UConn vs Illinois (Final Four) | Page 5 | The Boneyard

UConn vs Illinois (Final Four)

bendm said:
Illinois’ size don’t concern me. They have length sure but they aren’t as good defensively as Duke was. The ivisic twins cannot handle reeds strength/mass. Mirkovic is not close to the player Boozer is as an inside scoring threat. And Stojakovic is not a physical mismatch for Mullins like yaxel or even Sarr.
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The things that give us trouble on that end of the floor, they don't do.

On defense, I'd expect a lot of Ross in this game to deal with their size.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
If Demary is a split-second later in getting to Boozer, he passes to Ngongba who dunks it and we lose by 4, and we rue having screwed up the previous possession (wasting 20 seconds before getting free throws) and the trap/foul at the end.
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Another point being missed is that possession arrow belonged to UConn on that last play. Very risky for Ngongba to hold the ball in the middle of the floor like that with that much time left. I guess you would literally have to bearhug the ball and risk not getting called for 5-seconds or getting a tie-up call. Not an instinctive play by any means. I just bring this up because everyone is saying all he had to do was hold the ball. Not so simple. He was put in a bad position.
 
Marat said:
Physicality will be key. Once we turned up the volume on the defense and aggressiveness in 2nd half vs Duke the game became ours to take.

One thing we'll have to tighten up is the physical defense vs Boswell as he was taking it to us in that game in Nov. Lesson learned.

After Duke defeated Michigan last month , Yaxel was saying that UM was not prepared for their physicality since they didn't face that in the B10 and were not prepared. I think Zona will out-physical UM and therefore win - but hopefully in a battle of attrition.
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I think Silas and Malachi are better defenders now than they were in late November.

To add to my original post, our mental fortitude is a huge advantage over most teams.

Every team we have faced in this tournament has been gassed in the second half by the physicality and constant action. If you combine that with the mental edge that I think we have, we are very tough to beat.
 
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noelle said:
you'd hope this was the game that lifts the psychological burden off of the team. they've been shooting terribly for the past month, and still made it to the final 4 against the toughest bracket.
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W/out our snakes head. Silas is like 60%. Jaystew 50%. Let’s Go!!
 
HW611 said:
At this point I’ve placed my bet on us to win it all.

Let’s have fun this weekend no matter what on what has been a very successful season!!!

Let’s get 7!!!!
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I have a couple going.

I did 2 brackets too, and I did one with us losing E8 and one with us winning it all which I almost always do it that way. My bracket with us losing is by far my best one, so I guess the Karma gods got me.
 
UCTitleTown said:
We beat Illinois by 13 at a "neutral" site earlier this season. How are they a 1.5 pt. favorite? I guess the bookmakers expect it to be an Illinois home game.
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I’m sure they’re also baiting the masses who will emotionally (and correctly so) place money on UConn to cover that in the context of this week and recent history.
 
TroyHall98 said:
I think Silas and Malachi are better defenders now than they were in late November.

To add to my original post, our mental fortitude is a huge advantage over most teams.

Every team we have faced in this tournament has been gassed in the second half by the physicality and constant action. If you combine that with the mental edge that I think we have, we are very tough to beat.
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Fall game with them was funky as Wagler did very little, but Boswell went for 25. Illinois shot it poorly from 3, we outrebounded them. Reibe had a nice game, and I think he matches up well here again.
 
RuffRuff said:
Fall game with them was funky as Wagler did very little, but Boswell went for 25. Illinois shot it poorly from 3, we outrebounded them. Reibe had a nice game, and I think he matches up well here again.
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I might be wrong about this but Wagler does not seem to have the profile of someone who can give us trouble. I’m not saying Illinois can’t beat us. I just don’t think it’s because of Wagler. I think it’s probably the guys who can switch as 5s to 4s.
 
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TroyHall98 said:
I might be wrong about this but Wagler does not seem to have the profile of someone who can give us trouble. I’m not saying Illinois can’t beat us. I just don’t think it’s Wagler. I think it’s probably the guys who can switch as 5s to 4s.
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With you - he's not the kind of profile that presents issues. I think Silas can get in his grill.
 
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TroyHall98 said:
I might be wrong about this but Wagler does not seem to have the profile of someone who can give us trouble. I’m not saying Illinois can’t beat us. I just don’t think it’s Wagler. I think it’s probably the guys who can switch as 5s to 4s.
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Wagler can give anyone trouble, he's one of the best players in the country. He doesn't scare me like Boozer did matchup wise though.
 
I’m hearing today that they have a lot more firepower than us. Our defense against their firepower. And they have a better guard playing than earlier.
 
In looking at the 1st matchup, some notes:

1. We were 10/28 from 3. They were 6/29. The major difference in the game in a 13 point win. They were plus 5 from the foul line.

2. We were plus 5 on the rebounding. We had 63 attempts, they had 60.

3. We had 19 assists to their 10 assists.

4. Both teams had outlier performances in this. Smith had 14 points, and Reibe had 8. Reed had 2, and Mullins had 2. For Illinois, Boswell had 25.
 
