down the stretch they come...

[Rickster]

MSU knocks off Purdue last night, UCLA continuing to win ...the seeding for the B10 tourney should be interesting.

I managed to feel excitement for tonight again this week, once the bad taste of another OT loss was gone.

Isacc (can't remember his last name) had an interesting take on the Inquirer podcast this week. He said the Illini D has struggled only against good scoring guards on teams with 4 other scorers on the floor. The teams who don't have that kind of offensive firepower haven't been able to capitalize with their good guards. He gave as examples Thornton from OSU and Wilkerson from IN. Interesting take. He also predicted an Illini W tonight against Mich saying that Mich doesn't have the perimeter shooting or defense needed to beat Illinois.

On the other hand, I read another guy who sees the 5 close losses as not "Illini are just a few good plays away from being 27-1" but rather this is enough of a sample size to show that the Illini can't win close games. Another interesting take.

We don't have really any "close" wins....those that come down to the final couple plays in the last minute. We have only 3 single digit Ws...PSU, Iowa and Purdue, but I'm pretty sure they weren't really in question in the final minute. Again, you can look at that in 2 ways: first, we've got 22 wins and 19 of them were by double digits, so we are clearly a NC contender. or second, in the 5 games that were decided in the last minute of play (and OT) we lost all 5.

[12xu]

Michigan showed tonight how they could hack the Illini and get away with it. Cadeau finally fouled out, but long after it really mattered. The refs allowing a lot of rough play favored the Wolverines, just as the refs in LA were calling everything which helped UCLA.

But, Michigan was definitely the better team and the Illini do not match up well with them at all. I hope they don't meet again in either tourney. Illinois kept settling for threes, and was cold as ice, just like the last 30 min of the UCLA game.

[12xu]

Michigan showed tonight how they could hack the Illini and get away with it. Cadeau finally fouled out, but long after it really mattered. The refs allowing a lot of rough play favored the Wolverines, just as the refs in LA were calling everything which helped UCLA.

But, Michigan was definitely the better team and the Illini do not match up well with them at all. I hope they don't meet again in either tourney. Illinois kept settling for threes, and was cold as ice, just like the last 30 min of the UCLA game.

Correction: Cadeau did not foul out, he was called for only 4 fouls. IMO he should have gotten 3 in the first 5 min of the game.

[Rickster]

Michigan showed tonight how they could hack the Illini and get away with it. Cadeau finally fouled out, but long after it really mattered. The refs allowing a lot of rough play favored the Wolverines, just as the refs in LA were calling everything which helped UCLA.

But, Michigan was definitely the better team and the Illini do not match up well with them at all. I hope they don't meet again in either tourney. Illinois kept settling for threes, and was cold as ice, just like the last 30 min of the UCLA game.

it was definitely a rough and tumble kind of game, but they called 27 total fouls, which is a little higher than normal.

Bottom line for me was they have a very good inside game and we don't. On either end of the floor. We had 4 more shot attempts than them but still got clobbered because their shot attempts were better, closer to the basket. On the defense, all pretense that the Illini "can correct some things and keep improving" is gone. At least for me. Not only can't we defense quick guards good at penetrating off ball screens, but we're even worse at defending the paint against good big men. I was super excited at getting more than 14 feet of Ivisic's in the off-season, but man they are terrible defenders.

On offense, I'll say again it seems stupid to critique a "historic, efficient offense", but I feel like it's time to admit...any good defending team that doesn't have obvious bad matchups are going to stop us. I get the analytics thing, I really do and 1.3 pts/possession is great. But analytics can't answer what we see on the floor against the better teams. If I'm defending Illini, I just make the ball go to Boswell or Stoya and say drop off and make them shoot. At this point, we simply can't have both those guys on the floor at the same time. Our lack of versatility and creativity makes us easy to defend by the better teams.

I don't want to be a "negative nelly" and I want to be excited about the Dance, but I see a team that's very scout-able, predictable, with serious flaws on defense, and that hasn't won a close game all year. We've played 2 teams that will get #1 seeds (Mich and Uconn) and got handled pretty easily by both of them. We are a second-tier team that can make treys some nights and outscore people. We're a "once-in-a-lifetime" game by Wagler away from being 12-6 in B10 and tied for 6th place.

<sigh>

[Rickster]

still though....being a 2nd tier team is way better and way more fun than being a middling or lower tier team. At least we can still wallop those.

Welcome back Stoya.

Hopefully the shooting gets hot again in a couple weeks. 9 for 35s won't cut it after round 1.

That AJ Redd sequence was fun.

[12xu]

Barely ahead of a lousy Maryland team at half. Good thing Mirkovic and Davis came to play hard today.

Is it just me, or is it annoying as hail to see 7 foot guys slapping at the ball instead of grabbing it when going for a rebound?

Cannot lose this game. Just cannot.

[ChiefSTL]

We look tired. I hope we win at least 1 game in the B10 tourney to lock up a #2 seed, then I would be fine with us going down and having as much rest as possible. There is no way we are getting a #1 seed at this point. We just gotta be ready for the tourney.

[Rickster]

on the plus side -- we figured out how to win a close game (one decided by a couple possessions in the last minute) when we shot 20% from trey.
on the bad side -- That makes us 1-5 in close games this year.

I agree there seems to be some fatigue setting in. Especially Wagler. That happens when you go 8 games in 3 weeks during the season with a 6 man rotation. A lot of shots hitting the front rim. I was never a very good player, but even I know that happens when you're getting even just 10% less lift on your shot because your legs are tired.

I'm sure Wagler is tired of getting bodied and beat on. I admit I'm biased of course, but surely someone besides me thinks that kid doesn't get even 25% of the foul calls other star players get? I admit it's bias because he's actually 4th overall in the BigTen in FTA. But still ...that kid gets bodied and hacked and hammered every time he drives the lane. EVERY TIME. He shot 7 FTs yesterday but easily should've shot twice that many. Mills got a foul call every time an Illini even looked at him.

The Ivisic bros are 6-39 from trey the last 6 games. That's 15.4%. BU wants them to keep shooting (at least Tomi) ... Wagler has also gone cold-ish...he's 6-22 the last 4 games. That leaves only Davis and Mirk as reliable 35%+ perimeter shooters, and an erratic Humrichous (who can go 5-7 one game and then 1-8 the next). I know how I would defend Illini if I were coaching against them. I would back off, pack the paint and let them have all the 7-32 3PT games they want.