Illinois matchup

[CycloneErik]

22.5 hours of waiting is 24 too many. Let's go!

 

[moores2]

I just want to respect y’all.

I’m not underestimating size at all. I loved Kihei Clark’s game at UVA and watched most of his games. Lipsey obviously isn’t THAT short, but he is undersized compared to Domask. You’re going to need to send a double plain and simple. I don’t care how good of a defender he is. Your ability to defend is negated when your opponent is a half foot taller and 25 pounds heavier.

That is the thing. We are going to send that double to the block every possession. That is our base defense. It is a hard trap to the sideline though. Lipsey will not allow Domask to dribble middle at all forcing to the help on the baseline.

 

[moores2]

Also has anyone asked who Domask will be in charge of guarding for Iowa State? He doesn't have quick enough feet for Tamin or Gilbert. Maybe Milan? But Milan will give him a taste of his own booty ball standing 6'8". No way is he guarding Tre King.

 

[ScheelhaaseRock]

Here is another distraction post as we all wait 745 more hours for the game...

With NIL and the portal.... here is a refreshing statement from a Freshman Hoops player (disregard the Illinois part, it is only cuz I follow them that I saw this):

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Illinois freshman guard Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn from today's open locker room in TD Garden in Boston:

“When it comes to the portal, it’s not even about one thing or another. It’s about the whole program. No thanks, I'm good. I’ve built relationships with the coaches. I built my own ground underneath my feet here at Illinois. After I built all of that, for me to get up and leave Illinois would be not only disrespectful to the program but I’d also be disrespecting myself and the work I’ve put in here at this place. Why would I do all this work to get where I am now knowing I have so much more to go to just leave that all behind and start again from scratch? It doesn’t make sense to me. No, I’m not entering the portal.”
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PS, now watch, he transfers! JK...kind of

Granted, with as many guards as we've had transfer in the last 4 years... and given his mom's, eh, demeanor... a lot of people assumed he'd portal out before the season began.

 

[ScheelhaaseRock]

y'all haven't watched us play much then, our success / failure is always tied almost 100% to causing turnovers and then scoring off of them. I don't think it's possible to read too much into turnovers against ISU.

I ran the numbers a couple weeks ago and almost half of BigXII teams had their conference high TOs against us, and half of our non-conference had the season high against us. The defense is #1 because we do two things at a very elite level - force turnovers and prevent shots at the rim.

One other thing on turnovers - it's not the # of turnovers that wins the game for ISU, it's that the forced turnover number is indicative of the impact the defense is having on all aspects of the game - the energy and effort that ISU is playing with.

yea, repeat post but as an Illini I'm more comfortable if our turnovers come out of aggressive and open play vs pressure that leads to ISU being able to get numbers in transition. You turn us over because you set up pressure after a made bucket, that's bad for us... you turn us over because we can't get anything out of a halfcourt set and get a transition bucket, that's bad for us.... game opens up and you get a couple of turnovers because we're aggressive in the fast break? I can live with that.

 

[Bader]

Getting gameday info around and we get my favorite crew: Kevin Harlan, pxp Dan Bonner, analyst Stan Van Gundy, analyst

I look forward to a "Hason Ward with no regard for human life" from Harlan

 

[Nelcyn]

Fair. However I think people are reading too much into turnovers. For example, Illinois had 17!!! TO @ Rutgers and still won by 18 and put up 76. Rutgers obviously isn’t near ISU’s level, but against Tennessee they only had 9 and put up 79. I think this game comes down to Iowa State’s offense more than their defense to be quite honest. If you can score consistently I think y’all win this game. (Probably will need to hit at least 75)

My guess is ISU offense will be fine against their defense. I think it will be close and then Iowa State's wear down ability will pull away. ISU plays tough from start to end and the performance doesn't drop when we rotate off the bench.

 

[ScheelhaaseRock]

Also has anyone asked who Domask will be in charge of guarding for Iowa State? He doesn't have quick enough feet for Tamin or Gilbert. Maybe Milan? But Milan will give him a taste of his own booty ball standing 6'8". No way is he guarding Tre King.

I think Milan is probably the best bet.

I'm kinda curious how that evolves as we switch around lineups... I think to start Ty will get Gilbert but he's probably the most versatile defender we have, so I could see us playing around with creating mismatches... we also are pretty comfortable switching in a lot of cases although backed off that somewhat as the year went on

 

[Psiclone]

Because he said 10-12. Because TJ with elevated stakes and 5 days. Because they don't have a point guard.

But realistically, no, its not an unreasonable question I admit. I don't have a concrete irrefutable reason. Just faith.

