Illini Basketball 2019-2020

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#651      
EyeoftheIllini
Illiniguy90 said:
The Athletic Poll rankings. The actual poll is behind a paywall. However, Jeremy Warner kindly provided the breakdown of the Poll results for us. 28 rankings from 1st to 14th (14 points for 1st, 1 point for 14th). I plotted the Data as a normal distribution plot and determined the Percentile for each team. Doing so allows me to get a more clear picture of how the folks over at The Athletic feel like the B10 will shake out this season. Breaking the data out there are a few key things that jump out at me.

1. The gap between Illinois (7) and Michigan (5) is very small. Only 16 of the total 2940 points awarded or roughly 0.5%. Put it another way, the 3 teams in 5th thru 7th are all within the 60-66th percentile. This tells me that the folks at the Athletic would not be surprised with Illinois finishing anywhere between 5th thru 7th. I am definitely biased but I think that Michigan and Wisconsin are riding their recent success while Illinois is being held back by their recent failures - I believe this puts us in a great position to leap frog into a 5th place B10 finish or better.

2. The 65pt gap between Illinois (7) and Iowa (8) is similar to the 72pt gap between Illinois (7) and Purdue (4). Put another way, the difference in percentile is approximately 22 to drop to 8th place, or to move up to 4th place. This tells me that The Athletic feels it is just as likely for Illinois to finish 4th as 8th. It also sort of sets their Ceiling / Floor expectations for Illinois to be within this range. Again, noting that the rankings are likely holding Illinois back due to recent failure, I could see our Floor / Ceiling for the season being closer to 8th through 3rd.

While I don't think I'd be happy with an 8th place finish in the B10, I would be happy if Illinois was consistently (~80% of seasons) finishing in the 3-8 range in B10 Standings with the occasional (~10% of seasons) 1-2 finish along with the occasional (~10% of seasons) 9-10 finish (and staying out of the 11-14 range all together).

SchoolDataPercentile
Michigan State39194.89%
Maryland34989.53%
Ohio State33687.24%
Purdue31181.92%
Michigan25565.78%
Wisconsin24161.02%
Illinois23960.33%
Iowa17437.25%
Penn State16433.89%
Indiana15530.97%
Minnesota12722.68%
Rutgers9514.95%
Nebraska6910.14%
Northwestern345.60%
View attachment 4870
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Interesting. FYI though, you know what is more similar than the 65 pt gap between Illinois (7) and Iowa (8) compared to the 72 pt gap between Illinois (7) and Purdue (4)? The 75 pt gap between Illinois (7) and Penn St. (9).
 
#652      
Illiniguy90
EyeoftheIllini said:
Interesting. FYI though, you know what is more similar than the 65 pt gap between Illinois (7) and Iowa (8) compared to the 72 pt gap between Illinois (7) and Purdue (4)? The 75 pt gap between Illinois (7) and Penn St. (9).
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My glasses are just tinted too Orange to see that far down the list...
 
#653      
logjam
I'm very excited for this season ..... I'm always glad when it comes but, I'm thinking we got something for most teams this year! We're going to the tournament!
 
#656      
illini80
logjam said:
I'm very excited for this season ..... I'm always glad when it comes but, I'm thinking we got something for most teams this year! We're going to the tournament!
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If we can play defense, yes. For people ranking us a bit lower, I think that’s the rub. Fix the D and we could be as high as #3 imo.
 
#657      
Alma 19
illini80 said:
If we can play defense, yes. For people ranking us a bit lower, I think that’s the rub. Fix the D and we could be as high as #3 imo.
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I attribute last year's defensive problems mostly to being undersized and inexperienced, both of which will change this year.
 
#658      
logjam
illini80 said:
If we can play defense, yes. For people ranking us a bit lower, I think that’s the rub. Fix the D and we could be as high as #3 imo.
Click to expand...
We won't have to cheat as much with a presence in the middle, we can use our length to advantage.
 
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