeverly26
dbeverly26
21ChampaignSt said:
I'm going with the Sage on this one. Yes, luck is a thing. But good teams don't leave outcomes to random chance.

You do make a good point that when playing an evenly matched team, it sometimes comes down to the random, unexplainable, and uncontrollable weirdness of sport.

But, by definition, if you are a GOOD team, you won't be playing evenly matched opponents very often. So good teams usually don't need luck. Because they're good.

Average teams do play evenly matched opponents more often so luck will be more of a factor. But the reason they rely on luck is because they're not good enough not to.
Click to expand...
On the other side of that coin, the fact that you've got so few games that are truly in doubt makes a lucky outcome or two have an outsized impact on your season. You play 35 games, of which 15 or 20 will be against teams where either one should have a shot to win. And in cases like last year, just one game was the difference between hanging a banner and not. If you were playing 81 games or 162 or whatever, that one game is far less likely to make a difference.

You have to take care of business, but if we would've gotten one less call against Iowa there would be a glaring gap in our rafters right now. To avoid that situation, you basically have to be the 2005 Illini, and those teams are really rare. (And more to the point, I don't think the better team won the title that year, but we all know how it turned out.)
 
#257      

Illini in Italy

Illini in Italy
Illini in Italy
Roundball Sage said:
Maybe slipping on the court on a wet spot that wasn’t cleaned and making a turnover? That would be bad luck? Or was that not using your ‘thinking talent’ to know to avoid that spot on the floor? Or not paying attention to the condition of the floor?

Every Coach, player, and fan is going to see and frame what happens differently.
Click to expand...
Criminal minds think alike 🤪, this is the exact situation I was going to use in my response. Your proposition that you could use "thinking talent" to avoid that spot is beyond the computational powers of any living being, as it certainly (bad) luck if you found the one drop of sweat that Hadden fallen to the exact pot your foot was going to land and avoided it. Overall, I am in agreement with you that hard work and talent wins most of the time, but stuff does happen, and sometimes the outcome of a match is affected by it.

As for the officials, I think we can all just agree that while officiating is very difficult, calls are not a matter of luck, but of human frailties and or poor education/preparation by the officials.
 
#258      

altgeld88

altgeld88
Arlington, Virginia
altgeld88
21ChampaignSt said:
I'm going with the Sage on this one. Yes, luck is a thing. But good teams don't leave outcomes to random chance.

You do make a good point that when playing an evenly matched team, it sometimes comes down to the random, unexplainable, and uncontrollable weirdness of sport.

But, by definition, if you are a GOOD team, you won't be playing evenly matched opponents very often. So good teams usually don't need luck. Because they're good.

Average teams do play evenly matched opponents more often so luck will be more of a factor. But the reason they rely on luck is because they're not good enough not to.
Click to expand...
Yeah. BU voiced something after the Indiana game last weekend that had been on my mind for a while concerning this team: focusing on winning possessions, not the game broadly. Coach K (yes, I'm throwing up a little in my mouth as I write this) was relentless about using timeouts to focus his players on going back out and winning a majority of the next X possessions.

This sort of breaking the game down into bite-sized chunks can help a team bury the immediate past after it has just weathered a run by its opponent. It also can prevent complacency if a team has led consistently and is entering the home stretch of the second half.

At the margin a possession or two can win or lose the game, as we see often. Yes, random bounces and such occur. But reflexively diving on loose balls, taking care of the ball each offensive possession, following your shot, and the front duo or trio crashing the O boards, as well as lock-down D, is what wins games. That's the signal; luck is noise.

Now I've gotta get back to practice and ensure that Scooter is drilling the boys in the Picket Fence. :illinois:🏀
 
#260      

OrangeLife

OrangeLife
OrangeLife
Illini in Italy said:
I was reincarnated as IlliniinItaly when I created my account during my annual trip to Tuscany. My avatar pic is from lunch in Sienna this past December in which many pizzas, plates of pasta , and cases (yes, cases) of wines were consumed 😎
Click to expand...
Now I have to make pasta or dinner lol.
 
#263      

EyeoftheIllini

EyeoftheIllini
EyeoftheIllini
dbeverly26 said:
If you get a bad call earlier in the game and you're down one instead of up one, that's luck. You might not like thinking that's the case, but it had an impact and you can't dismiss it.

I don't know why people are so insistent on dismissing that when you talk about close games, and I probably shouldn't care. Just gonna leave it by saying that I don't think I'd enjoy going to your church on Sunday morning, but you can believe whatever you want.
Click to expand...
I agree a call early in a game can impact a game. But so do a missed shot 2 minutes after that, and a turnover a minute after that and a blown defensive assignment two minutes after that. So the problem I have and disagree with is when someone says that early call was the reason a team lost. And you’ll hear that even when a game isn’t decided by 2 or 3 points. But like you said, they can believe what they want.
 
#266      

Second place is 1st loser

S
Second place is 1st loser
Key to the game is Epps. If he can get us into our offense consistently, we'll be fine. I was at the game at NW and our offense was consistently pushed 28-30 feet from the basket while the shot clock got under 10 seconds...then a contested shot would go up. He's not a PG by trade, but it's his job to be the maestro. Not easy, especially for a freshman.

He's also got play defense without fouling and without letting Buie get into the paint. Audige and Buie were a combined 18-20 from the stripe (Buie 11/12) last time out. What were they, 32/40?

If our guards aren't dominated by there's, we win by 10+
 
#268      

RML

R
RML
CalIllini66 said:
Well said. You've described a huge factor in most BB games.
Click to expand...
A buddy of mine who coached always told his players to forget luck: beat the other team so soundly that even if we catch a few unlucky breaks, we still win. Fair enough. But if the other team is really good, too, and plays really well, then maybe it's effectively impossible to ensure that, even as the better team, you won't be beaten if lady luck abandons you.
 
#270      

Ransom Stoddard

Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
Bloomington, IL
Ransom Stoddard
EyeoftheIllini said:
Wilbon on PTI just said it’s hard to beat your arch-rival twice in one season. Isn’t it cute he thinks IL and NW are arch-rivals.
Click to expand...
NU thinks of us as their arch-rival, as little brothers often do. Not so much the other way, although personally I still think of them as a rival because it's a game I get up for more than most.
 
#271      

21ChampaignSt

21ChampaignSt
21ChampaignSt
dbeverly26 said:
You have to take care of business, but if we would've gotten one less call against Iowa there would be a glaring gap in our rafters right now. To avoid that situation, you basically have to be the 2005 Illini, and those teams are really rare. (And more to the point, I don't think the better team won the title that year, but we all know how it turned out.)
Click to expand...
Good points. This convo made me think of the 05 team as well. The 05 team was great. Run them through the simulator and they're getting a #1 seed 95 times out of 100 (because they didn't really rely on luck as you point out). BUT they did cash in on their luck when they needed it most - against AZ. (OK, I still have to think the comeback was 99% skill and heart and determination but there had to have been at least some luck involved)

Anyway, this makes me think that the biggest luck factor of all is not the lucky or unlucky play itself but when the luck happens.

Then to @altgeld88 's point, good coaches and players have a knack for identifying and accounting for those critical moments where the outcome teeters on the next few possessions.

The more you think about it, the more it feels nebulous and paradoxical.

But here's to beating the kittens by any means necessary, whether luck, skill, or voodoo magic.

ILL

Illini by 9.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.