Dan
Illinois at Ole Miss (Exhibition), Sunday, October 27th, 11:00am CT, SECN
Such a great day
blackdog
- Champaign
You actually only have to go back to 2022 to the last time we achieved this #weareasportsschool
sacraig
- The desert
Captain Bubbles
- Fairfield, IL
Was looking at Ole Miss roster earlier...
Ole Miss returns 6-4 Matt Murrell (16.2 ppg) 5-11 Jaylen Murray (13.8 ppg) and 6-8 Jaemyn Brakefield (12.9 ppg) from last season. They also got some players in 6-9 Malik Dia from Belmont (16.9 ppg), 6-6 Dre Davis from Seton Hall (16.6 ppg) and 6-8 Mikeal Brown-Jones from UNC Greensboro (18.9 ppg). Both Murrell and Brakefield have already scored 1,000+ points in their career, with Murrell already over the 1,400 point mark. Murrell has been at Ole Miss since he first stepped foot on campus, so he's the leader for them.
Though it is an exhibition game, I think this is a good litmus test for Illinois to see where they are at against an experienced Ole Miss team.
Ole Miss returns 6-4 Matt Murrell (16.2 ppg) 5-11 Jaylen Murray (13.8 ppg) and 6-8 Jaemyn Brakefield (12.9 ppg) from last season. They also got some players in 6-9 Malik Dia from Belmont (16.9 ppg), 6-6 Dre Davis from Seton Hall (16.6 ppg) and 6-8 Mikeal Brown-Jones from UNC Greensboro (18.9 ppg). Both Murrell and Brakefield have already scored 1,000+ points in their career, with Murrell already over the 1,400 point mark. Murrell has been at Ole Miss since he first stepped foot on campus, so he's the leader for them.
Though it is an exhibition game, I think this is a good litmus test for Illinois to see where they are at against an experienced Ole Miss team.
Ole Miss is ranked 24th in the AP preseason poll, with us just sitting out of the top 25.
This will be the first real test/display of a really talented team that no one knows what to make of yet. I hope it wakes the media up. If this team gels, they could have a historic season.
This will be the first real test/display of a really talented team that no one knows what to make of yet. I hope it wakes the media up. If this team gels, they could have a historic season.
The best "free" way is to do a Hulu+/YouTube TV/Fubo free trial and cancel before you have to pay for it.
Sometimes SECN games are also on ESPN+ if you have that.
You can also pirate it assuming you can find a good stream somewhere, but that's playing with fire a bit.
Or you can go to a bar, but also playing with fire a bit for Sunday at 11 AM.
My prediction is we get beaten by Ole Miss, not blown out, but they will win the exhibition game with their much more experienced roster.
We will all go insane, how do we lose an exhibition game against an inferior opponent, we won't make the tourney this year, so on and so on.
But I actually hope we lose this exhibition. Sounds counterintuitive, but I want this group to face adversity early on as possible because they have an absolute gauntlet of a schedule ahead of them. Get the growing pains and failure out of the way before the games even count.
We will all go insane, how do we lose an exhibition game against an inferior opponent, we won't make the tourney this year, so on and so on.
But I actually hope we lose this exhibition. Sounds counterintuitive, but I want this group to face adversity early on as possible because they have an absolute gauntlet of a schedule ahead of them. Get the growing pains and failure out of the way before the games even count.
Expanding on your breakdown of their roster, this exhibition seems like a good prerequisite to the game against Alabama in November and will be more of a defensive litmus test for Illinois on how the team responds to experience and chemistry.
Both teams are experienced, have 3 key players (Seniors/5th-year this year) that have established chemistry and have done a good (great in Bama's case) job reloading for experience in the transfer portal. I may be drawing conclusions because they're both SEC teams so interested in other thoughts here, but Ole Miss seems like a good learning experience, particularly for a matchup against Bama.
I've done a side-by-side look at the 3 returning players mentioned above vs Alabama's returning and potentially starting Seniors. Stats are pulled from Kenpom, ORtg is offensive efficiency rating based on points per 100 possessions:
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
"Go"?
In regards to Illinois Basketball......I think the majority of us arrived at this destination many moons ago.
I think they have ample depth as well. They have 6 guys that averaged 13ppg or more at the D1 level last season. Unless their 7/8/9 guys are just so bad they're unplayable, they should be fine in that department.
It must be irritating to coaches how front and center scrimmages are now (the charity aspect when applied is the redeeming quality) and how much the fan bases look at the outcomes as an actual result when it should be seen as an opportunity to try all sorts of things to grow the team.
foby
- Bonnaroo Land
Or we can just win. Then win some more. Keep on winning. And then win after that.
Coaches still have the ability to have closed-door scrimmages...
The scrimmage against Ole Miss will be one of the first times that guys like Will, KJ, Morez, etc. will be playing "under the bright lights" so to speak.
I would think this would be a good opportunity for coaches to truly see how these guys react in real-game situations with the added (and meaningful) variable of competing against a committed fanbase, with the benefit of being able to manage the game more liberally/experimentally as it doesn't count on the record.
blackdog
- Champaign
If coaches didn't like it they wouldn't do it. BU has expressed how much he LOVES these types of opportunities. Great exposure for the players to play in a good atmosphere against a good team with no consequences. He couldn't give a damn about what the fan base thinks of the results.