If it is all about talent ranking we should have won by twenty. We can keep blaming it on talent and we have our head in the sand. I don't want to say it but we have been out coached. Same as our games that went to ot and should have been won in reg. No we don't have the talent of MSU or Purdue but more than two wins. Groce did that with three starters out for the year and we know he is not the coach we need.
Wisconsin 78, Illinois 69 POSTGAME
DB11Headband
- Chicago Burbs
I’ll say it again: at this point, all of the freshmen need to be getting as much playing time as possible.Let them take their lumps, but at least they will be getting valuable experience. I’d start:
Spicy
Leron
Kipper
Smith
Frazier
With Damonte first off the bench. We need Smith to get his confidence back going into next year.
Spicy
Leron
Kipper
Smith
Frazier
With Damonte first off the bench. We need Smith to get his confidence back going into next year.
Deleted member 631370
D
Guest
Yeah, the lack of improvement is really startling.
Mark Smith looks worse now than in November. Finke looks worse now than in November. Alstork has been pretty disappointing (at least offensively) from the start. Damonte doesn't look improved. Kipper has had some great games, but disappears entirely on other nights.
Especially with the young guys, I don't expect them to maintain their output from November against B1G competition. But we need more than a combined 5 points/game from Smith and Williams.
ILLINIWEK86
Dick Vitale walks into a bar..
- Fisher
I think they need to start preparing for life without Smith, and possibly Lucas as well. Since neither one of them can hit an outside shot, I think Ayo can at least replace the production we have seen out of those two, because it's not likely he's going to start magically hitting 3's on a consistent basis. Our overall offense should be improved, but we will still be plagued by outside shooting unless Underwood can convince opposing coaches to only play 4 players so Jordan can have the 3 seconds he needs to set up and release his shot. Ayo will not dominate other players like he does now, because he will actually be playing guys that can keep up with him on his drives to the basket, and honestly how many times do we see this offense set up an open mid range shot? Especially, when every team in the world knows that if they execute the zone against us, and keep it in the half court they WILL win because this team can't score from the perimeter besides 1 player who is only 6' tall.
This program is in trouble, and there isn't really anything to suggest that next year it will be any better.
IllFanInMi
I
Guest
It would be great to have the actual stats to back this up, but I don’t have the energy this year. From memory only, it would seem as if we HAVE to get scored on at close range as much as any struggling team in the country. Games that guys like Happ, KBD, Bridges, can be expected on anyone on any given night, but those tall, athletic and skilled players feast on us and when we are forced to double them, guys like the Pretzel are left wide open and have season bests against us. The studs can go off on anyone, but it sure seems like they have career numbers on us because we don’t have the horses to give them resistance.
It’s no secret, you beat our pressure out top, get the ball to your bigs on the block or high post and we are simply hugely overmatched; we just don’t have the size and bulk to take away the paint. This also creates great opportunities for the 2nd tier bigs like the Garza’s of the world and others who most Big teams to have in plethora, and play well on us offensively and on the glass providing far too many 2nd chance possessions.
Obviously we need more talent, but I for one feel we don’t need it across the board and are a couple pieces away from taking a big step; the million dollar question is can we get those guys. BIG, ATHLETIC, STRONG, DEFENSIVE STOPPERS AND BOARD MONSTERS; unfortunately we all know we have none coming in YET.
It’s no secret, you beat our pressure out top, get the ball to your bigs on the block or high post and we are simply hugely overmatched; we just don’t have the size and bulk to take away the paint. This also creates great opportunities for the 2nd tier bigs like the Garza’s of the world and others who most Big teams to have in plethora, and play well on us offensively and on the glass providing far too many 2nd chance possessions.
Obviously we need more talent, but I for one feel we don’t need it across the board and are a couple pieces away from taking a big step; the million dollar question is can we get those guys. BIG, ATHLETIC, STRONG, DEFENSIVE STOPPERS AND BOARD MONSTERS; unfortunately we all know we have none coming in YET.
Does this build swagger or loss of confidence? The team in total doesn't seem to have a clue and they seem to get worse not better. They are not reacting but still thinking and that won't work. Either dumb or torn down, and they don't appear dumb in interviews.
IllFanInMi
I
Guest
My point above is we give up far too many high percentage shots, while we rely on Trent going off, or Kipper having a great game hitting 3’s. It’s so clear we just can’t beat teams on the interior on either side of the ball. It’s such a huge disadvantage at this level to not be able to at least hold your own down low and high percentage shots, 2nd chance possessions, etc... make it very difficult to hang.
I said it before the season, we are going to be that small, talented, athletic football team that will simply get outmatched in the trenches and the middle weight boxer who simply can’t with stand the power of a heavyweight.
I said it before the season, we are going to be that small, talented, athletic football team that will simply get outmatched in the trenches and the middle weight boxer who simply can’t with stand the power of a heavyweight.
Nailed it! I tried saying something similar last night, but did not post as my words seemed to just compare our past coaches too much.
I know other teams typically have a height & pure athletic advantage over us. But also do not think our guys are as bad as their in game play is & do not understand the disconnect that is apparently happening.
ILLINIWEK86
Dick Vitale walks into a bar..
- Fisher
Being screamed at every time you touch the ball, or make a mistake is tolerable when you're winning.
A lot more like walking on eggshells shells when you're losing.
Deleted member 2050
D
Guest
It's going to be ok, guys. "Trust the process."
