Wake Forest 80, Illinois 73 POSTGAME

#151      

Serious Late

Serious Late
Peoria via Denver via Ann Arbor via Albuquerque vi
Serious Late
HTT said:
We could come more prepared for competition and situation like this, but we chose to waste time on smashing Augstana.
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This one may need to be saved for the "Bad Hot Take" HOF.

Follow Up: Illinois Loyalty needs a Bad Hot Take HOF.

The two calls being discussed following the game are without a doubt serious head scratchers. The overall foul discrepancy however, I thought was warranted. We were out of position a lot on defense and cheating to compensate. On the offensive end, when was there really much of an opportunity for us to draw the fouls they did? We played on the perimeter, they made an effort to drive and get the ball inside.

Those two really bad calls may have cost us the game, but the overall foul discrepancy wasn't the refs fault.
 
#152      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
Deleted member 631370
mattcoldagelli said:
That's a tough one. Not impressed at all by that Wake team.
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Well, Wake Forest is a bad team. And this is a bad loss. There's no other way to put it.

But, I had predicted Wake by 5. First road game for a young team with a new coach against a wounded, cornered dog of a team? Yeah, I felt absolutely no VIBES for this one. I'm frankly a bit surprised so many predicted such an easy Illinois win.

Here's the problem. Our OOC schedule is historically bad. Which means we need every win we can get. This is a bad, bad, bad loss. And unless we pull together and win @ UNLV or beat Mizzou -- neither of which are likely going to happen -- this OOC is going to really hurt us.

I'm afraid that we're going to find ourselves standing at 7-4 here pretty shortly.
 
#153      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
Deleted member 631370
TCTORNADO said:
Wake Forest was picked 13th out of 15 in pre-season ACC poll.
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Well, weren't we picked like 12 out of 14 in the Big Ten?

There's a reason for that. The coaches/media saw a truth that too many people here didn't want to see.
 
#154      

Fearless Illini

F
Fearless Illini
Just a few thoughts..
The ref's screwed us.....blah blah blah. They are not the reason we lost this game. That seems to be the theme after every loss! And by many snowflakes on here the refs should even be suspended by the atrocities they made against our beloved. The Fighting Illini lost this game because they lack maturity on offense and defense.
How many bad fouls did we commit in the first half? This has been a theme for the last several games. We get a good lead by playing really fast and aggressive, but before we know it we are already into foul trouble and the next thing you know the other team is in double bonus with 8, 10 and even 12 minutes to go in the half. Teams are able to get back in the game just by hitting free throws. I am sure Brad tells them to quite fouling but he needs to do a better job managing the tempo of his defense to help the kids eliminate the silly fouls.
It also seems like as soon the fouls start racking up our offense starts to throttle down. We quit pushing the ball up the floor, stop attacking the rim. The other team goes into a zone and we just sloooowww doowwwwn. Brad needs to keep the focus on pushing the ball up the floor every chance we get.
I know our team is terribly flawed. The team needs to play almost perfect nearly every game to have a chance to win the amount of games we all want them too. Good luck to Brad on finding the sweet spot on coaching the kids hard enough so they learn but not so hard that they lose confidence in their skills that got them here in the first place.
 
#155      

illinitiger

I
illinitiger
Verified Insider said:
Well, Wake Forest is a bad team. And this is a bad loss. There's no other way to put it.

But, I had predicted Wake by 5. First road game for a young team with a new coach against a wounded, cornered dog of a team? Yeah, I felt absolutely no VIBES for this one. I'm frankly a bit surprised so many predicted such an easy Illinois win.

Here's the problem. Our OOC schedule is historically bad. Which means we need every win we can get. This is a bad, bad, bad loss. And unless we pull together and win @ UNLV or beat Mizzou -- neither of which are likely going to happen -- this OOC is going to really hurt us.

I'm afraid that we're going to find ourselves standing at 7-4 here pretty shortly.
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I disagree that this is a 3x bad loss. I believe it is a 4x bad loss. But one most were uncertain in winning in August and before. I dont agree that the WF team is atrocious either.

Regardless, BU just started teaching his system to the full Illini group about 90 days ago...I am patient and am looking forward to the team's growth.
 
