Inside the Hall - Latest Comments in The Morning After: Illinois

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Jerry — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:36:28 -0000

I donot think we are in bad shape but the next games will tell.

It appears that the key to our winning will be to outscore the other team by having a lethal offense.

Our dribble drive, kick and pop offense is run by DUKE, NC alot of very good teams so though I donot like it myself it can be successful even though it looks unorganized

But we have 3 weaknesses in this offense

1. Gordon does not kick to anyone until too late for the pop
2. DJ does not play as well facing the basket or on dribble drives so he stops the flow
3. Intensity to keep the flow moving if the first drive does not yield a good shot

I am looking for signs that we can fix #1,#3 and then DJ can do what he does best , pop or backem down

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

james — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:47:35 -0000

chester frazier may not be the best point guard , he may not even be a decent point guard at all. but being able to guard one of the best guards in college basketball gets my attention. this kid is tough and for anyone to say for one minute that he posesses no skill at all is stupid. it was very unnecessary for him to bump gordon , but i can remember when basketball was played with toughness and was competitive. we shouldnt always pay attention to the things we can see but what we can not. i play basketball and things happen ten times worse on the court that you dont even know about. i think gordon handled it with class , and chester was just trying to intimidate him. i have a lot of respect for the 2. eric gordon is a great basketball player who seems to handle adversity very well. its no doubt he will be a superstar. p.s. this is chester frazier's big brother

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Fozan — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:14:30 -0000

Agree, even my 11 year old kid (which becamce a hoosier fanatic by defualt) made comments about CKS abilities!! imagine that. It's watching 5 individual players playing basketball, that's how I see the hoosiers. CKS stayed with the zone defense even after Illinois broke it so many times. Well, if something is not working, chang it!!. No set plays on the offensive front, nothing.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Snipper — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:43:08 -0000

I agree with everything you said except your overly high regard for IU's talent level and Sampson's recruiting ability. It seems obvious that , except for Gordon, the 2007 recruiting class was over-rated. After Gordon, Ellis is the best of the group, but he's a mediocre shooter and makes poor decisions with the ball. Crawford has raw ability but makes more bad plays than good ones. Thomas is awful. McGee? Is he so bad he can't contribute at all, even when depth is a problem? Yes, Holman is injured, but he looked awful when he saw very limited action before he was hurt. Minus DJ and Gordon, the Hoosiers will be in serious trouble next season.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

CoveyDale — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 14:52:38 -0000

and I would rather win the right way with Knight than win the wrong way with Sampson.

all those criticisms are accurate. as great of a job that KS did last year, he's done an equally bad job this year. it's weird to say it but at 19-3 this team has actually underachieved.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Jerry — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:41:46 -0000

Sorry but I think you are dreaming about time travel. Knight is a historically great coach but should have been fired , like Tubby, for losing too much in an elite program...........not for his antics. I would rather win with Sampson than lose with Knight

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Jerry — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:33:39 -0000

Right on ! Since many teams run their offense off the bounce ( ie Duke ) it can look sloppy thus your last sentence should be a clue that the coach( ie coach K ) may not be the problem .

So many guys on these posts seem to give Gordon a pass. Personally I think Gordon is a major offensive problem becasue he does engage the other players such that other players elevate THEIR game. We stand around waiting to get him the ball and then when he gets it , we stand around some more because he does not dish . We are thus stuck with 2 options instead of 4 or 5.

Again you are right about PLAYERS. A PLAYER is different than a guy with skills. Gordon right now is a guy with great skills, but not yet a PLAYER

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

BobKnightFan — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:32:34 -0000

Did anyone else hear Kelvin's comment AFTER the game? He was asked what he said to EJ at halftime to produce such a huge 2nd half. Kelvin gave his lil shit-eatin grin and said..."I told him to shoot it everytime you get it..." I thought Mike Davis resigned and moved to UAB...I thought Bracey moved on to the NBDL or Europe or Siberian Basketball...AT WHAT POINT IN THE PAST 120 YEARS DID BASKETBALL BECOME A 1 VS 5 GAME? It is sad to see a program that has such a RICH tradition of teamwork and basketball history has come to this. The Kelvin era has taking an eerily similar road to that of his predecessor...great recruiter but SHITTY game coach. Perhaps...and I'm just living in a DREAM world here...just maybe Bobby left TTU to make a final run at #4 with his beloved Hoosiers???? Hey...if you're gonna dream...dream BIG!

