First to 70 wins it. It will be us.
Illinois matchup
- Thread starter PizzaTheHutt
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I am a fan of KenPom, and since conference play started we have played only 3 teams with a defensive rating above Illinois. South Dakota State, Oklahoma State, and West Virginia. Our closest comp is Baylor at #6 offense and #69 defense. Everybody except the 2 noted above in the Big 12 metric wise plays much better defense than Illinois.
Illinois lost games primarily to teams with top 25 defenses. Penn State with the #84 offense and #81 defense beat them 90-89!
I am looking forward to a tough win, which is the only way you win a Sweet 16 game!
Illinois lost games primarily to teams with top 25 defenses. Penn State with the #84 offense and #81 defense beat them 90-89!
I am looking forward to a tough win, which is the only way you win a Sweet 16 game!
Illinois also had a massive talent advantage and Duquesne had no prep time, short rest, and a big let down factor. Were talking about a team that was 10-8 and finished 6th in the A-10. I'm not saying Illinois will be easy or that they can't score on our D, I just don't think the Duquesne game is very applicable to our matchup in any way.
Great analysis. I hope they don't have a BYU 5 out type of attack in their arsenal. I honestly haven't watched them enough to know if they do. Obviously we had problems with that vs BYU.
I think our guards need to attack the lane. Make Illinois either sag to defend or keep defenders on the perimeter to guard against Milan and CuJo's 3's. I really think Tamin and KG will be able to get past their defenders and get shots in the lane and hopefully draw fouls in the process.
I find it amazing that the pundits don't talk our guards up much at all really. Lipsey, KG, and CuJo are all playing at an elite level right now.
And a real "X" factor here I think is TK. If he has a KU game type performance, then we're winning this one
So I have ISU winning both from a bracket and gambling perspective but the pundits not talking about the guards is largely due to the Big12’s tourny performance and the fact that ISU hasn’t had a real challenge yet this tourny.
Depending on how this game is officiated it could either be a tight win or an easy win. Unless Shannon really goes off I think your energy is going to carry over in a big way.
Just listened to another field of 68 podcast. Serious disrespect to ISU and Houston for that matter. Saying ISU doesn’t have the athletes to guard Shannon. I don’t think they have actually watched ISU. They acted like ISU only has a small chance to win this game lol. There was only one guy gave ISu credit. Illinois’s horrible defense wasn’t mentioned once.
Of course it was all Duke love against Houston. Acting like them beating James Madison was the greatest win ever and they are unstoppable now.
Of course it was all Duke love against Houston. Acting like them beating James Madison was the greatest win ever and they are unstoppable now.
I think Gilbert and Lipsey need to take it at Shannon and try to get him to pick up fouls
You have to get the Duke/Houston stuff, the SEC was horrible and one of their super average teams to Houston to OT and should have won if they just kept doing what they were doing. Plus stupid Duke love in the media. That game is a toss up to me
I was impressed with Hawkin's stats - I hadn't seen enough of him to get the shooter/passer vibe - I don't think they use him at the top of the key that much, from what I've seen.
From the video analysis upthread, Illinois likes to use a lot of "drop coverage" on the high pick and roll, with Hawkins (or Dainja) sitting deep in the lane. This will leave the midrange open, but I feel like our offense gets really vanilla sometimes when we rely on the midrange jumper, especially Gilbert and Lipsey. We've seen that at times when teams zone us - but also when they have shot blockers at the rim. If they are making the midrange, great, but if they miss a couple, we need to find a different attack.
I do think their backcourt length could cause Tamin and Keshon some problems - we've seen that before too, where length prevents them from getting to their spots
it doesn't hurt to try, but I think that is optimistic, he's too experienced to commit silly fouls, but you may get an ole or two. But if they can get Hawkins out of the game for stretches, that would be great
Honestly, I think Houston's quite possibly the worst possible matchup for Duke of all the Sweet 16 teams.
They'd have to do a hell of a lot better job at that than they did Saturday. Many, many wild drives thrown up that didn't result in either of points or a foul called. That happens sometimes, but this will not be a game where our offense can afford frequent empty possessions.
I think in general its to our advantage if they let both teams play physically. Now if they call it only on us, that's a bigger problem, but we benefit from a "let them play" approach. (as does Houston, which clearly didn't happen against TAMU)
I hope TJ and the Crew are logging in as many hours as I am on this Illinois game prep.
Hawkins is a great intangibles guy... he does a lot of little things very well. He also might get T'd up for whining. Him hitting three 3's to start the game against Duquesne was a bit of an aberration but he's a pretty capable shooter when he doesn't force stuff.
I think the game will dictate how soon Dainja comes in and what he's asked to do. I like Rob Jones (fun fact, shares a name with the UIUC Chancellor) a lot, I'm curious what kind of game he has. We'll live or die by our starters and then adjust as the game goes on. Hawkins gets asked to guard the 5 a lot and isn't great at it, Dain is more limited but we'll go with different lineups (with or without Coleman on the court), so I'm going to be interested to see how we match up or try and create mismatches with Jones and King.
We generally like to concede mid-range shots, so Momcilovic getting back into form would be a real thorn in our side. I don't think you need him to be on to beat us, but I saw him go off enough earlier this year that he's capable of making this one very hard for Illinois if he has a good game.
The '5' usually doesn't have to play 1:1 defense against Jones or Ward. We may throw the ball into a post up once or twice early in a game, but that's it. Defending our bigs usually comes down to two things - picking between help on a driving guard or staying with the big, and defending a pick and roll at the top of the key. Neither '5' shots the 3, but they will dive hard out of the PnR. Both of their games are dump offs, lobs and put backs - maybe with an occasional floater thrown in. Rob specifically has a very effective "push" shot from 8-10'
The mid-range will be attacked by Lipsey, Gilbert and Curtis Jones, who use the pull up jumper or floaters from there.
Milan, while scoring in the mid-range, utilizes much more of an extended post-up into his Dirk fadeaway, so it's more of an isolation post up than attacking the mid-range.
From what I've seen it's not like this for them.
BYU seemed to have way more ball movement, cuts etc. and Illinois spreads it out but seems to go with more of a downhill drive and kick or pass it around the perimeter. Their skill level seems to definitely favor this type of approach.
I'm concerned, that it might go like a BYU game, where it looks like for 30 mins we have no idea how to stop the bleeding. Sincerely hope I'm wrong!
