Pregame: Illinois vs Texas Tech, Tuesday, November 11th, 7:30pm CT, FS1

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#51      
21ChampaignSt
Haven't watched Texas Tech but it seems like stylistically they are similar to us in that they get up a lot of threes and crash the offensive glass. Play at a more deliberate pace though.

Will be interesting to see how Wagler and Mirk respond when Tech gets in their grill and makes them work harder to get to their spots. A lot of our success on offense has come from them and Kylan putting pressure on and collapsing the defense.

Our defense was really solid in the first half against FGCU. Night and day difference with where we were at the same time last year. Still had some missed switches and got out of rotation several times though and I imagine Tech will make us pay for that more than FGCU did.

That said, I like us to win this one by 8 to 10. Even without Tomi, I think we're just a superior team. And it's about time we win one of these big home games.
 
#54      
eas23
hoopsfan47 said:
It is difficult to have watched the first two games and not be excited for the season. And we should be excited. But nothing meaningful has happened. When a good team of equal physicality hits back in the nose then there will be lessons to be learned and character and skill developed. As reported by BU, that happened in Orlando. Let's hope lessons were learned and confidence built.

For sure, we should all say a prayer of thanks that Kylan Boswell is an Illini.
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All we can do right now is talk about what we've seen in these 2 games, but recent history dictates that there is very little correlation between the margin of victory in the early buy games and the overall success of the season.
 
#56      
doowink
HereSoIDontGetFined said:
On the court is a different story. Are we going to get punched in the mouth early and fade? Or do we rise up and stay true to our principles?
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I actually think we're the ones that will do the punching in the mouth to TT....especially the first few minutes of the game....how will the Red Raiders(a higher ranked team) react to that, on the road, in what is hopefully a hostile environment??
 
#58      
Ga65
HereSoIDontGetFined said:
The real question about this game is how does this team react to adversity, because we sure haven't had any yet.
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Having 4 players injured might qualify for adversity. Maybe not declaring eligibility on your pg until summer over might qualify. Maybe a long term advantage but would love to see big tests with full availability. Tomi hurts most as still think he is most valuable to team. Z great at blocking shots but sacrificing rebounding to do it. Also not as strong as Tomi and got the ball stolen or poked away several times. Andrej (once adjusted) replacing Jake going to improve defense. Really like defensive system changes.
 
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#62      
FloridaMan
Coach speak I assume. Likely scans are already done and they are evaluating treatment options/getting second, third opinions. I am resigned to the probability we do not have Tomi for any of the remaining non con schedule. Hopefully that is wrong, but doesn't seem to be a minor sprain by early indications/comments or lack thereof.
 
#63      
RowdyFromRow22
Hoping Z can hold his own on the defensive end.
Toppin will get his points and show why he one of the best. The key will be to limit the support cast.

Illini fans to Z when Toppin drives the ball…
1762630816095.png
 
#65      
PepeSilvia
illiniguy24 said:
Who guards Toppin?
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Assuming Tomi is out, i'd guess a combination of Zvonimir and Mirkovic. Honestly Z is probably a better defensive option to guard Toplin than Tomi though Tomi has more weight and would be a tougher guard on the other end for Toppin(would be a nice matchup to have twin 7 footers).

MIrkovic has the weight to bang with Toppin and Zvonimir has a length advantage that could make shots difficult around the rim. Toppin will probably still get his but if you can make it an inefficient 20 pts like Florida did in the tourney it makes a huge difference.

Personally I think Kylan vs Christian Anderson will be the the difference maker. If Kylan is going to put up an all conference defender type season it will start with locking down Anderson and disrupting Texas Techs offense. On the flip side, if Anderson is guarding Kylan, Kylan needs stay aggressive attacking the basket because he probably has 30 lbs on Anderson.
 
#67      
Oracle21
hodgesonfire said:
To me this is a house money game. I still don’t think it’s possible to know this team’s potential as the March line up could be totally different than what we see in this game.

Loose and continue to improve and learn. But win and let the “national title contender” talk begin
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This is a home game. You gotta win these. This isn’t house money
 
#69      
lstewart53x3
LouHenson said:
There is no chance games like this are anywhere near house money. If our goal is to win it all, then seating is everything. We have STL - CHicago - Indy in front of us. To get it, you have to win games like TT?
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College basketball doesn’t have a whole lot of must win games. This is one Q1 opportunity out of 20. A win here is maybe worth a third of a seed line at most.

Would love a win, but when you’re without your best player (Tomi), your best passer (Petro), and your best scorer is on limited minutes (Andrej), a win won’t be easy and a loss won’t define the season.
 
#70      
LouHenson
lstewart53x3 said:
College basketball doesn’t have a whole lot of must win games. This is one Q1 opportunity out of 20. A win here is maybe worth a third of a seed line at most.

Would love a win, but when you’re without your best player (Tomi), your best passer (Petro), and your best scorer is on limited minutes (Andrej), a win won’t be easy and a loss won’t define the season.
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Not sure anyone said “must win” but you? I was taking about seeding which really leads to winning it all potential?

