I think you guys are overreacting a bit and believe me , I get it. The UConn Boneyard wanted Hurley gone at the beginning of our championship run in. 2023 . Illinois will not shoot that poorly again all season, mark that down. UConn is also going to improve as we just got two starters back in the lineup and they provided nothing. The shot clock mishap screwed you all. That call goes the other way and you have a shot to get it down to 4 point lead with 2 minutes left. Connecticut the last two years hasn't played well with big leads under eight minutes left. The two championship runs were a totally different story and that 2024 UConn team as you all know was a machine but this team ain't that team. I wouldn't want to play you guys again but there's a chance it happens. I wish Underwood would have made some sort of adjustment after missing 15 threes in a row . If I'm him I just would have let Boswell take it to the rack every time, that dude is a beast and blew by our defenders pretty easily. We do play again next year in Chicago and me and a good friend of mine who is a huge Illinois fan will be going together. Unfortunately he's got connections in Chicago and will be getting very good tickets in the Illinois section. I'll be the one in UConn blue
UConn 74, Illinois 61 Postgame
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Illinois was number 9 in the entire country last year in 2nd half points. The year prior, number 13 in the entire country
In fact last year, we had the 3rd best second half margin in the B1G, the year before 18th best margin in 2nd half in the entire sport, and in 2022-2023, get this - 6th best 2nd half margin in all of college basketball - the best in the B1G Ten.
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But but but Brad doesn’t make in-game coaching adjustments
It’s why I tune out the “adjustments!” crowd. It’s just constant and no basis in fact. You could make a real argument, based on the numbers, it’s underwood’s best trait as a coach.
Truly wild
Nope! I would have loved to have him in that that game…. but huge difference …nope. We simply were not knocking down easy looks!
The Sprouting Divot
Invisible and Bulletproof
- Miracle Mile
I don't suppose you still have the first half data handy for those years, do you?
It seems possible that you've made a convincing argument to undermine Underwood's pre-game strategic acumen, but in reality, I suspect that neither interpretation is quite as cut-and-dried as extremists on either side of the debate continuum would like to argue.
This season we are 5th in the country in 1st half points and 8th in the country in 1st half scoring margin
Last year, 9th in the country in 1st half points but only 28th in the country in 1st half scoring margin
So still pretty good, certainly not enough there to conclude we are 'bad' in 1st halves
Edit: These ranking include all 355ish D1 teams, so if we remove all of the bad teams that play other bad teams all year (ie, reduce to power conf teams) then these numbers get much better
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The TeamRank site has all that available - although I warn, it’s not really easy to sort. As NarrowJ says, the 1st half stuff probably isn’t overly helpful with all the buy-games. And this year, not nearly enough P4 games to be valuable.
To be clear though, I don’t argue he’s a perfect coach. Was more just pointing out the “in-game adjustments” complaints historically. The poor second half starts in our 3 big time games thus far, understandably, are probably not helping the perception. I get it
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Watched the highlights and I see a lot of ball watching off the ball on defense -- Andrej, Kylan, Ben, Petro, etc. -- where we lose our guys and UConn hit open layups or threes. I'm sure Underwood is going to be all over their asses in practice on that this week.
I also think some of the problem with the missed shots is not being "shot ready" to catch and shoot in rhythm from just behind the line. Some of our guys are not in a shot ready position, standing 4-5 feet behind the line (when they could be closer to the line), and that leads to misses short. I assume the staff will analyze the misses and emphasize the points of correction. And, as Underwood pointed out in the postgame presser, we of course need to be much more aggressive going to the basket and drawing fouls (not just jacking threes) ... that's how you avoid scoring droughts.
I'm still optimistic a lot of this is fixable. And Tomi, Andrej and Petro will continue to work off the rust and be among our best players.
I also think some of the problem with the missed shots is not being "shot ready" to catch and shoot in rhythm from just behind the line. Some of our guys are not in a shot ready position, standing 4-5 feet behind the line (when they could be closer to the line), and that leads to misses short. I assume the staff will analyze the misses and emphasize the points of correction. And, as Underwood pointed out in the postgame presser, we of course need to be much more aggressive going to the basket and drawing fouls (not just jacking threes) ... that's how you avoid scoring droughts.
I'm still optimistic a lot of this is fixable. And Tomi, Andrej and Petro will continue to work off the rust and be among our best players.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Thanks for stopping by and for the respect. Also, congrats on the win. However, I must warn you that at the United Center - as evidenced by our 18k crowd there vs. Alabama the other week - every section but one is the Illini section.
Good luck the rest of the way!
The good: BAM. That was impressive. I was sure that BAM's career was going to be in Europe. If he keeps this up he might make the NBA as a solid role player ala Payton II.
The solid: Ben. It wasn't a stellar outing on the scoresheet. He mostly did his job. The defensive communication on the team seems lacking. Ben got caught out a few times. I couldn't tell which were his fault. (I watched live vs. a replay where I could examine plays.)
The frustrating (and semi-encouraging): This game was quite winnable. IL lost it.
The bad: The team is failing on fundamentals; especially the Euro players.
1) Protect the ball.
2) Do not get flustered and do stupid things. It only makes matters worse.
3) Play within your skill set. (See #2)
4) Protect the ball.