#156      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
Deleted member 631370
illinitiger said:
I disagree that this is a 3x bad loss. I believe it is a 4x bad loss. But one most were uncertain in winning in August and before. I dont agree that the WF team is atrocious either.

Regardless, BU just started teaching his system to the full Illini group about 90 days ago...I am patient and am looking forward to the team's growth.
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No doubt -- for the first time in a long time, I'm not angry at the head coach after a bad loss. And I won't be angry at BU when we're sitting at 6-3 on Sunday night wondering how we lost 3 games in 1 week.

A combination of factors really screwed us here. One, we have way too many holes in this roster -- especially the front court. Alstork isn't really stepping up the way we need him to in order to be an NCAA tournament team. And as much as I love the freshmen, they're not the kind of talents to come in, dominate, and carry a team.

Second, this schedule is just pathetic. Shame on whoever put this steaming pile together, because it did us absolutely no favors. We can't wait until game #7 to play a team with a pulse. The rest of the conference is getting tested ahead of conference play, and here we are heading into the NW and Maryland games with virtually no experience against a real team.

Third, well, the stars aligned against us last night. It happens.
 
#157      

BMo79

B
BMo79
RichardH said:
Reasons we lost:

1.)Dumb fouls
2.)Sloppy turnovers
3.)Bad defense (letting up 45 points in 2H)
4.)Michael Finke
5.)Bad officiating
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6 played scared to often
7 played soft
8 shot to many 3's
9 are't as good as we think yet
10 didn't get to the foul line enough( this to me is the biggest)
 
#158      

TheChiefRises

TheChiefRises
TheChiefRises
IlliniBacker said:
Just back from the game. This is about right. Worst college basketball environment I've ever personally been to. I've been to rowdier libraries.

Venue: ok. Nothing to write home about. Sterile and not a lot of character.
Fans: zzzzz
Student section: nonexistent
Band: ok
Cheerleaders: šŸ–
Concessions: pretty good. Beer on tap
Refs: šŸ’©šŸ’©šŸ’©
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I was there as well.

You forgot to mention the uproar from the fans any time a foul was called on WF, God forbid.

Also, they have a promotion that if an opposing team misses 2 straight FTs in the last 8 minutes that everyone gets free Chick-Fil-A. The loudest the building ever got was during the first free throw attempts we made in the last 8 min. And it still didnt even match the ambient noise of Assembly Hall.
 
#159      

mattcoldagelli

mattcoldagelli
The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
mattcoldagelli
Verified Insider said:
Well, Wake Forest is a bad team. And this is a bad loss. There's no other way to put it.

But, I had predicted Wake by 5. First road game for a young team with a new coach against a wounded, cornered dog of a team? Yeah, I felt absolutely no VIBES for this one. I'm frankly a bit surprised so many predicted such an easy Illinois win.

Here's the problem. Our OOC schedule is historically bad. Which means we need every win we can get. This is a bad, bad, bad loss. And unless we pull together and win @ UNLV or beat Mizzou -- neither of which are likely going to happen -- this OOC is going to really hurt us.

I'm afraid that we're going to find ourselves standing at 7-4 here pretty shortly.
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No true road loss against a P5 team ever really hurts you as a "bad, bad, bad loss" in the eyes of the committee. I don't think Wake is going to sniff even the neighborhood of the bubble, but I also don't think this is one that's going to be held against us if we're there.
 
#161      

MakesNoSense

M
MakesNoSense
Fearless Illini said:
Just a few thoughts..
The ref's screwed us.....blah blah blah. They are not the reason we lost this game. That seems to be the theme after every loss! And by many snowflakes on here the refs should even be suspended by the atrocities they made against our beloved. The Fighting Illini lost this game because they lack maturity on offense and defense.
How many bad fouls did we commit in the first half? This has been a theme for the last several games. We get a good lead by playing really fast and aggressive, but before we know it we are already into foul trouble and the next thing you know the other team is in double bonus with 8, 10 and even 12 minutes to go in the half. Teams are able to get back in the game just by hitting free throws. I am sure Brad tells them to quite fouling but he needs to do a better job managing the tempo of his defense to help the kids eliminate the silly fouls.
It also seems like as soon the fouls start racking up our offense starts to throttle down. We quit pushing the ball up the floor, stop attacking the rim. The other team goes into a zone and we just sloooowww doowwwwn. Brad needs to keep the focus on pushing the ball up the floor every chance we get.
I know our team is terribly flawed. The team needs to play almost perfect nearly every game to have a chance to win the amount of games we all want them too. Good luck to Brad on finding the sweet spot on coaching the kids hard enough so they learn but not so hard that they lose confidence in their skills that got them here in the first place.
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I am total agreement with your post
 
