Illini beat Wisco

The Illini improved to 17-3 after beating Wisconsin on Saturday at Assembly Hall. Illinois was pretty much in charge the entire game until forgetting that you can pass when you get double teamed during a press break.

Here is a link to the highlights of the game if you missed it.

Big Ten Network

Here is a Big Ten Network interview with Bruce before the Wisconsin game.




Here is my breakdown of the game.

First, I can't take Doris Burke. I like the banter that you get with Lavin and Musberger because it is pretty funny, I just find Doris Burke talking about wanting to eat 6000 calories and kissing under the eternal flame overly creepy. Also I don't need Doris talking about how difficult childbirth is when I am trying to finish my 3rd pitcher of Coors light at Joe's. She does know basketball though, so it isn't too bad.

Dave O'Brien is an idiot. He blasted McCamey for being inconsistent. His 2 examples were going for 4-13 against Tulsa and 0-9 against MSU. If you have had 2 bad games in 20 all that means is that you are not the greatest basketball player of all time. He talked about players disappearing in games, maybe he should have done his homework and realized that Illinois does not rely on only one player. If you have 4 players averaging almost exactly the same amount of points per game, and the team is among the leading assisting teams in the country, then perhaps you find the hot hand and go with it. Illinois has had 8 different players lead the team in scoring this year.

I want to know whose idea it was to have Trent Meacham check Krabbenhoft all game, because he did a really good job and played his ass off. Krabbenhoft did get a couple shots in the post, and got free for a few 3's, but overall our help defense was great and Trent denied the ball well. Trent gave up at least 4 inches and a ton of weight. From the start that was by far the biggest mismatch of the game, and Wisconsin could not take advantage of it so give Trent a lot of credit.

Tisdale gets at least on foul a game for an illegal screen, kinda like Brian Randle would pick up 4 fouls because he was out of position and couldn't play defense without reaching in and hacking. Tisdale's second foul was absolute bullshit though. So much has been made of Tisdale being skinny and not having enough strength in the post, so when he actually gets good position and keeps his man on his hip while reaching for pass it is frustrating to see him get a foul for that. This brings me to a point of contention, should coaches automatically pull a player when they get 2 quick fouls in the first half?

On one side of the argument, some people believe that if you leave a player in, then they can't play with as much intensity on defense, which makes them a liability until at least half time. Also a good opposing coach and players will go at that player to try to get his 3rd. If the player does get his 3rd, then not only will they sit, but when they do come play in the second half, once they get their 4th they are pretty much done until the last 5 minutes of the game.

The other side of the argument is that when you pull that player, they will get cold on the bench. Basically the player is only going to be valuable to you for the second half of the game. Usually too, when they do come in for the second half of the game, they are most likely ineffective because they haven't been in the flow of the game at all. I call this the Brian Randle theory, yet it is a struggle to find a game that he was effective to begin with.

I think that if you have a post player, then you have to sit them with 2 fouls because it is much easier to isolate that player one on one to try and draw their 3rd foul. For guards it is much easier to play in foul trouble, you may just need more help on dribble penetration from the rest of your team because you can't be aggressive 25 feet away from the hoop.

Dominique Keller and Calvin Brock do a great job either maintaining momentum when they come in, or in some instances they actually add more. Keller does it on the offensive end, and Calvin does it on D. If Keller can get close enough to use the glass, then chances are it is going in, no matter what crazy angle he uses to shoot the ball from.

This was the best all around game I have seen Demitri McCamey play. He has scored more in other games, but he did a great job with his on the ball defense, fighting through screens, and jumping passing lanes on defense. On offense, he didn't settle for 3's all game long even though he hit a couple. He used dribble penetration to get inside for pull-up jumpers and also made it to the hoop on shots that he knew he would get fouled on. Early on in his career he didn't understand when he should pull up so that post players couldn't help, he would get rejected or make difficult passes because he was too deep. None of those situations happened in this game. His passing and floor vision were great, and seems to really understand the offense and knows where to find the open man.

I actually was impressed with Trent Meacham on the offensive end. The last few games he had basically looked exclusively for his outside shot, but in this game he did a good job of penetrating at the end, and also curling off of screens and getting jumpers in the lane. As long as he continues to do this, then I think his outside shot will come around.

What the hell happened to our composure during the end of the game? We have played against 2 of the best pressing teams in the country in Clemson and Mizzou, yet when slow nonathletic Wisconsin presses us, we look like a JV high school girl's team. Thank god Jason Bohannon could not hit an outside shot to save his life, or else that game could have gotten away from us and you would be reading a meltdown post from me right now. You do have to give the Illini credit for hitting their free-throws at the end of the game.

So now we have more wins than last year, and if what Bruce Weber thought at the beginning of the season holds true, we only need 7 more wins to make it to the NCAA tournament. For what it is worth, Joe Lunardi has Illinois as a #4 seed right now, which would be our highest seed in the tournament since the National Championship team being a #1 seed.