Since these are the two on the stat sheet... correct me if I'm wrong, have we lost a single game over the past 3-4 years when meeting that criteria?
Pregame: Illinois vs Tennessee, Saturday, December 6th, 7:00pm CT, ESPN
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Our shooting should be studied... it is truly baffling
There's probably some legitimate stuff out there on some of these guys not being good/great (whatever semantics) shooters and they need to take less, cough, Mirk. Stoj, never a great college shooter. Ben transferring up a level. Etc.
But for all of this to go wrong at once shooting, its wild. I truly am 100X more concerned with the shooting than the defense.
Absolutely. We were tough on that end in the 2H... and Tarris Reed was supposed to dunk all over our heads... he had 2 points and couldn't even get shots up (0 for 3)
I truly think this is a function of teams feeling way too comfortable against us night after night. We just do not play enough defense to have any negative impact on an offense at all. Let guys at this level get comfortable and this is what you can expect. We have 35 steals to opponents 57 so far. Today we had 3 to their 7. We do not put any defensive pressure on teams. Maybe we should employ a press earlier in games to try to exert some?
Like i said, I'm at a relative loss here. So i'm open to some of it - I personally like pressing as a change up a bit too.
But even then, Ill push back a little. The VERY first play Solo Ball, who hasn't been able to hit ANYTHING this year, hits a flailing, one-handed three with Boswell in his shorts.
Even with Bama, they couldn't hit anything open against purdue or gonzaga, and honestly, purdue is not some defensive stalwart. its weird.
SuperMetroid
- Evanston
2-2 in the big boy games + beat Miznoz and I’m good. Hope we can get finally everyone healthy and practicing together
Yes, it is uncanny. But there is one constant in all of the examples we have seen it happen both this year and last year: our lack of defense.
Tennessee choked their game away yesterday against a depleted, tired, KU team. They are very beatable.
Tennessee will run us out of the gym. Vols 104 Illini 69
Some ice cold shooting and a bunk 4 point play disguised how close we were. Tennessee is tough but they are no UConn. Think we take a leap after our week of practice and get the dub.
I'd prefer TENN to win. We really havent fared well in these games against teams coming off losses. And yes im counting Zona beating UConn.
They were coming off a hard-fought win against Houston the day before.
But didn't that look different later in the 2nd half? I thought UConn looked uncomfortable after some defensive adjustments and that's how we got back in it. Otherwise I agree that we haven't had a team that generally makes teams uncomfortable.
Zero offense directed at you, but, "top seed?!?" in my best Jim Mora playoffs voice
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Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yes, I’m certainly not writing off a scenario where this team continues to improve and is playing well by the end of the year … the pieces are certainly there. However, we made this one a must win.Zero offense directed at you, but, "top seed?!?" in my best Jim Mora playoffs voice
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This is all irrelevant if we can’t improve the issues we saw today, but … that obviously goes without saying.
DICKnaggie
- Champaign
LaTulip addressed this post game and I thought it was really insightful. He talked about this years team, find chemistry and understanding roles. He referenced the the TSJ elite 8 team and talked about how everyone knew where their individual threes were coming from (e.g. Quincy in the opposite corner) and how this team needs more time to feel out how they want to play and how Brad needs to dial in lineups. Great commentary as always from Mike.
I’ll have to check it out, thank you for the reference. Really enjoy LaTulip.
It makes sense actually. A small sample size of this is when Petrovic drives, and gets collapse, the 3 is almost always coming from the corners. These are the ones ironically I remember us knocking down the last 2 games.
Agree with lineups too - ID LOVE if we could find a way to get ourselves a few more easy ones in transition
Stop the bleeding, please.
We're ranked 40th on Torvik over the last two weeks (5 games). Not only have we not looked like a top 4 seed caliber team but we've looked like a bubble team.
A whole lot of work to do if we want to even get close to living up to the (rightfully) lofty expectations for this season. A win on the road against Tennessee would go a long way toward doing that.
We're ranked 40th on Torvik over the last two weeks (5 games). Not only have we not looked like a top 4 seed caliber team but we've looked like a bubble team.
A whole lot of work to do if we want to even get close to living up to the (rightfully) lofty expectations for this season. A win on the road against Tennessee would go a long way toward doing that.
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I think Brad wants to employ a lot of switching on ball screen defense, but we are too slow footed for that. We get lost on switches way too much. Once that happens, good teams keep moving the ball until they get a wide open shot.
This roster could benefit from using a little more zone, especially based on certain lineup combinations.
I'm not sure we can say "rightfully" because before they suited up for us, we hadn't seen 50% of our roster play on anything other than a YouTube clip.
What we did know is that athletically we could have issues and defensively we could have issues. Those concerns have rung true. We're going to run into the same situation vs the Vols.
Our preseason ranking is based on national respect for our head coach and trust that he'll have them rolling in February/March.
The schedule BU put together, while trying to integrate players from all over the globe.....was probably a bit too aggressive.
What we did know is that athletically we could have issues and defensively we could have issues. Those concerns have rung true. We're going to run into the same situation vs the Vols.
Our preseason ranking is based on national respect for our head coach and trust that he'll have them rolling in February/March.
The schedule BU put together, while trying to integrate players from all over the globe.....was probably a bit too aggressive.
If you out rebound them … Force them into less than 30% from 3 and shoot 40% or above from 3 yourself … They’re beatable …
I have ZERO confidence we can do 1 of those 3 … Let alone all 3 …
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