Pregame: Illinois vs Penn State, Thursday, March 9th, 5:30pm CT, BTN

Things you just love to see. We definitely will have the crowd advantage Thursday. Got my tickets last night.

LvilleILL said:

Team is pissed off and will be playing with a fire up their !!! (see Luke Goode's post). It's go time now, time to do what this team was built for

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Anybody want to share the screenshot for those of us without social media?

Birdus said:

We will win this game by double digits. From here on out, you will see the team that was on the floor for the 2nd half of today's Purdue game.

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This take reminds me of lyrics from great Counting Crows...."
Pass me a bottle, Mr. Jones
Believe in me
Help me believe in anything
'Cause I wanna be someone who believes
..
""

Bringing this up again since I don't think anyone answered..where would our bench be at UC? Since we are the home team against PSU I'm assuming to the right of the scorers table? Anyone have any insight on that?

Iloveorangekoolaid said:

Things you just love to see. We definitely will have the crowd advantage Thursday. Got my tickets last night...

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Just got ours this morning! We absolutely should have the crowd advantage whenever we play at the UC regardless of opponent, but I think you are definitely correct! This is on my StubHub app for two tickets:

Wednesday Evening: Ohio State vs. Wisconsin and Minnesota vs. Nebraska
--> 265 listings
--> $2.00 lowest price

Thursday Morning: Rutgers vs. Michigan and Iowa vs. OSU/WISC
--> 672 listings
--> $3.00 lowest price

Thursday Evening: Illinois vs. Penn State and Maryland vs. MINN/NEB
--> 477 listings
--> $22.00 lowest price

The lowest ticket price for our session is exponentially higher than the others, haha. I'll be really disappointed if there is not a TON of orange in the UC for every game we are lucky enough to play there, but I do not think I'll have to worry about that.

727ill said:

Bringing this up again since I don't think anyone answered..where would our bench be at UC? Since we are the home team against PSU I'm assuming to the right of the scorers table? Anyone have any insight on that?

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Another poster earlier said that 202 is for sure an "Illini section," which is behind the bench to the right of the scorers table (if you are looking at the scorers table). So, I'm going with that! In other words, assuming PSU brings a pretty small showing, these would be the only sections to really avoid if you want to be around Illini fans:

119-121
229-233

I highly doubt there would be enough PSU fans to start filling the 300s, haha. In the sections besides those ones, the crowd will likely be over 80% Illini fans. Maryland, Minnesota and Nebraska have never brought many fans to the BTT.

Fighter of the Nightman said:

Another poster earlier said that 202 is for sure an "Illini section," which is behind the bench to the right of the scorers table (if you are looking at the scorers table). So, I'm going with that! In other words, assuming PSU brings a pretty small showing, these would be the only sections to really avoid if you want to be around Illini fans:

119-121
229-233

I highly doubt there would be enough PSU fans to start filling the 300s, haha. In the sections besides those ones, the crowd will likely be over 80% Illini fans. Maryland, Minnesota and Nebraska have never brought many fans to the BTT.

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Hmm that's interesting because I was looking at old highlights of tournament games at UC and the home team (by seeding) is usually to the right of the scorers table (if you are looking at it from behind).

Fighter of the Nightman said:

Another poster earlier said that 202 is for sure an "Illini section," which is behind the bench to the right of the scorers table (if you are looking at the scorers table). So, I'm going with that! In other words, assuming PSU brings a pretty small showing, these would be the only sections to really avoid if you want to be around Illini fans:

119-121
229-233

I highly doubt there would be enough PSU fans to start filling the 300s, haha. In the sections besides those ones, the crowd will likely be over 80% Illini fans. Maryland, Minnesota and Nebraska have never brought many fans to the BTT.

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This is why I loved our draw. Thursday and Friday we would definitely have the crowd advantage. Side note:IU fans probably cheering against us Friday night. And if Maryland or any other team beats IU Friday, Saturday would be a good crowd for us too.

IlliniFandom said:

sorry to be such a negative nancy, but unless Trent Frazier is able to come out of retirement to shut down Picket, I've got no confidence going in that they can shut them down.

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His name is Sencire Harris. Start him on Pickett. Start Dain on the bench. It needs to be this kind of drastic change that throws their game plan off.

I just want something that looks like consistent focus and effort for an entire game. Is that too much to ask?

jrichisamazing said:

Anybody want to share the screenshot for those of us without social media?

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Had to do some impromptu editing because I didn't want to be put in Loyalty Jail

illini0440 said:

Dread 5-9 from 3
Funk 6-9 from 3
Lundy 16 points
In the first matchup….that can’t happen

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If we can keep them as a team to around 35% from 3 instead of 50% and 42% like the previous matchups, we will win.

