Tale of 2 Illini

For most Illinois basketball fans, what occurred last week was the epitome of what fans have come to love and loathe while watching Illinois for the past few seasons. Illinois continued their red hot shooting, and also continued to make strides on defense when they shocked Wisconsin at the Kohl Center. Any momentum that they might have created was obviously lost when Illinois got crushed at home by Ohio State. The lack of consistency this season is obviously worse than it has been in the past few years, however many people are getting very tired with Bruce Weber's teams playing great in big games, and then losing head scratching, TV breaking games. Last season, Illinois was a great defensive team that had many apparent shortcomings on offense, 2 years ago the Illini were just bad all season long. It seems like the days of losing 59-36 (@ Minnesota last year) and 38-33 (@ Assembly Hall) are over, so hopefully the consistency will come soon too.

A problem that many people thought had been solved, reared its pathetic head again. The problem? A complete lack of energy or urgency at different points in the game. Illinois has had 3 major areas that have directly led to their 9 losses. Those areas are: a terrible start to the game, a terrible start to the second half, or letting shitty teams hang around with them late instead of putting them away. Let's examine their losses and breakdown where all of this has happened.

Utah - Illinois led 32-16 at halftime!! In the first 15 minutes of the second half Illinois was outscored 35-18. Instead of coming out and putting a real bad team away (Utah is 11-13) they let them hang around and then hit a game winning lay-up. (Didn't put them away, terrible start to second half)

Bradley - After an embarrassing loss the night before Illinois came out completely emotionless and lost for the second time in 24 hours. Illinois was up 29-28 at half, and then after 7 minutes they were losing 47-38. Illinois came back to take a 5 point lead with a little over 3 minutes left, and then didn't finish and lost by 4 to another crap team (Bradley is 13-12). (Terrible start to the second half, then didn't put them away)

Georgia - After winning 4 games, Illinois took Georgia for granted. They played a bad first half and were tied at 32 at the break. Guess what they did to start the second half? That's right, they gave Georgia a 6 point lead in the first 3 minutes. The lead got up to 9 in after 5 minutes, and Illinois was toast. Even though they regained a 1 point lead with 35 seconds left, the game should have never been close, and Illinois deserved to lose. (Terrible start to second half)

Mizzou - Surprisingly, even though Illinois almost had a turnover a minute for the first 7 minutes of game, McCamey basically kept them in it as the score was tied 11-11 with 14 minutes left. The score was also tied at 26 with 7 minutes left, and then 2009-2010 Illini Turnover-Palooza began. 7 turnovers in 4 and a half minutes finished Illinois off as they went scoreless for 5:15. At least this didn't occur at the beginning of the game or second half, so now Illinois was finding a new way to lose. The lead was 7 at the half, and Mizzou pushed it to 13 after the first 8 minutes. Game over. (Terrible start to second half)

Gonzaga - I think being down by 21 in the first half constitutes a slow start, what do you think? I guess you have to give this team credit for fighting back in games like this one and against Clemson, but obviously, you lose more games than you win in situations like this. (Horrible start)

MSU - Really Illinois played a great first 17 minutes of this game. They were in it for pretty much the entire first half until MSU hit some shots late. They did end up down 7 at half, but the game didn't really seem to be out of grasp, that is until the second half started. Illinois waited 4 minutes to score their first point unlike MSU who decided that they would try to score as soon as the second half began. A 7 point lead became 14 within 4 minutes, and the game was over. (Terrible start to second half)

Purdue - Again a really good first half from Illinois. They got a lead early, played well with it, and then completely shit the bed as soon as the second half started. Illinois scored 7 points in the first 8:40, and even worse, in the first 4 minutes, Illinois was outscored 11-2, so a four point halftime lead was completely wasted. Game pretty much over in the first 5 minutes of the second half even though Illinois tried to bury 3's at the end to give them a shot. (Terrible start to the second half)

Northwestern - Probably the most frustrating loss of the season aside from losing a monster lead to Utah, on my damn birthday no less, when I was there to watch it. Illinois started the game playing like they were drunk, giving Northwestern a 13-2 lead in the first 6 minutes. They still managed to gain a 3 point lead at half once they sobered up. The second half was more of the same as Illinois only scored 12 points in the first 13 minutes. Here comes the frustrating part: Illinois actually built their lead to 7 during this stretch. That's right, somehow Northwestern managed to play even worse than Illinois. Actually, Illinois only scored 13 points in the first 16 minutes of the second half. Unfortunately, Northwestern decided that they didn't want to hand Illinois the game anymore, and they started to hit some shots. All around horrible performance for Illinois. (Trifecta of terrible)

After looking at this, and also looking at some of the wins that Illinois has had, I think the most important thing for this team is to come out hard to start the second half. They have overcome large amounts early and won some games, but in close games, they can't afford to sleepwalk into the second half. Basically, if Illinois is down 20 at half, I'm not nearly as worried as I am if Illinois gives up a lead in the first 4 minutes of the second half. You can see the life drain out of everyone but McCamey and DJ when Illinois plays bad to start the second half.

