It’s okay to say we didn’t play well. It’s the truth, it’s not the end of the world. Everyone was very gleeful when we beat Lowell by a million, it was just a pretty poor game by most of our guys today. We can recognize that.
The people saying that are not who I’m aiming at.
I dont think people believe their own takes. If for some insane reason the AP poll dropped us out of the top 10 on monday the ENTIRE board would be:
Little too early to throw in the towel because he does have a beautiful stroke. Something feels off with his timing. A little bit of me thought the precision last year was too good to be true, and you just cannot look past how bad he can be defensively. He's a tough play at times for that reason. There is just something not all there with Solo - it's a little bit like Jaylen, where there is a driftiness in their awareness that just makes them stare a lot, really inconsistent in aspects of their game. Versus a kid like Silas, who is all over the court, nose for ball. It's hard to teach instincts & awareness.
It’s also okay to be worried about Illinois, especially if Tarris (our best player) doesn’t play again.
We should have always been worried about Illinois. Nothing about tonight made me more worried. We’ve already seen this team tested. It’s not like Illinois is their first prime time test. Then I’d understand more.
AK is fine if he’s a complimentary piece that lets offense come to him. He should never try and generate his own offense, I mean never. Alex is a catch and shoot guy, and a cutter. His offensive game ends there.
Hopefully it doesn't take 4 weeks. We have Illinois, Kansas, Florida, Texas, and Butler in the next 4 weeks.
If Reed plays we win. If we were healthy we would've run Zona off the court.
AK and Solo 2 bad games in a row. Solo actually rather mediocre all season. That’s pretty worrisome to me. I’m not worried about them not improving their shooting, they certainly will. But the shot selection is bad too often . Solo not being set off curls, and AK taking super deep 3s that are way off. Solvable, but becoming a but of a habit for both.
actually think the Illini faithful will show out pretty well at MSG and it won’t be as massive as we hope.
I agree. Im guessing 60/40 UConn. Ill be there, but dont expect an overwhelming UConn crowd on Black Friday.
If my aunt had….oh never mind
Offense just seems different than is was in 23 & 24. Not quite so elegant with the motion and more passing around the perimeter
Considering we just watched the same sequence play out with Columbia and BYU it does seem a little silly to worry about Illinois based off tonight
His return almost feels like relief at this point. I’m honestly getting a little tired of watching this squad without Tarris and Mullins since we fully know it’s not the lineup that we need in March, and they are 2/3 of our star power. I’m ready to see what that chemistry looks like because what we’re watching now is pretty ugly (sans BYU w/Tarris).
Not sure why people are grouping Stewart in with the other 2. His defense has been improved except for that horrible closeout and foul on that Bryant shooter and is actually hitting 3s. Problem with Stewart is he stops looking for his shot after making a few and deferring. I like to see him more aggressive on the offensive side of the ball. He clealy has more talent than Karaban but doesnt work as hard. The other 2 are aggressive on offense but not giving us much there. I will say Karaban plays great interior D. Ball we all know doesn't play D at alll. I thought we looked better with him on the bench.
This is quite apples to oranges. We shot 39% overall and 20% from 3 tonight. Against Colombia we shot 57% overall and 43% from 3.
I wouldn't call him mediocre. His 3 point shooting hasn't been good, but his rim and mid-range game is 100% better. Defense still a weakness of his, but he is improved that over last year too. I am confident his 3 pt shot selection will improve and we'll forget all about this mini-slump. His shot is too pure not to come back around.
His problem is that he thinks he’s a spot up jump shooter, when we need more out of him than that. I can’t figure out if it’s a product of him or how Hurley uses him. To superjohns point, I don’t know what his identity is on this team. Is it a guy that makes a couple threes and every couple games?
The point was we had a whole group of posters complaining that we looked horrible, we're an overrated team, we were going to get killed by BYU because we took the 2nd half off against Columbia and only outscored them by 4. The same thing happened tonight in the 2nd half. And it was all meaningless.
I was responding noting it wasn’t very similar of a sequence.
I actually think it's the opposite problem, his role on this team is a spot up jump shooter which doesn't really fit his skillset at all. He'd look much better if we were running a KO iso heavy system where he could just get the ball and go to work to get his own shot.