Well we will have to agree to disagree. A third seed line, but in what region? We are competing with Purdue in my mind for stl. Maybe we both go to STL, but no way we both get Chi also?

To many home “big” game home losses over the last couple years has limited our seed potential to like a 3? You have to have this game to make up for the inevitable Northwestern or whoever game we lose for some reason?

Not a chance this game is 1/3 of a seed line, frankly no idea where you pulled that from? Home q1 will be huge end of year. Sorry you are simply wrong?
 
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#71      
Oracle21
lstewart53x3 said:
College basketball doesn’t have a whole lot of must win games. This is one Q1 opportunity out of 20. A win here is maybe worth a third of a seed line at most.

Would love a win, but when you’re without your best player (Tomi), your best passer (Petro), and your best scorer is on limited minutes (Andrej), a win won’t be easy and a loss won’t define the season.
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We only have 2 home games this entire schedule against top 20 teams.

bballnet.com

Illinois - NET Rankings and Quad Wins

2026 Illinois Quad wins for NCAA College Basketball. NET rankings and Quadrants are used to help select teams for the NCAA Tournament during March Madness.
bballnet.com bballnet.com

#10 Texas Tech
#7 Michigan.

The rest of the difficult games are all neutral or road. Suffice to say you need to win the home games or it gets real hard to build a resume since the other games are much harder to win.
 
#73      
lstewart53x3
Oracle21 said:
We only have 2 home games this entire schedule against top 20 teams.

bballnet.com

Illinois - NET Rankings and Quad Wins

2026 Illinois Quad wins for NCAA College Basketball. NET rankings and Quadrants are used to help select teams for the NCAA Tournament during March Madness.
bballnet.com bballnet.com

#10 Texas Tech
#7 Michigan.

The rest of the difficult games are all neutral or road. Suffice to say you need to win the home games or it gets real hard to build a resume since the other games are much harder to win.
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Luckily "top 20 teams" isn't a metric used in seeding. Instead, it's the Quad system and top 75 on the road is considered Quad 1.
 
#74      
lstewart53x3
LouHenson said:
Not sure anyone said “must win” but you? I was taking about seeding which really leads to winning it all potential?

Well we will have to agree to disagree. A third seed line, but in what region? We are competing with Purdue in my mind for stl. Maybe we both go to STL, but no way we both get Chi also?

To many home “big” game home losses over the last couple years has limited our seed potential to like a 3? You have to have this game to make up for the inevitable Northwestern or whoever game we lose for some reason?

Not a chance this game is 1/3 of a seed line, frankly no idea where you pulled that from? Home q1 will be huge end of year. Sorry you are simply wrong?
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Your quote was: "If our goal is to win it all, then seeding is everything. We have STL - Chicago - Indy in front of us. To get it, you have to win games like TT"

To me, that means must win.

Here's our schedule. Orange games are projected Q1 and blue games are Q2:

Jackson State
Florida Gulf Coast
Texas Tech
Colgate
Alabama (Chicago)
Long Island
UT Rio Grande Valley
UConn (New York)
Tennessee (Nashville)
@ Ohio State
Nebraska
Missouri (St. Louis)
Southern
@ Penn State (Philadelphia)
Rutgers
@ Iowa
@ Northwestern
Minnesota
Maryland
@ Purdue
Washington
@ Nebraska
Northwestern
@ Michigan State
Wisconsin
Indiana
@ USC
@ UCLA
Michigan
Oregon
@ Maryland

We have 17 Q1 opportunities and another 8 Q2 opportunities *not including the B1G tournament*, so any individual Q1 game won't have a huge negative impact on seeding if we were to lose. Need to win a big portion of them, of course, but we can still claim a very good seed with a loss to Texas Tech next week.
 
#75      
mysterio2525
lstewart53x3 said:
Your quote was: "If our goal is to win it all, then seeding is everything. We have STL - Chicago - Indy in front of us. To get it, you have to win games like TT"

To me, that means must win.

Here's our schedule. Orange games are projected Q1 and blue games are Q2:

Jackson State
Florida Gulf Coast
Texas Tech
Colgate
Alabama (Chicago)
Long Island
UT Rio Grande Valley
UConn (New York)
Tennessee (Nashville)
@ Ohio State
Nebraska
Missouri (St. Louis)
Southern
@ Penn State (Philadelphia)
Rutgers
@ Iowa
@ Northwestern
Minnesota
Maryland
@ Purdue
Washington
@ Nebraska
Northwestern
@ Michigan State
Wisconsin
Indiana
@ USC
@ UCLA
Michigan
Oregon
@ Maryland

We have 17 Q1 opportunities and another 8 Q2 opportunities *not including the B1G tournament*, so any individual Q1 game won't have a huge negative impact on seeding if we were to lose. Need to win a big portion of them, of course, but we can still claim a very good seed with a loss to Texas Tech next week.
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19- 6 Q1/2 record is doable and probably get us a 2 seed
 
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