I actually think we played PSU a lot better the second time around. Scored 81. Picket was 15-20, if he goes 10-20 we probably win. And that was before RJ’s reemergence.

I love Epps but he can’t guard Pickett straight up in the post and when he was out there PSU would just run ball screens and force us to switch until they got Epps or Dain on Pickett and then he would go to work. I’m not sure he’s going to be able to do that with the Rogers/RJ/TJ/Mayer/Coleman lineup we’ve been rolling out lately. Think we can contain Pickett a little better with that group.

Hopefully we come out fired up and they should be a little flat after an emotional win that probably punched their ticket. We come ready to play and we have a very good chance I think.

Fun fact - Illinois has played at the UC for the BTT as a #7 seed or higher 18 times over the years. We have never drawn fewer than 16,219 for a game, with that being for a First Round game vs. #11 Penn State in 2007, when we were the #6 seed. The highest attendance we've had was 23,697 in 2005 for the Semifinal vs. Minnesota.

All in all, we have averaged 20,975 at the United Center, and we have drawn over 20,000 14 out of the 18 times we've played there. Obviously, there are other fans in the building, but Illini Nation usually shows up quite well at the UC, as we should! To be honest, we show up quite well in Indy, as well ... pretty sure there were as many Illini fans in the building as Hoosiers fans last year, which is quite impressive.

We are 17-8 all-time in BTT games at the UC, with 2 of our 3 titles coming there. 14-13 all time everywhere else.

Some of that is probably coincidence since the tourney was in Chicago more often when we were a consistent tournament team. But there's also that epic run as an 11 seed back in '99...

Jimbo said:

This is a terrible draw. We don’t match up with penn state. Maybe losing in the first riund will push us to a 10 or 11 seed. That i could live with. Better than the 8/9 line.

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If we think that PSU is a terrible draw, we should be in the NIT. That is a team that's squarely on the bubble and it's as close to a home game as possible within tournament play. With that mentality, outside of Minnesota, who would be a good draw?

Mike1976 said:

According to STATS LLC., there have been 981 similar matchups across Division I college basketball over the past 10 seasons. The teams entering the third game 2-0 are a combined 710-271 (.724 winning percentage) in the third meeting.

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What would really be interesting is to find data about a sample set where a team in same matchups same season was favored in first two matchups but went 0-2 and what was the subsequent results were in game 3. I'm hoping that metric would be more apples to apples.

danielb927 said:

Exactly. I think my hypothesis agrees. Something like: "when controlling for the estimated quality of two teams based on all available results in a season, the likelihood of Team A beating Team B does not change measurably based on their record in two (or even one) previous meetings."

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Technically, the phrase is “it’s hard to beat a team three times.” Not “the third time you play a team you’ve beaten twice you’ll likely lose.”

Regardless of outcome, I would imagine in a large majority of third-game scenarios, it is indeed hard to beat a team that has seen first hand your strengths and weaknesses a third time in one season.

RabidDawgClassic said:

Technically, the phrase is “it’s hard to beat a team three times.” Not “the third time you play a team you’ve beaten twice you’ll likely lose.”

Regardless of outcome, I would imagine in a large majority of third-game scenarios, it is indeed hard to beat a team that has seen first hand your strengths and weaknesses a third time in one season.

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I found a recent article suggesting that maybe there is something to the "implied version" of the claim - that the 3rd game against a team gets harder if you beat them the first 2 times. Interesting stuff!

Stopping Pickett should be priority #1

Pickett is listed as 6'4" 209 lbs

I would vote for rotating bigger players on him -

Rogers 6'6" 200
Coleman 6'10" 225
Matt 6'9" 225

ptgrd23 said:

Stopping Pickett should be priority #1

Pickett is listed as 6'4" 209 lbs

I would vote for rotating bigger players on him -

Rodgers 6'6" 200 - Fixed his last name for you.
Coleman 6'10" 225
Matt 6'9" 225

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ptgrd23 said:

Rodgers 6'6" 200 good option but in the last game while not guarding him much - Pickett ate him up.
Coleman 6'10" 225 - Love his height but has to keep him in front of him.
Matt 6'9" 225 No!!! loses his man too often - doesn't seem to work that hard on defense - yes get some blocks but his man also gets easy shots.

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GallopingGhost said:

His name is Sencire Harris. Start him on Pickett. Start Dain on the bench. It needs to be this kind of drastic change that throws their game plan off.

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I think Ty gets the start over Sencire. And Ty is a pretty good defender.

Here we are at the end of the regular season and there are so many poster's who still misspell his last name........