Last night's results are pretty simple. We didn't match up and we didn't run our offense very well. I expected the offense to be corrected at half and disappointed that it wasn't. The reason we lose close games after gaining the lead is that late in the game, we don't pass as often and settle for 1 on 1 play. Compare Wisky's assists to ours. Due to poor matchups, we have too many empty possessions late. The bad news is that we haven't corrected it yet. The good news is that it is correctable. The matchups will be helped by a grad xfr next year but probably not completely corrected for another year.
This Mark Smith talk is already old. We give passes to every other freshman, yet we can crap on him cause he hasn't lived up to this boards expectations? He obviously can drive the ball , shoot 3s , pass, and dribble at a high level. We've seen it this year. Most freshman show sparks of what could be. If they put it together thats another story. Let the kid grow and acclimate before you label him a bad anything. Too much volatility in what he could be at this point to start speculating.
Completely agree, but too many of our couch potato fan base don't understand this. MSmith is having a comparable freshmen year to some of our best players (Head, Gill, McCamey) but folks want to blame him for the team's struggle.
We had a coaching change for a reason. The prospects and direction of the team was not good. BU put together and kept a pretty good freshmen group, but they are freshmen. Way better times ahead.
I swear people are thick.
We have an extremely young team that has tremendous talent at the traditional 1-3 positions. You can have the best of those positions in the country and still not win games if you don't have 4/5 that can at least keep the other teams 4/5 from dunking or getting an easy layup nearly every time down the court. In those circumstances, the team forced to shoot jump shots will lose almost every time. We say Happ walk to the basket for easy shots the entire first half. Once we finally started double and triple teaming him, he started passing out to wide open shooters and at that level wide open shooters are going to make a fair share of those shots.
Our Freshmen are fine. Mark Smith is fine. They are going to continue to make Freshman mistakes and continue to learn and grow like Freshman do. And, as they learn and grow, the decrease in number of mistakes will enable us to win some of these games. However, we are still not going to win enough games until we get a post presence, regardless how many stars our either players in the 1-3 position might have.
We have an extremely young team that has tremendous talent at the traditional 1-3 positions. You can have the best of those positions in the country and still not win games if you don't have 4/5 that can at least keep the other teams 4/5 from dunking or getting an easy layup nearly every time down the court. In those circumstances, the team forced to shoot jump shots will lose almost every time. We say Happ walk to the basket for easy shots the entire first half. Once we finally started double and triple teaming him, he started passing out to wide open shooters and at that level wide open shooters are going to make a fair share of those shots.
Our Freshmen are fine. Mark Smith is fine. They are going to continue to make Freshman mistakes and continue to learn and grow like Freshman do. And, as they learn and grow, the decrease in number of mistakes will enable us to win some of these games. However, we are still not going to win enough games until we get a post presence, regardless how many stars our either players in the 1-3 position might have.
Good shooting can make teams look good. Poor shooting makes teams look bad.
As far as the ability to put the ball in the basket we have pretty consistently demonstrated we aren't very talented. We don't have shooters. Either some of our guys need to improve their shot, or we need to get some shooters.
Good shooting covers a lot of warts. Poor shooting magnifies any warts a team may have. A team can be good in many aspects but if they can't put the ball in the basket they are going to look bad.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Thank you... there is the problem. And, I don't believe that part is coaching. I believe that is talent down low.
BU needs his kind of guys... athletic, lengthy, jumpers... we don't have that yet.
Deleted member 186590
D
Guest
Which points to how bad our post defense is. We knew when we missed on all the transfer bigs we tried to get this was going to be a long year. Relying on freshman bigs to be good defenders is never a good solution. Shockingly there is still no help on the way. We absolutely HAVE TO find someone who can guard the post and rebound next year. Ebo will improve, but he's not the answer.
Otherwise, Frazier, Ayo, Kipper and Black is a talented starting 4 that should do some things next year if they have the right big man to support them.
GortTheRobot
- North Bethesda, Maryland
:deadhorse: If we do not have an inside presence BIG teams are going to feast on us. Period. We can all speculate about team chemistry, BU's system, Smith's development, etc. (and I know it's part of the fun of the board), but if we had one of either Nanna Egwu or Maverick Morgan, a lot of those close games would have been W's and we would be ecstatic about our turnaround.
True, they all look like whooped pups from the kennel. I understand being tough, but these days kids will tune out stuff they don't like, too many people and distractions.
All we can hope is for us to gain some good from all the PT these guys are getting. Keep Fighting Illini.
We are at the point in Illinois basketball where we are a lego on the floor for other teams to step on.
aka rebuilding.
No, it's the definition of getting experience for the many freshmen (most points and minutes in the B1G from freshmen) and the two sophomores we have.
Interesting that you failed to mention Frazier and Ebo when complaining of the lack of improvement. Also, Black shot 45% from the field last season. This year he's shooting almost 56% from the field.
Re Williams and Smith, I would note that these players all scored 6 points/game or less as freshmen: DWill, Gill, Head.
The good: more 3-Ptr's made, better FT%, more steals, Trent was great. The bad: worse FG%, more PF's, fewer assists, more TO's, fewer blocks, 4 of our players scored 0, we lost. Six regular scheduled games left, on with Penn St - beat 'em.
http://fightingillini.com/documents/2018/2/8/Wisconsin_78_Illinois_69.pdf
http://fightingillini.com/documents/2018/2/8/Wisconsin_78_Illinois_69.pdf