Illinois Defensive Matchups

[JCisthegoat]

Their metrics are very similar to Bama. Lots of O, not much D. Interesting matchup - but again - play our game our way and it should play out in our favor.

At this stage I think this is much more about how Hurley (and staff) have our team prepared and making sure our heads are in the game than who the opponent is. And I've seen no reason to believe that the preparation and focus will be anything short of on point.

We now have the 3rd highest KenPom rating in history with 3 more games left to play. That's how historically good we are.

Fast paced teams who are bad at defending usually don’t do well in tournament. They usually meet the fate Kentucky met. But there is a degree of randomness in the tournament.

slow pace/great D/ weak O > fast pace/Great O/ Weak D.

Ill be pretty shocked if we lost to a team that grades out as bad defensively as Bama and Illinois do

 

[cohenzone]

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.

St John's is also the only team to break 70 points since January 10th so I'm not even really sure of the relevance. And that includes 5 games against Creighton and Marquette who are both better offensive teams than St John's. That game was pretty clearly an abberation

Please note that if it comes down to a shoot out, there is a strong implication that we are not getting the stops all game long that you say we will get in crunch time. I guarantee you that the last thing Hurley wants is a shoot out. i hope we don’t get to find out. If they are a much worse defensive team than the Johnnies we should score an easy 100.

 

[JCisthegoat]

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.

We oddly gave up a lot of ORB in that game. St. John’s had a great shooting night from 3. And they took 17 more shots then us in a pretty up and down game.

 

[tzznandrew]

Please note that if it comes down to a shoot out, there is a strong implication that we are not getting the stops all game long that you say we will get in crunch time. I guarantee you that the last thing Hurley wants is a shoot out. i hope we don’t get to find out. If they are a much worse defensive team than the Johnnies we should score an easy 100.

They have little to no rim protection and Iowa State got to the bucket at will. Their guards were just small and struggled to finish.

Similarly, they're lazy at defense. They make aggressive attempts to jump the passing lane, but forcing them into a deliberate defense is exactly the sort of thing that will lead to defensive breakdowns and wear them down on offense.

Nothing against Underwood, but he ain't Pitino.

 

[Huskyforlife]

I like the idea of putting Clingan on Rodgers so he can float towards the ball handler off ball. If Hawkins is capable of posting up Karaban consistently, move Clingan back over.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

The thing that would worry me is if they put Hawkins at the 5 to bring Clingan out the paint. If they did that they’d have a huge disadvantage on the boards and on defense though.

No snark, just asking a question I don't know the answer to:

How did Illinois do against Purdue/Edey?

 

[Scrappy3]

Full court ball pressure— they. Have no pg

Not team pressure. Ball handler. Diarra will be nightmare for them

 

[husky429]

No snark, just asking a question I don't know the answer to:

How did Illinois do against Purdue/Edey?

Lost by single-digits both times. Edey played okay in the first game, and had 28 in the second game.

 

[husky429]

I like the idea of putting Clingan on Rodgers so he can float towards the ball handler off ball. If Hawkins is capable of posting up Karaban consistently, move Clingan back over.

Just like playing Clingan off Ledee was an idea on here, I really doubt this happens. It will be interesting to see what we do. This matchup could be big one for Samson. At the end of the day, Hawkins isn't going to beat you... If we shut down Shannon, we win. So we keep Clingan in the post.

IMO they have one player who can beat us. We have 5 who could beat them. Illinois is a damn good team, so this probably won't be easy, but we have more margin for error.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

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.

St John's is also the only team to break 70 points since January 10th so I'm not even really sure of the relevance. And that includes 5 games against Creighton and Marquette who are both better offensive teams than St John's. That game was pretty clearly an abberation

Creighton had like 84 against us in our loss

 

[cohenzone]

They have little to no rim protection and Iowa State got to the bucket at will. Their guards were just small and struggled to finish.

Similarly, they're lazy at defense. They make aggressive attempts to jump the passing lane, but forcing them into a deliberate defense is exactly the sort of thing that will lead to defensive breakdowns and wear them down on offense.

Nothing against Underwood, but he ain't Pitino.

I’m not saying we won’t score. We will. All i did was pose one scenario that I think would be risky. Not saying it will happen or that we would lose a shoot out. Just risky and they are much better at putting up points than St.Johns even though I agree that that game seems like an outlier.

 

[Husky68]

Their metrics are very similar to Bama. Lots of O, not much D. Interesting matchup - but again - play our game our way and it should play out in our favor.

At this stage I think this is much more about how Hurley (and staff) have our team prepared and making sure our heads are in the game than who the opponent is. And I've seen no reason to believe that the preparation and focus will be anything short of on point.

We now have the 3rd highest KenPom rating in history with 3 more games left to play. That's how historically good we are.

