Illinois at Ole Miss (Exhibition), Sunday, October 27th, 11:00am CT, SECN

#29      
jrichisamazing
band camp said:
I think we beat the brakes off Ole Miss. That can't hang with our depth or talent off the bench for 40 minutes.

Also, i am more than excited to see Morez suit up for the first time in Orange and Blue.
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This makes me wonder... What is everyone's #1 storyline, or player, or coaching strategy they want to see in this new season? With all the new faces and incredible talent, it's really tough to choose. I'm torn between 2...

1) How good can DGL be? The practice reports have been promising, but we all know how reliable those can be. Do we need him to be good? No, hopefully we don't need to depend on any one player with how deep we are. But I will always have a soft spot for a guy like DGL in this transfer era. I would be ecstatic if he forced his way into a main role amongst all this NBA talent.

2) How much will BU play Ben at the 5? We obviously saw something similar with Hawkins at the 5 last year, but this will be different. Hawkins was always a more natural facilitator instead of scorer. Ben is much more of a pure scorer. I'm excited to see how it looks.
 
#30      
sacraig
jrichisamazing said:
This makes me wonder... What is everyone's #1 storyline, or player, or coaching strategy they want to see in this new season? With all the new faces and incredible talent, it's really tough to choose. I'm torn between 2...

1) How good can DGL be? The practice reports have been promising, but we all know how reliable those can be. Do we need him to be good? No, hopefully we don't need to depend on any one player with how deep we are. But I will always have a soft spot for a guy like DGL in this transfer era. I would be ecstatic if he forced his way into a main role amongst all this NBA talent.

2) How much will BU play Ben at the 5? We obviously saw something similar with Hawkins at the 5 last year, but this will be different. Hawkins was always a more natural facilitator instead of scorer. Ben is much more of a pure scorer. I'm excited to see how it looks.
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My #1 storyline is "Illinois loses nearly whole team, left out of rankings, wins a championship while 2 players jump to the NBA and a few that could have gone decide to come back to go for a repeat after getting great NIL deals."

Or is that not what you meant?
 
#31      
Guest
Just an FYI. This game will NOT be rebroadcast on B1G Plus.
 
#32      
Battle89
jrichisamazing said:
This makes me wonder... What is everyone's #1 storyline, or player, or coaching strategy they want to see in this new season? With all the new faces and incredible talent, it's really tough to choose. I'm torn between 2...

1) How good can DGL be? The practice reports have been promising, but we all know how reliable those can be. Do we need him to be good? No, hopefully we don't need to depend on any one player with how deep we are. But I will always have a soft spot for a guy like DGL in this transfer era. I would be ecstatic if he forced his way into a main role amongst all this NBA talent.

2) How much will BU play Ben at the 5? We obviously saw something similar with Hawkins at the 5 last year, but this will be different. Hawkins was always a more natural facilitator instead of scorer. Ben is much more of a pure scorer. I'm excited to see how it looks.
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Outside of @sacraig 's championship, I'd like to see Tomislav cleared immediately and the NCAA give up their farce of power and responsibility.
 
#33      
hoopsfan47
sacraig said:
My #1 storyline is "Illinois loses nearly whole team, left out of rankings, wins a championship while 2 players jump to the NBA and a few that could have gone decide to come back to go for a repeat after getting great NIL deals."

Or is that not what you meant?
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That will not likely be the story of this team....but certainly should be the dream to which they strive. Always dream big, but stay in the moment and try to get better as a team.

There is a reason why those who have watched college hoops for decades temper their enthusiasm pre-season, especially for teams with so many new faces. Our team is young, inexperienced overall, and unproven....and unbeaten like every other team today.

But what I like most is that Ty and Kylan will lead them and demand accountability from all as "Everyday Guys". Can't think of a better label to wear...every day.
 
#34      
sacraig
hoopsfan47 said:
That will not likely be the story of this team....but certainly should be the dream to which they strive. Always dream big, but stay in the moment and try to get better as a team.

There is a reason why those who have watched college hoops for decades temper their enthusiasm pre-season, especially for teams with so many new faces. Our team is young, inexperienced overall, and unproven....and unbeaten like every other team today.

But what I like most is that Ty and Kylan will lead them and demand accountability from all as "Everyday Guys". Can't think of a better label to wear...every day.
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MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail-lvpuFwIZ-subtitled.jpg
 
#35      
marvin1991
NarrowJ said:
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.
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If Underwood decides he wants Illinois to win this game they will. If he wants to experiment with some things and not show any future team some stuff it could go either way.
 
#37      
EyeoftheIllini
I actually kind of like that this game will be broadcast on SECN. Don’t watch many games on the network and haven’t been impressed by announcers, but looking forward to get take on team from outside the BIG. Of course it probably puts the over/under on “these announcers suck” posts in game thread at about 10.
 
#38      
Dan
No Illini Radio for the exhibition, at least it's not listed on the official schedule. (They have done split fb/mbb radio teams in the past but apparently not this time.)
 
#40      
BillyBob1
Dan said:
No Illini Radio for the exhibition, at least it's not listed on the official schedule. (They have done split fb/mbb radio teams in the past but apparently not this time.)
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Brian said on the radio they can’t get from Oregon to Mississippi to do the game. They’ve always had a backup crew available in the past.
 
#41      
Dan
They just need to have the radio analyst (Deon or Doug) there at the tipoff to take 1st half notes.

The radio crew in Eugene could make the United midnight-6am pdx to OHare, then the AA 8:20am to Memphis. They'd arrive Oxford late 1st half or halftime, but could broadcast the entire 2nd half. That would be one tremendous hour of live sports radio 👍
 
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