And finally on to the latest loss to OSU:

If you have been reading what has been written about this game, you will come away with the conclusion that OSU's 1-3-1 zone really caused problems for Illinois. That is total bullshit. OSU started in it, and Illinois got 2 lay-ins to start the game because McCamey was absolutely destroying the zone. The problem was Illinois was not nearly as precise as it was in its previous 2 big games. Tisdale got the ball on the block, but he travelled. Bill Cole stepped out of bounds, then missed a layup. The only bad play in the first 5 minutes was the first possession when DJ just threw the ball away. Davis hit a baseline jumper, but the score was 11-6 OSU because we played no defense on perimeter shooters. OSU started the game 5-7 including 3-4 from 3, and they also hit 5 free throws. At 11:48 left in the game, this game was over. It had nothing to do with the zone, it had to do with the fact that at this point, OSU was shooting 6-8 from the floor, 4-5 from 3, and 5-6 from the line. Illinois on the other hand was 5-13 from the field, 0-3 from 3, and had no free throws. After watching the game for the 4th time, none of the shots in the first 8 minutes were bad. They were all shots that Illinois normally hits, or at least had been hitting during their 5 game winning streak.

So the score is 13 to 8 with 13:05 left, and here is where it all went to shit. Davis switches on Lighty, he goes baseline, gets fouled by Paul (late on weakside help), and gives OSU a 7 point lead. McCamey hits Griffey on a cross court 30 footer for a lay-up to try to keep the game close. I just want to prepare all of you for this weeks Brandon Paul Tirade, because it might get brutal.

All week long Illinois talked about how Evan Turner would most likely get his, so don't let Buford and Diebler go off. Well Paul must not have been listening because he gets lost and Buford buries a 3 in his face. Actually I shouldn't say in his face, because Paul isn't close enough to him. Then, Paul doesn't close out enough on John Diebler (obviously because he is worried about Diebler's amazing And 1 crossover that no one has ever seen) so Diebler buries a three in what would have been Paul's face had he been close enough. Now it is 21-10. Now the next offensive possession is a jumble fuck because OSU is playing pretty good MAN defense. Paul gets a offensive rebound off a missed DJ putback and decides to throw a twisting over the shoulder shot off the backboard because for some reason he thought that he would either magically make it, or that he would get a call against the Big Ten leader in blocked shots Dallas (I look older than Greg Oden did in college) Lauderdale. Seriously, if I saw Lauderdale in public, I would probably call him sir because his bald spot alone makes him look like a 45 year old man. Back to the shot, Paul didn't even draw contact with Dallas, probably because the OSU scouting report said to let Paul shoot anything he wants in the lane because there isn't a chance in hell it's going in. Next offensive possession, Paul misses a wide open 3. At this point, I would just take him out of the game, because you know that he isn't going to contribute much. I hate to say it, because I think he will be a great player for us. 2 weeks ago when Illinois was on the verge of missing the tournament, I was all for letting these young guys play through their struggles, but now there is way too much that can be lost. Bill Cole sat on the bench for the first 2 seasons he was an Illini, so his legs should be fresh. Sorry if you thought I was done with Paul........ I'm not. Illinois gets a nice bucket on an in-bound play when McCamey finds Davis for a bunny. Buford hits a shot against Michael's son (I will now call Jeff Jordan Michael's son, so we all know why he is playing), and then Paul decides that it is his time to shine. He again drives into the lane for a contested floater that goes high off the glass and hits no rim at all, Evan Turner outlets to Lighty for a scary dunk that caused Gus Johnson to scream so loud his microphone exploded, and now it is 25-12 OSU. Finally Bruce stops the bleeding by putting Cole in with 9 minutes left. So the damage for Paul is 1 foul for 2 points, 2 3's by the man he was supposed to be guarding, a missed 3 attempt, and 2 terrible shots in the lane, one of which was so bad, it led to a run out for a dunk. For the record, if McCamey did this even last season, Bruce would have probably taken his scholarship away.

Now I don't want you to think that Illinois lost because of that stretch that I just recapped for you. It just frustrated the hell out of me, and I really had to vent. Honestly, nobody played good defense, or shot the ball well, so that doomed Illinois from the get go. OSU was shooting 75% to Illinois 28% when the score was 27-12 with 8 minutes left. This game occurs to everyone, pretty much every year. The tables were reversed at Wisconsin. Illinois went to Wisconsin after a 4 game winning streak, and they shot the hell out of the ball. McCamey was unconscious, and everyone else hit every open shot that they got. Well if there was a team playing better than Illinois in the Big Ten, it was OSU. They came in and shot the ball extremely well, and Illinois could not keep up. Had this game happened against Minnesota or Michigan, then I would be extremely worried. And Illinois did hold OSU to 9 points in the last 8 minutes of the first half, they just couldn't hit enough shots to cut the lead.

The only positives that you can carry with you right now is that Illinois seemed to have figured it out before this game. Demitri McCamey is still playing fantastic as a point guard, even though he had an off shooting night. DJ was able to bounce back from a terrible game against MSU early in the season to play well during the 5 game winning streak, so hopefully he will shoot better this weekend. Mike Tisdale is slowly becoming much more consistent, and he is picking up the slack that has been created by Mike Davis and Keller playing bad. Davis has been playing a little better, and it seems like he is gaining confidence in his jumper again. And last but not least, Griffey is giving Illinois very solid minutes off the bench. A win at Purdue is not out of the question, obviously because a we all thought that a win at Wisconsin was.