Think that must also include less stellar defensive stats before Clingan came back fully.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

I haven't seen a single poster mention it, but it seems like Stewart might also be someone who can play some tough defense for a few minutes on Shannon in case Diarra is getting burned because of height differential.

 

[navery12]

Creighton had like 84 against us in our loss

That is correct, was looking at the right side of the games and forgot there was a loss in there. Point remains though, those games are an abberation

 

[dogpause]

I think we'll try to take away the 3-point shot as much as possible. Make them score 2 points at a time.
Put different players on Shannon in the first half and force him to work to get the ball. Force him to stay in motion.
Illinois will want to run, believing that is the way to beat us. I disagree--it will just help weaken their defense and lead to runs.
The Illini are a really good team, and Shannon is terrific, but he's got a skill set that we can game plan for. I look for a close game until we go on a run. Their fans think the pressure is all on us, but it's on the team playing us, knowing that at any moment we might break it open.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Just like playing Clingan off Ledee was an idea on here, I really doubt this happens. It will be interesting to see what we do. This matchup could be big one for Samson. At the end of the day, Hawkins isn't going to beat you... If we shut down Shannon, we win. So we keep Clingan in the post.

IMO they have one player who can beat us. We have 5 who could beat them. Illinois is a damn good team, so this probably won't be easy, but we have more margin for error.

Hawkins isn’t a threat like Ledee though. He’ll keep Clingan on the perimeter and make it difficult to help on drives. That’s the only reason I’d consider it.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

No snark, just asking a question I don't know the answer to:

How did Illinois do against Purdue/Edey?

Two close losses. Looks like they got Edey in foul trouble for the first game but Shannon didn’t play. Then he had 28 and 8 in the second where Shannon struggled big time.

Purdue 83-78 Illinois (Jan 5, 2024) Box Score - ESPN

Box score for the Purdue Boilermakers vs. Illinois Fighting Illini NCAAM game from January 5, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.

www.espn.com

Purdue 77-71 Illinois (Mar 5, 2024) Box Score - ESPN

Box score for the Purdue Boilermakers vs. Illinois Fighting Illini NCAAM game from March 5, 2024 on ESPN. Includes all points, rebounds and steals stats.

www.espn.com

 

[J187Money]

Think that must also include less stellar defensive stats before Clingan came back fully.

It does. And all of the games that Castle didn't play or wasn't fully ramped up.

 

[cwh20]

And Illinois is a worse defensive team than St John's - we will have open shots against their defense.

I agree. St John’s knows UConn, Illinois doesn’t. I agree with what Mark Few said in the Cowherd show. Having to get ready for UConn, especially on the second day of the weekend games is really tough. UConn doesn’t run the same offense as 90% of college teams. That’s a very quick turnaround to try and prepare for all they do.

 

[Hi-Low]

I hope we send Shannon to the showers in disgrace after a horrible game...so he can prepare for his pending trial.

 

[6xChamps]

Yeah they are an interesting team.

6'6 Rodgers - inside rebounder/defender - Newton?
6'8 Guerrier - Finally putting together a good shooting year at his third college, bad defender from what I have seen - Karaban
6'10 Hawkins - do it all player who is either outstanding or completely moronic - Clingan
6'6 Domask - Scorer but not really a great shooter, though he is streaky as hell. poor defender - Cam
6'6 Shannon - Best scorer in the NCAAT probably. Plays passing lanes and gambles on defense. - Castle

6'9 Danja - thick body, good rebounder, nice touch near the rim.
6'7 Goode - Shooter

First team in awhile that has the same height on the perimeter as UConn.

This is how I see it too. One key will be Cam on Domask. Domask is really good and does the booty ball thing like Villanova does which could be a difficult guard. Other big one is Hawkins v Clingan. Two totally different bigs, Clingan needs to dominate downlow to dictate that matchup.

Shannon will get his but Castle is the best defender he's seen in a while.

 

[ColchVEGAS]

The question that should be asked before every game is, how do they guard us?

Our matchup against them is as straightforward as it can be. Put Castle on Shannon. When Shannon is not in the game Illinois is a completely different team, just look at last night vs ISU. If Castle is successful at removing Shannon from the game, like he did Boo Buie, we cruise.

 

[tzznandrew]

Creighton had like 84 against us in our loss

A thing to note for those trying to draw conclusions about that game: Creighton also played great defense. Because they have a Top 10 offense and a Top 20 defense, along with Kalkbrenner, who offers rim protection and defense in the paint.

 

[tzznandrew]

I’m not saying we won’t score. We will. All i did was pose one scenario that I think would be risky. Not saying it will happen or that we would lose a shoot out. Just risky and they are much better at putting up points than St.Johns even though I agree that that game seems like an outlier.

They're much better at putting up points, but they're also much worse at stopping other teams from putting up points.

 

[cohenzone]

They're much better at putting up points, but they're also much worse at stopping other teams from putting up points.

Okay, so a shoot out isn’t risky against that team. Got it.