INI brother. Here's to a long life cuz methinks it'll be a long wait for the Beloved to make it to national prominence again.
P.s. If your name happens to be Ronnie, Luther or Rick, PM me.
Rutgers 62, Illinois 59 POSTGAME
INI brother. Here's to a long life cuz methinks it'll be a long wait for the Beloved to make it to national prominence again.
P.s. If your name happens to be Ronnie, Luther or Rick, PM me.
FightingIllini09
- Belleville, IL
Just my thoughts...Not trying to be argumentative here, but I guess that's what the board is for
2. Saying "outside of Hill" is a little disingenuous IMO. Again, one of the better players we've ever had. I would have expected steps forward from Mav, Finke, and JCL. And if Tate is a non-factor at this level (which I couldn't agree more with), why did he log the lion's share of the minutes before getting benched?
3. Bad transfers - whose fault is that? And you're right, they were picked to finish low. So as long as they're picked to finish low, we should be ok that they did, and routinely do? Got it.
4. Seeing as there's only a few power conferences, calling yourself 4th best is not really something to be proud of. The Pac-12 and SEC (sans Kentucky) have both been largely hot garbage for a while. Also, the middle of the pack teams in the B1G are not good. Iowa, Northwestern, Michigan, etc. These are not good teams, they're having mediocre years in a down B1G.
Just watched the game online. Our largest failure was not making shot IMHO. We made mistakes but I'm not going to focus on one play. To win on the road in the Big Ten you have to ultimately make the routine play. We scored 15 points in the last 14.30 minutes when we had a 10 point lead.
Their defense was not so tight that we couldn't drain open shots from both mid-range and open 3. Didn't think effort was awful, we just never set a tone that we can hit shots consistently.
Their defense was not so tight that we couldn't drain open shots from both mid-range and open 3. Didn't think effort was awful, we just never set a tone that we can hit shots consistently.
Malcolm and Mav ended up with sixteen apiece:
http://www.fightingillini.com/boxscore.aspx?path=mbball&id=12505
http://www.fightingillini.com/boxscore.aspx?path=mbball&id=12505
With 71 minutes of playing time we got 10 pts and 3 asst from Black, TJL, and Abrams. We got 8 points and 3 asst from Kipper and Finke in 29 minutes. Probably biggest subbing mistake was not more Kipper, Rutgers was not a bad match-up for him.
Malcolm had only a one-minute breather, playing 39 minutes total. Kipper was the only player out the other 7 that had only single digits in playtime at 5 minutes. Yes, would appear we could have used him more in the game.
I like Kipper, but he as not good at this game. Picked up two quick fouls, had a bad turnover, and missed 2 shots, one of them point blank.
blackdog
- Champaign
Gotta give him at least a chance to get in there and make some plays on defense. You could see MH was completely gassed at the end of the game. One sequence he had his hands on his legs waiting for Sanders to make a move and then walked up the court on offense when the ball was already at the 3 point line. Needed more minutes from Kipper to keep him fresh at the end when we needed him to make plays.
Was away from my computer, been waiting a while but need to address what might be the stupidest comment I've seen on a message board all year.
In the immortal words of Douglas MacArthur, there is no substitute for victory. Losing today to win tomorrow is a dicey proposition at best. Even in the pros, where there's a player draft to direct the best players to the weakest teams, tanking is risky. A bad front office staff can always blow a draft pick. And good managers can find talent others miss.
This is college ball. There is no draft to even things out. Winning programs tend to keep on winning. Losing programs tend to continue losing. Good players want to play for programs that win. Losing programs tend to struggle to get players that are more than mediocre.
Does winning a couple of critical games make it harder to fire the coach? That's a GOOD problem to have. It means your program is better than you thought it was. Which suggests that maybe your coach isn't as bad as you might have thought he was. It seems a pretty simple rule of prudence that you don't fire your college basketball coach if the team makes the NCAAs. That's because if you make the NCAAs your team is GOOD -- and your coach is probably pretty decent too. And in the meantime, you're more likely to attract good players -- whoever your next coach is.
Now this team has a tough way back in. I'd be surprised if they make it. And if things go as expected from here on out we'll probably have to fire Groce. I understand that. But a smart fan would much rather have won out, made the tourney, and taken their chances with Groce going forward.
I would suggest that to get Kipper to play better, IS TO GET HIM BACK IN THE GAME!!!!! If nothing else than to spell Hill or somebody else. He was very much part of the rotation up until this game. Now he is taken out of that rotation? Who replaced him in that rotation from the bench? NOBODY!! The rotation was shortened to the detriment of the rest of the rotation. I have watched Kipper's demeanor when he has done something wrong. He gets it. He usually comes back better after a gaff.
Against Winthrop, Penn St, and Rutgers we are 0-4. Win half of these 4 and we are likely 
.
.You can go re-watch the game, but when a player plays a combined 5 minutes, has two bad misses, one point-blank, has two quick fouls, has a critical turnover, and in those 5 minutes, in addition to his mistakes, the Illini are also outscored by 7 (SEVEN!) points, it is hard to get the player back in the game on the premise that he may play better. He may not.
I agree. Hurt Hill, and caused them to over play Tracy. I get everyone loves his effort, but outside of Tate and Thorne statistically he's our worst player that's had any real tick this year. He just can't play that many minutes.
hogwash
illini80
- Forgottonia
. Not arguing your point, but Winthrop is not really a bad team. Rutgers is a bad team.Against Winthrop, Penn St, and Rutgers we are 0-4. Win half of these 4 and we are likely
What were you expecting?
I saw this coming from a mile away. This has been standard procedure for decades. I knew that the last couple of weeks was just a trick to lure us back in. I said to my wife before the game started that they would blow it.
On the bright side, if they were one of the last four in the NCAA tournament, it probably would have saved Groce's job, and that isn't what is best for the future.
I saw this coming from a mile away. This has been standard procedure for decades. I knew that the last couple of weeks was just a trick to lure us back in. I said to my wife before the game started that they would blow it.
On the bright side, if they were one of the last four in the NCAA tournament, it probably would have saved Groce's job, and that isn't what is best for the future.
It seemed to me that MH put the team in his back in beating Sparty the other night, with his defense as much as carrying his usual offensive load. He flat out looked dead tired after that game, yet you manage to spell him for only one bloody minute today? After he looked tired and his shot was missing most of the day? Kipper should have played more for no other reason than to spell him to get him ready for the iso hero ball offense we evidently planned to surprise Rutgers with at the end of the game.
Many have commented on this 39 minutes for Hill. But you know, there is all of next week to rest up. So, give it up today, and then you can sleep afterward.
WADR, this is a ridiculous argument IMO. If you don't have it you can't give it. During the game, did Hill look well-rested, or at least not dead tired, to you? How many games this year has he played with one minute of rest or less, as if there could be much less?
The Cubs win championships more than the Illini..."becoming the Cubs" would be pretty cool IMO
Stevegarbs
- Mokena, IL
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
At some point, any sane sports fan is a bit of a fair-weather fan. When they're down you don't completely abandon the team or root for them to lose, but you dial back your intensity and time commitment. You go to fewer games in person. Instead of watching the whole game you check in for the last ten minutes if it's close. You scale things back because losing isn't fun and you aren't a masochist. When the team gets better you buy the new jersey and schedule the road trip. It's just human nature, and it's healthy. But if you're the AD you don't want to see it happen.