RODGERS.............................if I was a player on a college BB team I would HOPE that fans knew how to spell my name correctly and it's not grammar police or anything like that and I'm not calling out ANYONE , but please check and make sure you spell their names correctly.......It's a sign of respect for the players playing on our favorite team ............Cool beans ......carry on .....solid...peace out...

RE: beating a team three times, I was able to find these examples for the Illini since 2000 of Illinois being 2-0 or 0-2 vs. a team when we faced off in the BTT:

2000
W 87-76 vs. Penn State
W 51-50 at Penn State
W 94-84 vs. Penn State in BTT in Chicago (Illini ranked #21)

2002
W 76-53 vs. Minnesota (Illini ranked #7)
W 67-66 at Minnesota (Illini ranked #15)
W 92-76 vs. Minnesota in BTT in Indianapolis (Illini ranked #10)

2005
W 75-65 at # 18 Wisconsin (Illini ranked #1)
W 70-59 vs. #20 Wisconsin (Illini ranked #1)
W 54-43 vs. #23 Wisconsin in BTT in Chicago (Illini ranked #1)

W 78-66 at Northwestern (Illini ranked #1)
W 84-48 vs. Northwestern (Illini ranked #1)
W 68-51 vs. Northwestern in BTT in Chicago (Illini ranked #1)

2006
W 60-50 vs. # 7 Michigan State (Illini ranked #6)
W 75-68 at #25 Michigan State (Illini ranked #10)
L 61-56 vs. Michigan State in BTT in Indianapolis (Illini ranked #9)

2008
L 68-64 vs. Penn State
L 52-51 at Penn State
W 64-63 vs. Penn State in BTT in Indianapolis

L 74-67 at Purdue
L 83-75 vs. Purdue
W 74-67 in OT vs. #16 Purdue at BTT in Indianapolis

W 84-60 at Minnesota
W 67-58 vs. Minnesota
W 54-50 vs. Minnesota

L 70-60 at #21 Wisconsin
L 71-57 vs. #10 Wisconsin
L 61-48 vs. #6 Wisconsin in BTT in Indianapolis

2009
W 71-67 in OT at #9 Purdue
W 66-48 vs. #12 Purdue (Illini ranked #23)
L 66-56 vs. #24 Purdue in BTT in Indianapolis

2010
L 72-53 vs. #13 Ohio State
L 73-57 at #6 Ohio State
L 88-81 in 2OT vs. #5 Ohio State in BTT in Indianapolis

2016
W 76-71 in OT at Minnesota
W 84-71 vs. Minnesota
W 85-52 vs. Minnesota in BTT in Indianapolis

So, a great team (2005 Illini) will almost always get the job done vs. an inferior team (2005 Northwestern) for a third time. However, I do think there is some decent anecdotal evidence here that backs up the old perception ... all in all, I can't really make any solid conclusions, though, lol. This would (hopefully) be the best comparison for us:

2009 vs. Purdue: Even after beating Purdue twice, most analysts had us as clear dogs in the BTT semifinal ... and they were right. We just had Purdue's number earlier in the year, even though Purdue was almost always ranked above us and probably felt fairly confident in their chance at getting revenge in the BTT. Let's hope the Illini are Purdue here, and the 2009 Illini are Penn State.

illini0440 said:

Dread 5-9 from 3
Funk 6-9 from 3
Lundy 16 points
In the first matchup….that can’t happen

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Yep, this is the crux of the issue I brought up earlier. It wasn't just Pickett who destroyed us. Dread, Funk, and Lundy all had extremely efficient games and were getting any shot they wanted. We regularly lost track of them and the fact is that every single PSU player can drain open threes at a highly efficient rate. The interesting thing is how each of those players performed against us vs. how they performed on the season as a whole:

Against us:
Pickett: 1.42ppp vs 1.23ppp, 15.7% more efficient
Dread: 1.26ppp vs 1.12ppp, 13.0% more efficient
Funk: 1.29ppp v 1.14ppp, 13.7% more efficient
Lundy: 1.22ppp v 1.18ppp, 3.2% more efficient
---------------------------------------------------------
Wynter: 0.61ppp v 1.05ppp, 41.8% less efficient

The crazy thing is, the one thing that looks statistically unsustainable about what PSU has done against us is that Wynter should be expected to have a significantly better performance. So it wasn't just Pickett who excelled against us, it was basically all of PSU's starters except for Wynter. As such, PSU beating us was not about just one player going off, it was about a systemic team failure on defense. Twice. If we want to win we need to win our individual defensive battles against everyone not named Pickett. It's as simple as that. If we do that, even if Pickett were to have another amazing game and go for 40, if we can hold those other 4 players to 6pts or less apiece, we can still win this game.