#162      

Deleted member 631370

D
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Deleted member 631370
mattcoldagelli said:
No true road loss against a P5 team ever really hurts you as a "bad, bad, bad loss" in the eyes of the committee. I don't think Wake is going to sniff even the neighborhood of the bubble, but I also don't think this is one that's going to be held against us if we're there.
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Yeah, I agree that this isn't going to hurt us in the same way as a home loss to Savannah State would hurt us.

But what's really harmful is that the OOC is weak as it is, and with the Big Ten looking weaker with each passing day, it appears our margin for error is shrinking each day. Losing @ UNLV or losing to Mizzou won't hurt us much. But beyond that, the losses hurt.

The way I see it, the Augustana game screws us out of an OOC win in the committee's eyes. We need to make up for that one somewhere. Perhaps in the future we can avoid scheduling non-D 1 teams?
 
#164      

IlliniMed

I
Lillington, N.C.
IlliniMed
I canā€™t belive some of you are giving the officials a pass. They destroyed any momentum or flow to the game and easily gifted that team 15 points. Weee we perfect? No. But we played 10x better than wake and deserved the win. Rag on this team all you want but the guys got hosed by questionable actions by the officials who deserve to be suspended.
 
#165      

Deleted member 236589

D
Guest
Deleted member 236589
Verified Insider said:
Well, weren't we picked like 12 out of 14 in the Big Ten?

There's a reason for that. The coaches/media saw a truth that too many people here didn't want to see.
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You beat me too it. You're exactly right. We started 6-0 because we've played absolutely nobody. Rutgers was also 6-0 with the same scheduling methodology.

This is not an NCAA Tournament team and I really doubt this is an NIT team. A lot of people don't want to let themselves understand or believe how flawed this team is as a group.

There is no experience, they have no interior presence, they have five freshman on the roster and they're adapting to a brand new system

I see one person "willing" to give Smith more time to develop. He's played 7 collegiate games! Unless you're Marvin Bagley III....it could take until your sophomore or even junior season to see that leadership and consistency. Alstork has also played exactly 7 games of high major basketball with a brand new team, in a brand new offense. Some are calling out BU and wondering what the heck he's doing! Really??? Have you seen what he inherited? What are you expecting from this guy? It's not even 12/1 and people are questioning. Record wise, this is going to be a rough season. There are going to be players on the roster that won't be here next year because they simply can't adapt. This whole ordeal is a huge process. A long process.

The expectations of some are what makes out fanbase annoying to other fan bases. We all want to win, but understand what this team is before the attacks.
 
#167      

IlliniJim20

I
IlliniJim20
Ubermensch said:
I would love to see the Big Ten say, "Screw you, ACC. He isn't getting suspended because he didn't do a damned thing wrong."

I really don't know what people are seeing. They see what they want to see. Leron was running straight the entire time. The WF player suddenly jetted directly in front of Leron's path. Both players had their heads up watching the ball. Leron had zero time to react, and it looked like Leron actually tried to lift his arms up out of the way. What in the world is Leron supposed to do there? He had maybe a tenth of a second to react, and he did. Unfortunately they still ran into each other and Leron's arm got a piece of the poor kid.

Yes, he has a bad reputation that is well-earned. But if he is going to be punished for that incident then we may as well close down the courts and turn the lights off because basketball can no longer be played as-is.
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Yes, my reaction was more knee jerk, but I agree he did nothing wrong.

Inadvertent right ;)
 
#168      

Deleted member 631370

D
Guest
Deleted member 631370
IlliniMed said:
I canā€™t belive some of you are giving the officials a pass. They destroyed any momentum or flow to the game and easily gifted that team 15 points. Weee we perfect? No. But we played 10x better than wake and deserved the win. Rag on this team all you want but the guys got hosed by questionable actions by the officials who deserve to be suspended.
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No doubt about that.

