Illini Basketball 2021-2022

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#176      
Haha
IllinoisssssssVarsity said:
I’m a press and zone guy as much as anybody. It’s literally how my teams play.

However, we don’t have a ton of depth, Trent goes 40 minutes half the time. I just dont know if it’s the best use of our team’s energy reserves this year. We could go deeper into the freshman and do it, but I’m not sure we really want to extend their defensive responsibilities like that.

As far as zone, unfortunately our best lineup just doesn’t have great size and length for a college zone. You can play a 3-2 with short guards but then you need kofi to cover corner close outs, which I’m not sure you want to do. I think our best 2-3 lineup would include kofi, hawk, RJ, Grand and Frazier/Curbelo, but I’m not sure what you’d get consistently from an offensive standpoint with that group.
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We could do all of this if we wanted to.
We have three freshmen who could work hard on the press and zone and sub them into the game when we want that look.
If i remember correctly self had no problem bringing in a whole new unit.
It just depends on what the coach wants and our coach likes a short bench.
 
#177      
BBIQ
Haha said:
We could do all of this if we wanted to.
We have three freshmen who could work hard on the press and zone and sub them into the game when we want that look.
If i remember correctly self had no problem bringing in a whole new unit.
It just depends on what the coach wants and our coach likes a short bench.
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This is the kind of thing that sounds good but is completely impractical and unrealistic.
 
#178      
Haha
illini80 said:
To me it’s clear, if we can consistently hit 3’s we can play with and beat anyone. If we continue to get inconsistent shooting we could lose in the second round again. There’s still time to get settled in and hopefully a consistent rotation with everyone back will get us in a better rhythm. The hole we have at the 4 spot is easy to cover with outside shooting, but if that’s not there it’s tough for Kofi to do it all himself. If Hawk could get it figured out, that would be huge for a deep run.
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Yes indeed.
Watching michigan put it to purdue it was clear you need a lot of length to guard ivey. Shut him down and it is a completely different game.
 
#180      
BBIQ
sacraig said:
I don't think anyone is saying that. But it seems pretty clear that, when firing on all cylinders, they're the best, most complete team in the Big Ten. Of course, teams have off nights here and there and consistency is part of being a great team, too. One off night is enough to lose to anyone in this league (e.g., we lost to Maryland).

There's also a lot of basketball left this season and teams evolve and improve in different ways. It's certainly possible that we grow into a better team than them. For example, maybe Curbelo hits full stride and Hawkins figures it all out and starts playing like we all think he can. That's impossible to predict. But it seems pretty obvious right now who is the best in the conference.
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I think Purdue is also just a bad matchup for us. The good news is, its hard to beat a team 3 times in a row so we are due!
 
#184      
DeonThomas
From February 11th:

2022 WOODEN AWARD ODDS​


Feb. 11, 2022
vilogoauthor.png
by VI News
VegasInsider.com

2022 WOODEN AWARD ODDS​

ODDS TO WIN 2022 WOODEN AWARD (4/4/22)
Player (Team)Odds
Kofi Cockburn (Illinois)+500
Oscar Tshiebwe (Kentucky)+550
Ochai Agbaji (Kansas)+550
Johnny Davis (Wisconsin)+750
Paolo Banchero (Duke)+1000
Drew Timme (Gonzaga)+1400
Jaden Ivey (Purdue)+1500
Bennedict Mathurin (Arizona)+2000
Keegan Murray (Iowa)+2000
Jabari Smith, Jr. (Auburn)+2200
E.J. Liddell (Ohio State)+2500
Trayce Jackson-Davis (Indiana)+2500
 
#185      
Illiniindian
mikeyo said:
He’s in his own head. Second guessing and hesitating making mistakes. His confidence is so different than it was the first 10 games or so of the season. It’s sad to see. We all recognize his abilities
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He needs to develop a more go to move. He is good at picking up garbage baskets via offensive rebounds
 
#186      
pruman91
www.stltoday.com

RJ Melendez developing as Illini's spark plug

RJ Melendez has earned a spot in the rotation in recent weeks.
www.stltoday.com www.stltoday.com

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois had one bright spot late in its blowout loss to Purdue in freshman RJ Melendez.
Melendez scored eight points off the bench and chipped in some good possessions on both ends late, playing with aggressiveness and offensive efficiency that the team lacked team that night.
He’s been thrust into the lineup, and though he was once seen as playing a developmental role, he could end up being an important piece in the stretch run.“He’s a live body. He’s energy,” coach Brad Underwood said. “He’s a guy that we can pitch ahead to and go finish. You saw him catch a ball on the wing and just reject a screen and hit a pull-up jump shot. That was elite.”

