From Good to Great

So it appears that our Illini are at least good. Maybe even very good. So the question that is being asked here is, "what will it take for us to be great?"

The thing that jumps out at me first is that we need to keep our starters from picking up dumb fouls. What's interesting is that to not commit these fouls can come from a couple tactics. The first is to stop reaching in for steals and being aggressive. Really, that's not a terrible idea. But it's also not a great one. You need to stay aggressive. The refs tend to let things go if you're consistently aggressive. The opponent tends to tire out both mentally and physically if you stay aggressive. And you get cheap buckets through the cumulative effects. It's like winning a boxing match by giving solid shots to the body for 7 rounds, rather than using that one big knockout blow. You just keep working, an it takes its toll on the opposition. So, you need to stay aggressive. Where I think that we need to improve is playing defense before the guy you're guarding gets the pass. Defense without the ball is what separates the athletes from the stoppers. You can be athletic and recover from your mistakes. But if you're a true stopper, your guy may never get a chance to make that mistake, and in fact, you force guys that you're not guarding to make mistakes.

If you look at last year's team, I'd say that Deron was a stopper, who could muscle guys into submission over the course of 40 minutes. I think that Luther was an athlete who would gamble and come up big more than his fair share. But it's guys like Deron who let guys like Luther get the steals and breakaways. I don't think that we have a defensive stopper on the wing this year. I think that our bigs as a tandem can be stoppers against teams. And really, Dee can fill that role, though that's not his place on this team - last year, he could be more aggressive and take risks. This year, he needs to sag off, and not get fouls. I think that Randle is an athlete who can become a stopper. He's not there yet. He drifts in and out just about as much as Luther used to. You can win with superior team defense, but it becomes more poignant when you have a guy who just scares the daylights out of the other team with his defense.

Another aspect of this team that needs to improve for a true run at the title is the shot selection. I'm a huge fan of the 3 point shot. But I'm a fan of open 3's. Last year, you'd see our team shoot maybe 3 contested deep shots a game. This year, it's becoming relatively regular for us to run down the shot clock, not get a good shot, and then have Dee force a one-on-one move and a long shot. We need to not be quite as passive with our moves and passes on offense. I like how McBride has started a bit of a mid-range game. We need more of that. And we need Randle to start hitting open shots from 14 feet and in. