I agree since Illinois has played at least decent competition throughout the year. SD St played the Mountain West, which is horrible. This is going to be a much bigger challenge.
And ISU isn't even a good offensive team. That's very telling
Yeah, that matchup is a give and take. Clingan will put Hawkins in a body bag on the offensive end, but I think if you’re underwood, you have to do it. With Castle on Shannon, you can’t also have Clingan camped in the paint.
we also put up 95 pts on St Johns and their mid 50's rated defense versus Illinois mid 80's rated defense. Run our offense the way we've been running it and the open shots will be there to make
Yes on our O. But getting into a shoot out with them is a little risky. We had to have 95 to win that SJ game. Illinois is a better offensive team than the JohnnIes.
I think our size on defense is going to present them problems as much (if not more) than their size does ours.
In last year's Elite 8 we played a team with an offense equally as good as ours, but with a D that was much worse, and we won by 30.
Their backcourt is like 6'6, 6'6 6'6 and probably accustomed to getting to bully smaller guards. Not so with us. And that doesn't even get to the impact of Clingan (though I expect them to mitigate this by pulling their center to the 3 point line).
Getting into a shootout bodes well for UConn, because we have the defense to get a few stops down the stretch and they do not
He's very mobile and shoots 38% on 4.5 attempts per game. I'm not particularly worried about Clingan guarding him but Samson is a much better matchup. Clingan will give up some points on defense but he's going to eat him alive on offense like the Northwestern game
So you think Clingan will follow Hawkins to 3 point line? How many and at what % does Hawkins shoot 3’s?
Never mind, saw Naverys post, thx
And Illinois is a worse defensive team than St John's - we will have open shots against their defense.
Their main lineup is a true 5-out offense, Hawkins takes half his shots from 3, and makes a good clip.
No chance
Let Coleman Hawkins take threes. Lock up Shannon and have Clingan anchoring our D down low.
All I’m saying is that they are dangerous in a shoot out and better at it than St Johns. You disagree? 95-90 vs St. John’s wasn’t our shining night. 90 points isn’t a lot of defensive stops.. I think it is risky against Illinois, especially if our shooting is off. Our D must be the key and, as usual, keep DC out of foul trouble.
I do disagree, they're a really good team and better than St John's on offense, but they're a much worse defensive team than St John's. They don't force turnovers and much like UConn like to force teams off the 3 point line, which I think UConn will be more than happy to do and let Clingan abuse Hawkins inside and our guards drive to the basket.