Melendez has earned more minutes recently, with 36 minutes over the team’s past four games after not playing at all in many early conference matchups. He’ll be in line to keep his role as a spark plug when the No. 13 Illini host Northwestern on Sunday at 1 p.m.“Whenever you see hard work paying off, you just want to get more and more, so you just keep working hard,” Melendez said.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i really think R J will turn into a star player for the Illini and be that wing player we so desperately want on the court .........I have been an avid supporter of more tick for R J and i am glad he is seizing the moment.....................Hope he gets some meaningful minutes today against the mildcats and show's his stuff....

GO ILLINI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
#187      
Fighter of the Nightman
As a fan who is a former baseball player and therefore properly superstitious ... can we PLEASE stop wearing the regular orange uniforms?? :LOL: Here is our record with each in the Big Ten so far:

Regular White: 3-0
Orange '89 Throwbacks: 3-0
White Script Throwbacks: 3-1
Regular Orange: 1-2

Not only are those my least favorite looking of our jerseys (by far, actually...), but they are clearly horrible luck! Even when you throw in early season blowouts, our record in those things is only 3-4. We have experienced the Marquette loss, Cincinnati blowout, debacle at Maryland and a handy beatdown at Purdue in these jerseys, and our only wins in them are against Nebraska, Kansas State and frickin' Jackson State. I demand change! Lol, for those who are interested, here is our record in each jersey this year:

Regular White: 6-0 :cool:
Orange '89 Throwbacks: 5-0
White Script Throwbacks: 3-2 (pretty good considering we seem to wear these for our biggest games like vs. Arizona and vs. Purdue!)
Regular Orange: 3-4 :cautious:

P.S. I wonder if this team will ever wear the blues? I have been vocal that I think it would be epic to bust out a BLUE version of the '89 throwbacks (or even just wear the white ones that we literally had a few years ago...) for the Big Ten Tournament or something, but apparently Nike isn't that imaginative, energetic or cool.
 
#188      
IlliniKat91
Fighter of the Nightman said:
As a fan who is a former baseball player and therefore properly superstitious ... can we PLEASE stop wearing the regular orange uniforms?? :LOL: Here is our record with each in the Big Ten so far:

Regular White: 3-0
Orange '89 Throwbacks: 3-0
White Script Throwbacks: 3-1
Regular Orange: 1-2

Not only are those my least favorite looking of our jerseys (by far, actually...), but they are clearly horrible luck! Even when you throw in early season blowouts, our record in those things is only 3-4. We have experienced the Marquette loss, Cincinnati blowout, debacle at Maryland and a handy beatdown at Purdue in these jerseys, and our only wins in them are against Nebraska, Kansas State and frickin' Jackson State. I demand change! Lol, for those who are interested, here is our record in each jersey this year:

Regular White: 6-0 :cool:
Orange '89 Throwbacks: 5-0
White Script Throwbacks: 3-2 (pretty good considering we seem to wear these for our biggest games like vs. Arizona and vs. Purdue!)
Regular Orange: 3-4 :cautious:

P.S. I wonder if this team will ever wear the blues? I have been vocal that I think it would be epic to bust out a BLUE version of the '89 throwbacks (or even just wear the white ones that we literally had a few years ago...) for the Big Ten Tournament or something, but apparently Nike isn't that imaginative, energetic or cool.
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The regular blues have been worse luck than the orange unis (according to my admittedly faulty memory). Not saying blue throwbacks would be just as unlucky, but maybe our agent at Nike is as superstitious as us and just doesn't want to risk it. 😂
 
#189      
frozenrope9190
Win the home games and win 1 more, and we've got the conference title. Purdue and Wisconsin have to play each other, so one team will get to 5 losses. Beating Ohio St at home gets them to 5 losses, and Michigan State has the toughest remaining road, so getting to 5 losses seems probably (they also play Purdue).

4-2. Win the home games and win 1 more and we've got it.
 
#190      
Wokker
frozenrope9190 said:
Win the home games and win 1 more, and we've got the conference title. Purdue and Wisconsin have to play each other, so one team will get to 5 losses. Beating Ohio St at home gets them to 5 losses, and Michigan State has the toughest remaining road, so getting to 5 losses seems probably (they also play Purdue).

4-2. Win the home games and win 1 more and we've got it.
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Yep!

Even 3-3 and we have a pretty great shot at the title.

Here’s Torviks projections. B1G is a meat grinder and Illinois is in great shape!
 
#191      
jrichisamazing
Looking ahead here, but Hawkins and RJ on the court together with a shot blocking C would make us a juggernaut defensively. Their length and athleticism is impressive.
 
#192      
altgeld88
jrichisamazing said:
Looking ahead here, but Hawkins and RJ on the court together with a shot blocking C would make us a juggernaut defensively. Their length and athleticism is impressive.
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Agreed but, as I've droned on about previously, CoHawk needs at least 25-35 pounds on him so he's up near 250. He gets there and his physical confidence, leverage, and effectiveness will increase dramatically.
 
