Illinois Game Recap

Welp, it had to happen eventually. Games like this are familiar and uncomfortable for so many reasons. For the first time all year, we couldn’t shoot ourselves out of a tough matchup. Once again, we failed to exploit our size advantage down low (we did OK the first ten minutes). For the first time all year, Harris seemed to disappear. Once again, a hot three point shooting team lit us up. For the first time all year, our turnovers really caught up to us, and we couldn’t counter that with our offensive rebounding advantage. Once again, a tweener type, 6’5” – 6’8,” who can shoot and attack off the dribble absolutely crushed us and we had no answers. Rough night, but enough of our team’s issues came to a head that it was, in some ways, inevitable.  

I’d be lying to you if I said that I saw this coming. I didn’t. While I was aware of Brandon Paul’s skillset, the deep stable of hot shooting guards, and the general talent at Illinois, I thought all of that would be negated by our size in the paint and our backcourt's ability to stay in front of shooters. For the first 15 minutes of the game, I felt vindicated. Olynyk and Harris were scoring at will. Karnowski played well. Illinois had no answer for our big men and Paul started creeping away from his man beyond the three point line to block shots from behind (an athletic play, but the kind of thing that can get you in trouble against a smart team). This game got away from us because we turned the ball over in the first half, went to a 3-2 zone occasionally (giving them their first easy buckets of the game and getting their offense in gear), and our backcourt missed a TON of open threes. That’s not exactly a formula for success.

Twelve turnovers in the first half! Illinois had 5 (I believe, I don’t feel like looking at the box score right now), but managed to score 20 points off of our turnovers. If you had told me pregame that we would have 12 turnovers and we went into halftime tied at 41… well, I would have said something like: “shit, that sounds crazy.” Illinois did a good job playing aggressive defense on our guards, but many of the turnovers were from lazy passing or bad hands by Karnowski, Olynyk, and Harris. They have to get better at catching the ball in traffic and kicking the ball out if the shot isn’t there.

Positives:

Olynyk kept us in the game for a stretch, shooting very well and generally being a productive player despite his turnover problems. He shot 7-9 from the field and was aggressive, which is nice. Gary Bell started out aggressive and went after his shot, which I absolutely loved. We need more of that from him. He fought his way into the lane and hit a couple tough floaters. That aggressiveness waned later on, but he was the only guard I was comfortable with shooting the ball all game. Harris was great early but he disappeared over the course of the game as the Zag backcourt failed to get him the ball consistently. When he had the ball, he did some good things, but the team didn’t scheme properly to get him involved. He’s a Wooden candidate people, this stuff isn’t that hard.

Negatives:

Allllll sorts of stuff here, but I’ll keep it brief. Pangos was awful. Probably should have been benched… just absolutely no flow to his game, not great on defense, and generally just off. Having Stockton on your bench allows you to bench your star guard if he isn’t playing well but Few thought otherwise, probably because Stockton’s late rotations led to 2-3 three pointers. Hmm… what else? Karnowski looked lost on D, but was very effective on offense. I think against a team like Illinois Few decided that Karnowski couldn’t chase a faster forward around, which is probably accurate. Brandon Paul had 35 (!) points against a variety of defenders, but definitely had his fair share of wide open shots. At some point, the coaching staff has to figure out how to shut someone down when they're going crazy like that. I don't know, double teams? Hard hedging after a ball screen to get the ball out of his hands? Something.

I put most of this loss on Coach Few, which seems like an easy cop out, but I think it’s pretty clear. Switching from man defense to a 3-2 zone gave Illinois 6 quick points (on an open 3 and a layup/foul shot) that absolutely put a dent in our early aggressive demeanor. For whatever reason, our scouting reports failed to pick up on the fact that the 3 point shot is the focal point of the Illini offense. Against a team like this, you should never go underneath a screen on the three point line, but every one of our guards did this at multiple points in the game. How does Few not make this a point of emphasis before the game? An open three point shot is the ideal result of an offensive possession for their team, meaning that guards should fight over or through screens, rather than give up the long distance shot. Inexcusable.

Rough night, but an opportunity for growth nonetheless. Hopefully, Coach Few uses this loss to hammer home more defensive principles and show that despite our high octane (usually) offense, we can’t shoot our way out of everything. There are plenty of teams that can shoot with us, but few who can hang with us in the post, and I’m sure all of those entry pass turnovers will be shown on repeat for the next few days. Tough loss! But early season losses can galvanize a team to fix weaknesses and evolve together. Let’s see if that happens.