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Greg Matthews — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:38:46 -0000

2 items to note today . . . it bugged me to no end that Ellis didn't sit out towards the end of the game. His dead legs were surely the reason that he missed 2 layups and 2 free throws down the stretch.
Second, I am surprised that nobody mentioned the foul that Pruitt laid on DJ White at the end of the first OT . . . shouldn't he have gone to the line to shoot 3 free throws?

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

dabig — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:16:39 -0000

I've said before that, too often of late, it looked to me like the players didn't even know what they were supposed to be doing. That has to do with coaching. It looked less like that last night on offense, but it still seemed like that while they were in the zone on defense. They haven't had very good defensive rebounding or rotation on man to man all season, either. That's coaching, too. Plus, a different coach would have given Crawford a good "talking to" during a time out followed by pine time after a couple of the birdbrained plays he pulled last night. If that happened, I didn't see it. Crawford's getting pretty far along to be showboating like he's in a pick up game.
Maybe I'm just too old. I see a lot of North Carolina and Duke where I live, and they often seem as undisciplined as IU, only with better players.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

tacojohn — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:01:48 -0000

In the defense of knee-jerk fans like myself, that was our kind of game. When we went down 12 I refused to be excited about any comeback and sat at Kilroy's sullen for most of the second half. When EJ ripped out their heart, I was screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs. When EJ picked up that horrendously stupid 10 second call, I want to throw something. You can't not flip flop during a game like that.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

tacojohn — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:58:05 -0000

Sampson might be gone but there's a better chance that I'm coaching the team than Coach Knight.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Jerry — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:44:09 -0000

KS has been interviewed a number of times recently and has in fact made every point made on this website PLUS identified himself as responsible. I am critical of the team's play and would deploy players differently but I no longer share the negative feelings that the coach is the problem. Last I looked he does not play in the game and as such we give the players a pass when we blame their on court play on him.

I sense a gap between the coaching and some players' execution of the coaching. Maybe a behind the back dribble that gets stolen, one dish to Bassett on a drive in 50 minutes of action, and an unguarded 10 sec call tell us alot about our team's execution intensity.

Was that really Bootsie White posting on the game thread ? Wish he were back at the point

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

ALH_00 — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:03:21 -0000

"There's more to the game than shooting...there's fundamentals and defense"

DEFENSE:
Help from the 4 on drives has not been great...we seem to be out of position frequently. On the ball defense was improving (see EJ and Basset...not Crawford, obviously), but that improvement was neutralized by our lazy zone last night.

FUNDAMENTALS:
I was going to say something about rebounding, because I feel like we could do a better job with positioning and blocking out, but "by the numbers" this is a good rebounding team. Am I crazy thinking that we could do even better?

Assist/Turnover Ratio: 1/1 basically. Simply not good enough. Although, we are not turing the ball over any more than our opponents (just about even in Big 10 play...still not good enough), I don't think we take care of the basketball as well as a top 15 team should. I also don't think that we distribute the basketball well.

Finally, we are getting out-hustled for loose balls. And hitting the ground seven times during a game doesn't count for anything unless you're actually coming up with the loose balls.

Consequently, we are missing opportunities to make simple, but important plays. Consequently, we are not dominating with the talent disparity that seems apparent.

So, I agree with E that a large portion of the blame lies with KS, because it is his job to drill fundamentals and effort, rewarding those who play sound basketball and give great effort. "You play like you practice". I would bet big money that we aren't practicing very good right now...and that lies squarely within the purview of KS.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Dale — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:33:02 -0000

"Weber of all people took Illinois to the NC game in his second year."

Excellent point kurt...you are right on, we should definitely bring back davis.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Trav — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:51:12 -0000

Great work on this post! This is, overall, the best analysis I have seen on this site.