#193      
Bleedorangeandblue44
frozenrope9190 said:
Win the home games and win 1 more, and we've got the conference title. Purdue and Wisconsin have to play each other, so one team will get to 5 losses. Beating Ohio St at home gets them to 5 losses, and Michigan State has the toughest remaining road, so getting to 5 losses seems probably (they also play Purdue).

4-2. Win the home games and win 1 more and we've got it.
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I like it - but which of the three road games are most likely? Obviously none are easy. I know Juwan has never beat us but worry they are due in the series. Would be so great to get the win Wednesday and take a little of the pressure off the two trips to Michigan. For some reason I have a good feeling about beating Michigan State considering we already did it without Kofi and I believe in karma for last year in East Lansing.

I'll go with 1) MSU, 2) Michigan and 3) Rutgers

Time for more roadkill
 
#194      
Wokker
Bleedorangeandblue44 said:
I like it - but which of the three road games are most likely? Obviously none are easy. I know Juwan has never beat us but worry they are due in the series. Would be so great to get the win Wednesday and take a little of the pressure off the two trips to Michigan. For some reason I have a good feeling about beating Michigan State considering we already did it without Kofi and I believe in karma for last year in East Lansing.

I'll go with 1) MSU, 2) Michigan and 3) Rutgers

Time for more roadkill
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I keep bringing up Torvik, but find the ratings useful. According to him, Rutgers is by far our best away matchup of the 3 remaining.

It’s interesting that the board consensus seems to be Rutgers will be the toughest but the advanced stats continue to say otherwise.

Our two road games in Michigan are essentially toss ups. Wednesday is a huge game.
 
#195      
727ill
Wokker said:
I keep bringing up Torvik, but find the ratings useful. According to him, Rutgers is by far our best away matchup of the 3 remaining.

It’s interesting that the board consensus seems to be Rutgers will be the toughest but the advanced stats continue to say otherwise.

Our two road games in Michigan are essentially toss ups. Wednesday is a huge game.
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I think Rutgers matches up well with us 1-5 but their bench is pretty bad. I've watched several Rutgers games this year and there is only one player off their bench that is worthy of being on a B10 roster (Mawot Mag)

If we can get them in a bit of foul trouble the strength of our bench should take over.
 
#196      
jrichisamazing
Wokker said:
I keep bringing up Torvik, but find the ratings useful. According to him, Rutgers is by far our best away matchup of the 3 remaining.

It’s interesting that the board consensus seems to be Rutgers will be the toughest but the advanced stats continue to say otherwise.

Our two road games in Michigan are essentially toss ups. Wednesday is a huge game.
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Torvik is fun. I've also been using that site to filter out dates, so I can see who is playing well right now. For example if you only use the data during Rutgers 3 game winning streak, they are playing like the 10th best team in the country. Obviously, that is a very small sample size and they are almost guaranteed to drop some soon. Hopefully that starts against us.

Here are the rankings of our remaining opponents if you only use the games from the last weekend in January to now (1/28-2/14). Everyone has played 4 or 5 games during this stretch, except Michigan played 6.

Illinois - 8

Rutgers - 31
MSU - 53
OSU - 17
Michigan - 49
PSU - 69
Iowa - 16

Also of note, Northwestern is ranked 21st during this same stretch. Might put things in perspective for some people complaining about the ugly game.
 
#197      
sacraig
Wokker said:
I keep bringing up Torvik, but find the ratings useful. According to him, Rutgers is by far our best away matchup of the 3 remaining.

It’s interesting that the board consensus seems to be Rutgers will be the toughest but the advanced stats continue to say otherwise.

Our two road games in Michigan are essentially toss ups. Wednesday is a huge game.
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Recency bias. Rutgers just beat Michigan State and Ohio State at home and are hot right now, so everyone's anxiety over that game has been cranked up a notch. But Michigan State is still Michigan State and Breslin Center is still Breslin Center, so I don't really know how anyone can credibly claim our game at the RAC is harder. It still won't be easy, of course.

Michigan has been playing a lot better lately, too, so that won't be an easy game. Their ceiling is higher than Rutgers even if their results haven't been.
 
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#199      
GBIllini
The thing about Hawkins is there is so much potential in him. When the game slows down for him things will just start to click it will like the difference between night and day. We could see a jump of 7 to 10 points a game. Next year if we don't have Kofi we will likely have a completely different offensive scheme and execution. Remember at the beginning of this year Brad thought we would be running up and down the floor even more that last year. Hawkins fit right into that style. When that changed it affected Hawkins role on the floor.
 
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