Pregame: Illinois vs Texas/Xavier

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#228      
RockfordIllini
sacraig said:
We would need some defense to make real noise. Hamer's scheme ain't gonna cut it. I'd love to be wrong.
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I know some folks have called out we won’t know who we are playing until Wednesday night a disadvantage from a prep perspective and that’s fair. But i actually don’t think it’s awful we are getting 4-5 days to just work on ourselves. Tighten up our ball screen coverage. Reincorporate Morez, see what he can do with some of that hard hedging/stabbing we’ve been doing.

We’ve had 2 good defensive performances since Duke (Iowa, Michigan) and three meh to bad defensive performances (Purdue, Iowa and Maryland in BTT). The defensive bite is there, we just have to find it.

We find our bite we should be able to score enough to get to the S16. Big if though.
 
#229      
Noblesville Illini
Gotta pull a Michigan…..lol
sign language asl GIF by Sign with Robert
 
#231      
nmillini
ChiefGritty said:
Frankly, no, the play-in winners have been by a country mile the most likely first round upsetters since the play-in game was introduced, with the theory generally being that they've had a game to get accustomed to tourney-ish spotlight and intensity.

We'd have much rather avoided a play in winner, but so it goes.
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Play-in winners have won 42% of their first round games while 11-seeds in general have won 39% of their first round games. I live in the country and our miles are a bit bigger than this.
 
#232      
ChiefGritty
nmillini said:
Play-in winners have won 42% of their first round games while 11-seeds in general have won 39% of their first round games. I live in the country and our miles are a bit bigger than this.
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Fair enough.

The comment I responded to said "it's great news that they have to play a game two days earlier, right?"

In fact, the play in winners have been more likely than any other double digit seed to win in the Round of 64 since the First Four was introduced, and have repeatedly made runs beyond that (three Final Fours, of the seven double digit seed FF's in the entire history of the tourney).

It's just interesting and relevant context.
 
#233      
MoCoMdIllini
ChiefGritty said:
Fair enough.

The comment I responded to said "it's great news that they have to play a game two days earlier, right?"

In fact, the play in winners have been more likely than any other double digit seed to win in the Round of 64 since the First Four was introduced, and have repeatedly made runs beyond that (three Final Fours, of the seven double digit seed FF's in the entire history of the tourney).

It's just interesting and relevant context.
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Momentum is just another word for confidence and what can be more confidence-building than a win in the play-in round?
 
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#234      
NarrowJ
Texas appears to have had a lot of injury problems this season

Chendall Weaver (starter, 6 ppg 5 rpg) missed 15 games
Tramon Mark (starter, 10 ppg) missed the first 6 games
Tre Johnson (starter, 20 ppg) missed 2 games
Arthur Kaluma (starter, 12 ppg) missed 2 games
Jayson Kent (6th man, 6 ppg) missed 8 games

Weaver just came back from injury a few games ago and seems they have been working him in off of the bench for now
 
#235      
abchew2
There is a lot of comment about folding when punched in the mouth. While the team has been soft against certain teams this year I think the team has shown an ability to answer runs with a run of their own multiple times against good teams. Maryland and Duke are the only games I recall where that clearly was not the case. Could throw in second half against Wisky away and Michigan state at home. I don’t see those same concerns against Texas or Xavier imo
 
#236      
ChiefGritty
MoCoMdIllini said:
Momentum is just another word for confidence and what can be more confidence-building than a win in the play-in round?
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Totally, and between the spotlight, the pressure, the unfamiliarity, a different sort of crowd, different officiating, what have you, the tournament experience is just radically different from the league season every team has been in the thick of since January.

Win or lose, generally speaking, teams tend to play pretty badly in that first round. That's kind of the dirty little secret of what a magical TV festival it all is, mistakes and unfamiliarity creating chaos.

It stands to reason that getting (some of) that out of your system on Wednesday would be a marginal advantage.
 
#237      
WyattEarp
sacraig said:
I have a great meme to respond to this, but it would get me put in timeout. So I'll use this one instead...

ecOW8Tg.gif
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Dammit, now I wanna know what it was. 😆 I don’t wanna get you in trouble though…;)
 
#238      
OrangeBlue98
abchew2 said:
There is a lot of comment about folding when punched in the mouth. While the team has been soft against certain teams this year I think the team has shown an ability to answer runs with a run of their own multiple times against good teams. Maryland and Duke are the only games I recall where that clearly was not the case. Could throw in second half against Wisky away and Michigan state at home. I don’t see those same concerns against Texas or Xavier imo
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Plus, I can't really think of a better response than what Illinois did against Purdue. They were down a big chunk of that game and figured out a way to win late.

Kind of goes back to the overarching theme of this season. When this team is on, they can beat anyone. But consistency has been a MAJOR issue all season long, and I'm not sure this Illinois team can string 3-4 games together against good competition. However, I'd absolutely LOVE to be proven wrong about that.
 
#239      
RollChief
This is a tough one to pick for who I'd rather play, but I think at this point I'd rather play Texas at this point than Xavier.

Xavier is the second-oldest team in college basketball and one of the best 3-point shooting teams. They also came into Milwaukee just 2 months ago and beat Marquette, so they know and have won on the floor where the game will be played. Not sure how much weight/value that carries.

Texas is battle-tested and is playing much more challenging talent in the SEC but is 8-13 since conference play started.
 
#241      
ChiefGritty
Rlouizjr01 said:
BUs next team? We just went to the final Eight and are in the tournament with a favorable path.Why are you speculating on the demise or the coach is leaving?
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It's just funny because there was all that discussion about the committee putting teams together to set up "narratives", and we end up with this trio that you need to be an insane message board sicko to realize has all sorts of galaxy-brained connections.
 
#243      
Rlouizjr01
We have a coach that has 6 20 win seasons, conference titles,etc.Now he is in jeopardy? Come on now...
 
#247      
Rlouizjr01
The thing I like about Whitman is his stays connected with his coaches. The rumor mill I don't dive into unless we are losing and we're not..
 
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