And frankly, anybody "ragging on the team" should take a step back and look at the big picture here. This is a really flawed team who has very little experience playing together. We are going to take our lumps this season and hope that we build toward a successful 2018-19 season. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you're holding this team to an NCAA tournament expectation, that's fine. But it's probably not a fair bar to set for this team -- and apparently the B1G coaches and media would agree.

We have a chance to be really good next year. But this year is going to be rough on many occasions. Even still, you have to be happy with the potential that exists.

I'm not one of those guys who says "enjoy the ride", because frankly, competitive sports at this level is about winning. But this is an "enjoy the ride" sort of season.
 
#169      

alexander58

A
alexander58
Verified Insider said:
No doubt about that.

And frankly, anybody "ragging on the team" should take a step back and look at the big picture here. This is a really flawed team who has very little experience playing together. We are going to take our lumps this season and hope that we build toward a successful 2018-19 season. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you're holding this team to an NCAA tournament expectation, that's fine. But it's probably not a fair bar to set for this team -- and apparently the B1G coaches and media would agree.

We have a chance to be really good next year. But this year is going to be rough on many occasions. Even still, you have to be happy with the potential that exists.

I'm not one of those guys who says "enjoy the ride", because frankly, competitive sports at this level is about winning. But this is an "enjoy the ride" sort of season.
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Agree. Youth for teams other than the Dukes,Kentuckyā€™s, and Kansas of the world takes time to improve (and win). I love the energy they came out with last night. I there was more energy in the first 5 minutes than the prior 5 years combined.
 
#170      

Deleted member 236589

D
Guest
Deleted member 236589
mattcoldagelli said:
Let's settle the F down.
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I'm not worked up, I'm giving these kids and this coach a complete pass on this season. They deserve that. This will be a better team in December than November, they will be a better team in January than December, so on an so forth. If that does come to fruition, this will be a great season. Many considered this a "bad loss". THIS YEAR, anybody who loses to us is going to feel the exact same way. We, currently, will be a bad loss on a tournament teams resume. Maybe not so in late February, the jury is still out.

Give this group and regime time to get this program off the ground again. No, the refs we not good last night and in some cases, I did wonder what the heck was going on. That's just what it was. That said, we made all of the mistakes that a young team makes. If we make half of the 8-12 footers or the bunnies right in front of the rim, we win. If we don't commit fouls 70 feet from the basket, we win. If we don't turn it over a ton, we win. If we don't get stagnant against a zone, we win. The refs didn't help matters, but we put ourselves in the position to make those calls mean something.
 
#171      

Calvin

C
Calvin
Whitman2020 said:
Even getting more calls wouldn't have saved that game. Shut down by zone, AJ having a career night, no one challenging their bigs. Unless the guys can handle a zone defense I think we can expect more nights like this.
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I do think Wake got home cooking in this one, but it wasn't anywhere near the worst officiating I've seen.

My take away was that a couple guys were having bad games (Finke, Lucas, Smith, Alstork and Kipper were just ok), and that Underwood is suffering from the hole he was left at the center position. Wake's front court is pretty good, and they have really good depth there. Without better defense on the interior, we have tough match-ups, especially in a road game where one of our primary guys gets in early foul trouble (Finke). When we were hot shooting, we built a lead. It was inevitable that we cooled off. Guys had trouble getting to the rim, and Wake adjusted to take away some of the easier outside shots. Our movement, execution and understanding of how to beat them once they adjusted went down the tubes.

Wake is not a bad team, especially at home. Not a good loss, but not a bad loss. I told myself we would have games like this, but still wish we would have been better. Road games will be tough for this team this year.
 
#174      

RML

R
RML
chief78 said:
If that reversal does not warrant a 'mark' for this crew, then I don't what it would take.
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And if it was inadvertantly, why did they go to the monitor to see if it was flagrant?
 
#175      

whovous

W
Washington, DC
whovous
A different question about the reversed foul call: Refs spent several minutes looking at the replay. Presumably, they wanted to know if Alstork took an elbow to the face and if so should they impose a Flagrant-1. They decided no contact was made and reversed the call.

Here is what I don't get: Why does it matter if contact was made? The guy swung both elbows at Alstork's face. Isn't that a foul all by its lonesome regardless of whether Alstork moved quickly enough to get out of his way? The assumption seems to be that it is OK to take a swing or two at an opposing player, so long as you miss. Isn't that wrong?