As my Dad use to say..."If..If and buts were candy and nuts....we'd all have a Merry Christmas"
Illini Basketball 2021-2022
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I thought when we went to full court pressure near the end of the Rutgers game with CH on the top of the press....he became much more aggressive and showed some athleticism that we have not seen very often....partly because on the point of the press he had to be active and he actually did a good job of trapping ...making it difficult for Rutgers player to throw over the top...I would like to see this a little more often in coming games....using CH on the point of full court pressure with RJ and Trent speeding the other team up a little bit
sacraig
- The desert
Definitely agree. I think Hawkins looked great during this stretch because he stopped thinking and played. Pressing forced him to just react...and he is really good when he gets out of his own way. I think offensively its the same thing. The more time he has the worse he does right now. He overthinks instead of using his ability and skills.
DMW is far from Vital. Vital is a physical specimen.
I’ve voiced my opinion on DMW minutes to be reduced for a while now. You can’t get that little out of a player with such big minutes and expect to win big games.
Which is why I said pregame that we should rotate DMW with RJ on Mulcahey. When RJ came in and BU had him guarding Harper, I couldn't believe it. RJ doesn't have the strength yet to cover Harper. It all starts with defense. Otherwise you end up being Iowa.
DMW is far better statistically at rifling a basketball off of an opposing players face than Trent is. That is indisputable!
I like to imagine that DMW has photos of every player in the Big Ten tacked to his bedroom wall. And every game after he chucks one off another poor unsuspecting victim's head, he goes back to his room, lights a cigarette, takes one nice long drag then uses it to burn the eyes out of that player's picture.
When Harper cooked RJ going baseline, that's not about strength. That was just poor defense.
I’m almost positive that no matter how much we wish it, the 6-3, 215 pound DMW isn’t going to grow into a 6-5, 250 player like Vital. But shame on DMW to not be able to body up Mulcahy as well as the much larger Vital would have.
DMW needs to be our version of Vital, not an exact clone.
His contributions on the defensive end and boards should make you not care one lick about his offensive output. Clearly that's not been the case.
I get your point, but it is severely weakened when you say the 6-5, 250 Vital wouldn’t have been backed down by the 6-6, 215 pound Mulcahy when the 6-3, 215 DMW was. But it does make the point that DMW is usually guarding guys who are taller if not also heavier.
To be fair - I don’t care one lick about his offensive output.
The presence of Plummer on the floor scares the defense even if he isn’t hitting. They don’t help off him at all unless it’s a breakdown. He essentially helps us play 4 on 4 offensively and anything less than 5 on 5 is advantage offense. That’s why standard shell drills are done 4 on 4. Makes the defense work more.
The way that lineup was fighting I actually thought BU might say F it and roll with them as starters next game to send a message. But then he missed the box out and I don’t know what to think.
This is a huge problem in general with younger basketball players. Everyone wants to euro step now. It definitely has its advantages. You can cover more ground and slink through tighter spaces. But you lose balance and control so you darn well better get where you want to or you’re screwed.
You should see us at practice trying to work jump stop and pro hop footwork with high school players. Some of them literally can’t make their bodies do it because they’re used to one foot stuff. To me and probably many here its unfathomable that a high school player isn’t used to jump stopping. But that’s the basketball world we live in now.
Sorry, I cannot picture DaMonte Williams with a cigarette, period!
Maybe DaMonte’s a private investigator that’s reluctantly working with Detective Rousseau to clean up the streets of Paris. Maybe some sparse accordion music in the background as DaMonte and Rousseau flick their cigarette into the Alleyway. Lol
Hey, It’s no dumber than Kazaam or Shaq-Fu right?
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I think the days of recruiting smaller guards end with Epps & Boswell. Lead guards who have special talent like Boswell/Epps/Belo will remain an exception. Trent is also special, but being undersized on the perimeter will leave you vulnerable in the Big10. I thought we'd make up for it with an extra big front court, but alas. We'll never have another Kofi, but BU teams of the future will probably be bigger across the board.
Well, him putting little heart shaped stickers over their faces just didn't sound quite as menacing.
1 extreme to the other. I got ya. I was thinking a poster of the ball smashing into their face. How plain and thoughtless of me.
Nah, he actually has fathead posters of opponents…he stands about a foot or so away and practices jumping (he lands on his bed so he doesn’t get hurt) and throwing the ball as hard as possible at them.
His hard work is paying off!
That works too! I knew what you were getting at, Dbell.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
Despite some of the things said over the past few days in various threads on here, extremely deserved.
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