I am with you on the crazy pills. The bench coaching baffles me. There seems to be very little passion or teaching by Coach Sampson. However, my hats off to D.J. White in this regard. He has been a cheerleader, a peacemaker and chewed some ass from time to time.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Hart — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:37:35 -0000

Given your body of work on this site, I would not stand on one foot waiting.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Kevin — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:34:06 -0000

Very happy we won last night, even though our play was still a little shaky.

I can't believe Pruitt missed all of those free throws, though I did think those fouls were a little cheap.

I guess as Rasheed Wallace would say, "The ball doesn't lie!"

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Tony — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:17:09 -0000

Fair enough. To expand on #3 ,though, regarding defense:

No, I don't think the D is up to snuff. I just refuted you on where the blame lies. I think we can agree that DJ's defense is probably improved over last year. Therefore, the drop-off must be on the wing defense. No big surprise due to the fact that we lost our two best wing defenders from last year in Wilmont and Calloway (plus AJ's absence).

Defense can be taught, but it will take longer for some (Crawford, Ellis, DeAndre, Jamarcus) to GET than others (EJ).

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

MLOVE — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:12:57 -0000

The reason for AJ was Family based that was straight from his uncle... Dont know if i believe it but that is what was said and he should be in Columbus for Sunday

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

td — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:10:53 -0000

I agree with your issues on Sampson's coaching. Our defense is not good, zone or no zone. We don't/can't sustain an in-your-face defensive attitude. We have no one who can simply shut down the other team's main men and allowing a player averaging less than 7 pt. a game to go for more than 30 is just crazy. As much as I dislike Purdue, I believe it would benefit our players to watch tape of them playing defense in any of their recent games. They're now rotating 9-10 players and they all play tough-nosed, in your face defense. One thing that holds back our offensive strengths is the lack of defensive pressure on the ball which in turn does not allow for a lot of easy points. Our points are coming too hard with the upgrade in the talent were facing now that the pre-Big-10 season is over. A big problem with all of this is can we play in your face defense without relying on DJ to pick up our man going around us all of the time. Our overall team speed is SLOW!

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

kurt — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:59:25 -0000

Two words: Sean May. Four more: People.; glass houses; stones.

Seeing that we "control" this rivalry 82-78 or something like that I'd say we have no standing to get on our high horses about "excellence." A troll yesterday noted (to my chagrin) that this decade we haven't exactly dominated them.

We are very lucky to have escaped with two wins against the Illini this year. They have virtually nothing but D and yet probably should have beaten us twice. I've been in the Hall and seen horrible fan behavior (someone noted the UConn game last month) that when I was a student would have provoked Knight to grab the PA mike and take names. It's an epidemic and I see a lot of it in the Big Ten at both football and hoops games. Sadly, we're not above it, though you're right... we should be.

I'm not happy. I see KS struggling to get this team in sync. I don't care that itr's his second year. Weber of all people took Illinois to the NC game in his second year. I am sick of hearing him say that he just turns EJ loose. EJ isn't a good enough player yet to be turned loose. And I hate to admit that he isn't Mike Conley, either.

WTF? Illinois is at its low point; we're Top 10 material and nearly choke twice? What about two seasons from now when they are back in form? I'm not liking the program vibe this afternoon. And the next couple weeks aren't looking too hot, either.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Eamonn — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:28:12 -0000

Tony:

1. I didn't think they were going to dominate and control the game. Read my post from early yesterday for the proof.
2. I know Ratliff didn't travel. But why? If Sampson wanted him at the game last night, you don't think he'd be there? Yes, the academic issues are A.J.'s fault, but he's eligible now. He should get what value out of him he can at this point.
3. I don't think Sampson has forgotten how to coach defense, but you're telling me you're satisfied with their defense at this point? And at what point is it Sampson's responsibility to teach -- you know, that thing a coach does.

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

the other steve — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:40:47 -0000

Great Post

Re: The Morning After: Illinois

Travis — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:37:50 -0000

My thoughts exactly Tony, great post.