Once the team got down a bit they started trying hero moves (again). Drives into double/triple teams in the lane while barely controlling the ball. They also started taking ill timed 3s. Many of the bad 3s were wide open attempts. The problem was the timing. The shooter would get a bad pass, and instead of taking the time to reset themselves, they'd go straight from the bad pass position into a shot. No surpise that they missed - again and again. Which made them more frustrated and rushed, which ...
Mirk needs to play within their skill set. At the moment that means pretty much not dribbling if anyone is within 5'. Those 4' high bounces are just asking for trouble. This includes -- no trying for the 1 man fast break (or even bringing up as part of a 2 on 1). No driving into the lane, period. A bit of booty ball can work; the ball gets picked up and passed out as soon as the double is threatened. No shooting threes. [I got reamed for saying most of this a few weeks ago.]
Andrej (and others) needs to avoid driving into triple teams. Maybe there needs to be some practice to recognize when the triple will be coming given how often it has occured in the last few games. The answer is to stop and pass back out. It is not to try and bull through. None of you have the NBA level handles required to do that.
Petro - I don't know what caused that play. He's supposed to be the older, experieced, leader. I've not seen it yet.
When the team played defense in the 2nd half good things happened. That should be every play, not once they are down 10-15.
I still have hope for this team. Its going to require a significant mental reset from the Euro players.
[Edit: I'm reasonably happy with the attitude and progress shown by the Ivisic brothers.]
The solid: Ben. It wasn't a stellar outing on the scoresheet. He mostly did his job. The defensive communication on the team seems lacking. Ben got caught out a few times. I couldn't tell which were his fault. (I watched live vs. a replay where I could examine plays.)
The frustrating (and semi-encouraging): This game was quite winnable. IL lost it.
The bad: The team is failing on fundamentals; especially the Euro players.
1) Protect the ball.
2) Do not get flustered and do stupid things. It only makes matters worse.
3) Play within your skill set. (See #2)
4) Protect the ball.
Once the team got down a bit they started trying hero moves (again). Drives into double/triple teams in the lane while barely controlling the ball. They also started taking ill timed 3s. Many of the bad 3s were wide open attempts. The problem was the timing. The shooter would get a bad pass, and instead of taking the time to reset themselves, they'd go straight from the bad pass position into a shot. No surpise that they missed - again and again. Which made them more frustrated and rushed, which ...
Mirk needs to play within their skill set. At the moment that means pretty much not dribbling if anyone is within 5'. Those 4' high bounces are just asking for trouble. This includes -- no trying for the 1 man fast break (or even bringing up as part of a 2 on 1). No driving into the lane, period. A bit of booty ball can work; the ball gets picked up and passed out as soon as the double is threatened. No shooting threes. [I got reamed for saying most of this a few weeks ago.]
Andrej (and others) needs to avoid driving into triple teams. Maybe there needs to be some practice to recognize when the triple will be coming given how often it has occured in the last few games. The answer is to stop and pass back out. It is not to try and bull through. None of you have the NBA level handles required to do that.
Petro - I don't know what caused that play. He's supposed to be the older, experieced, leader. I've not seen it yet.
When the team played defense in the 2nd half good things happened. That should be every play, not once they are down 10-15.
I still have hope for this team. Its going to require a significant mental reset from the Euro players.
[Edit: I'm reasonably happy with the attitude and progress shown by the Ivisic brothers.]
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We had superior talent in many of those games, and your first point does not address the defensive part. Again I’m mostly talking about games against the elite tactical coaches.
Also, there are obviously going to be games where we stick to the game plan and it works out for one reason or another.
I’m not a Brad hater I’m just asking him to take a look in the mirror and try to improve in certain aspects. We need that to happen to reach true championship level.
Couple counter points:
1. He's giving you rankings relative to other teams, many of which also 'have superior talent in many of those games'... for example, teams like Duke are also included in this context of "all of college basketball"... heck, even Penn State has superior talent in most of their non-con games
2. He also includes scoring margin, which takes into account both sides of the ball, yeah?
This is a common thing I see on here (and this is just another, different example of what you're doing): someone provides a metric with context and people like to respond with something like "well if you remove the 5 games we played well, here is what that statistic actually looks like in the 2 games we played poorly"... and how is that a fair or accurate assessment of anything?
We all want the same thing, I think. Certain aspects have to be better. I'm a toughness guy... that's what I see as lacking last year (and this year so far). It is why I am hopeful on the shooting: an aspect of toughness is mental toughness, which one can easily argue translates to being able to make shots in big games. It also causes a lot of the mental miscues we see, imo. It is really odd to me seeing these teams last year and this year (so far), because toughness had always been a hallmark of Brad's teams up to that point.
Again, if you want to talk about against the “elite tactical coaches” he is year in and year out top 3 in the B1G in these metrics - that alone includes Painter and Izzo. And in 2 games recently against May - he’s destroyed him in second halves, last year was especially a beatdown (neither at home btw)
He’s not perfect, all of us should look in the mirror, I actually think when we scream adjustments we’re asking him to improve in the wrong things. If anything, I think he adjusts too much each year.
Lol, I know. That was part of the joke, meaning, in a sea of orange I'll be the one blue shirt. Your team's going to be absolutely fine especially as February and March roll in . You guys have some of the best fans in the countryThanks for stopping by and for the respect. Also, congrats on the win. However, I must warn you that at the United Center - as evidenced by our 18k crowd there vs. Alabama the other week - every section but one is the Illini section.
Good luck the rest of the way!
They are great at shooting, its the making they struggle with.
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