BFieldHusky said:
In looking at the 1st matchup, some notes:

1. We were 10/28 from 3. They were 6/29. The major difference in the game in a 13 point win. They were plus 5 from the foul line.

2. We were plus 5 on the rebounding. We had 63 attempts, they had 60.

3. We had 19 assists to their 10 assists.

4. Both teams had outlier performances in this. Smith had 14 points, and Reibe had 8. Reed had 2, and Mullins had 2. For Illinois, Boswell had 25.
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Worth noting, we played that game at our pace. We held them to their lowest output of the year at 61, by a wide margin. They are the #1 KP team offense, so this will be important.

Pace is going to be important no matter who we play in the F4. If we play Michigan, I'd think we have to also keep the pace slow. I feel like Arizona is the one team that can adjust to playing a grinder.
 
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RuffRuff said:
Worth noting, we played that game at our pace. We held them to their lowest output of the year at 61, by a wide margin. They are the #1 KP team offense, so this will be important.

Pace is going to be important no matter who we play in the F4. If we play Michigan, I'd think we have to also keep the pace slow. I feel like Arizona is the one team that can adjust to playing a grinder.
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Good point. I expect us to play this game in the same type of pace. Illinois is not a team that is going to speed us up.

This is why St. John's was a bad matchup for us this year. They forced us to play much faster than we want. Not so much in the 2nd game because we controlled turnovers and rebounding. Need to do the same in this game.
 
BFieldHusky said:
In looking at the 1st matchup, some notes:

1. We were 10/28 from 3. They were 6/29. The major difference in the game in a 13 point win. They were plus 5 from the foul line.

2. We were plus 5 on the rebounding. We had 63 attempts, they had 60.

3. We had 19 assists to their 10 assists.

4. Both teams had outlier performances in this. Smith had 14 points, and Reibe had 8. Reed had 2, and Mullins had 2. For Illinois, Boswell had 25.
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I'm going out on a limb and predict Reed has more than 2 points this time around.
 
RuffRuff said:
Were you in Zona with Purdue?

I think what made that win special last night is after the first half and seeing how dominant Boozer looked, it felt like there was zero answers for him. And I mean zero. Anytime they ran anything through him, he'd either get a bucket or find a very open man, as we were triple teaming him at times.

I don't know what happened in the second half, maybe he tired out or the black eye phased him a bit, but they totally moved away from how they looked to find him with intention. Tarris playing out of his mind was also hard to predict. You could expect good, but he was other worldly great.
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I can't agree with this. I thought our strategy was pretty effective when our defense was set.

The 1 for 16 shooting created a lot of rebounds and breaks for them.

I thought the 15 point deficit was largely a result of the bad shooting, and let's not forget that Carolina was hot from 3 point land, and a lot of their shots were contested.

If someone pulls up the game chat, they'll have me saying exactly this at the end of the first half.

I didn't think we looked any worse against Boozer than any other team did.
 
We've got all the momentum in the world coming off Duke and I like our staff's chances of outfoxing Underwoodivic and his crew. Hopefully we take the clutch late shooting and turn it into a hot streak at the best time of the year.
 
TroyHall98 said:
I think Silas and Malachi are better defenders now than they were in late November.

To add to my original post, our mental fortitude is a huge advantage over most teams.

Every team we have faced in this tournament has been gassed in the second half by the physicality and constant action. If you combine that with the mental edge that I think we have, we are very tough to beat.
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More likely than not, Ross will get the bulk of assignment of guarding Wagler who is just too tall for Malachi. Silas maybe.
 
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BFieldHusky said:
Not worried about the crowd advantage. I feel like we dodged death last night. We have a new lease on life. If our biggest concern in this game is the crowd factor, I'm really not worried.
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In our last two games, we survived a 19 point comeback against one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, and executed a 19 point comeback against an overall 1 seed. Idk how this team could fear anything at this point.
 
it really depends on the shooting and by extension the cause of the slumps. if it's a mental thing then we can probably expect the guys to shoot better. if it's a tired/injury/physicality thing then they probably won't be nearly as bad compared to duke/st johns.

i don't think we'll win 100% of course, but matchup wise they are pretty chill.
 
Durks07 said:
How it started:



How it's going:

images
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JI missed
Durks07 said:
How it started:



How it's going:

images
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I missed it....did he play yesterday??
 
Rocktheworld said:
In our last two games, we survived a 19 point comeback against one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, and executed a 19 point comeback against an overall 1 seed. Idk how this team could fear anything at this point.
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idk...i certainly fear foul trouble to tarris reed and shooting 1-18 form behind the arc
 
uh-no said:
idk...i certainly fear foul trouble to tarris reed and shooting 1-18 form behind the arc
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We could probably absorb some FT with Reed against illinois as Reibe could matchup with the euro bigs, not so much with Zona/UM.
 
I checked the Wikipedia page today:

F4.png

Not bad for a mid-major conference! For as long as Connecticut remains in the Big East this league is guaranteed to command a high level of respect. NO ACC, NO SEC! Power-4 administrators probably hate this so much!
 
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