Illinois ranks #72 in turnover average

Fair. I just think as you get into the tournament, and especially the sweet 16, the teams are better, and the coaches are better, so the chances of getting those 18+ turnover games are less. There's not any Tang's or Cincinnati's left. Plus if Iowa St is to really slow the pace, then there's likely less total possessions to turn it over.
You're right though about the advantage of extra prep time for TJ and staff, and just the unfamiliarity of the Iowa St style.

 

[Chillini1989]

Also has anyone asked who Domask will be in charge of guarding for Iowa State? He doesn't have quick enough feet for Tamin or Gilbert. Maybe Milan? But Milan will give him a taste of his own booty ball standing 6'8". No way is he guarding Tre King.

My guess is Domask will guard Momcilivic or Gilbert depending who else is in, and Illinois will be more than happy to let him shoot mid-range jumpers regardless of the outcome. Shannon will guard Lipsey to start and move to Gilbert when Harmon subs in. Domask isn’t going to lock anyone down, but Shannon will do a good job on either.

 

[Psiclone]

In the Big XII tournament, K State and Baylor had already played against ISU and knew what to expect. In the NCAA tournament, the two teams ISU faced averaged 13.5 turnovers per game. Illinois is ranked #72 in turnovers and doesn't have a PG, so I expect ISU to turn Illinois over around 15 times.

 

[alarson]

Illinois ranks #72 in turnover average

One also has to take into context who they've played in that.

Most of the big 10 is in the bottom half (if not bottom third) at turning other teams over .

When they played teams that were top 25 in TO%, they turned it over well above their average rate. So i think there's evidence they're vulnerable to that. Fortunately for Illinois, the teams that were the best at turning the ball over in conference were towards the worse end overall

 

[Klubber]

I think Watson will get a good 10-15 minutes on Shannon as well. I doubt we'll see King on him, Shannon is too quick

Shannon will hate Watson. I love watching D-Wat harassing on defense.

 

[Klubber]

Not getting out of position is the most critical part of a top defense controlling a top offense.

To me, it's all going to come down to how quickly on defense we adjust to coming off a double team and guarding whoever the pass goes to. If they're hot from 3 and we're double teaming Shannon and not reacting quickly enough when he passes off, it could be a big deal. Likewise, if they use it to get a bunch of backdoor cuts to the hoop, it could be a big deal.

So essentially - can our defense not just be locked in on Shannon, but also peel off him and follow the ball?

They're going to try hard to stretch our average defensive pts per game, so the flip side is we need to do anything possible to keep Milan from regressing back into his funk (last game was a bit up and down again). We should be able to score, but their defense can play fairly decent when they're dialed in, which I expect them to be. Shooting 30% again in a half like against WSU would put a ton of pressure on our defense.

BYU was our kryptonite because we couldn't adjust quick enough to their long passes out of double teams and were using it to rain threes.

BYU and Baylor are good comparisons to what we'll face vs Ill.

The big difference though is both those teams have guards with a good handle who could pass out of double teams, or avoid them altogether.

Illinois' assist per game average is awful and they basically have a forward bringing the ball up the court to start their offense. Hopefully that leads to lots of turnovers. I think it will.

 

[Jer]

BYU and Baylor are good comparisons to what we'll face vs Ill.

The big difference though is both those teams have guards with a good handle who could pass out of double teams, or avoid them altogether.

Illinois' assist per game average is awful and they basically have a forward bringing the ball up the court to start their offense. Hopefully that leads to lots of turnovers. I think it will.

Very true. I bounce between scared as **** and overly confident on this game. This is the perfect example of a game we could win by 20 or lose by 20.

 

[jcf817]

Very true. I bounce between scared as **** and overly confident on this game. This is the perfect example of a game we could win by 20 or lose by 20.

Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling this way. Only 71 more hours until gametime.

 

[Cyrocks]

Man, I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling this way. Only 71 more hours until gametime.

Another 3 and a half days? Dang

 

[blizzisu]

Have they announced who the officials are for the game tonight? If so, does anyone know if it's a favorable assignment for ISU?

 

[cyatheart]

Also has anyone asked who Domask will be in charge of guarding for Iowa State? He doesn't have quick enough feet for Tamin or Gilbert. Maybe Milan? But Milan will give him a taste of his own booty ball standing 6'8". No way is he guarding Tre King.

as much as everyone wants to think we have all these matchup problems, they have real issues matching up with our guards

 

[alarson]

Have they announced who the officials are for the game tonight? If so, does anyone know if it's a favorable assignment for ISU?

Haven't seen anything but just hoping it's not the ones from the Houston game the other night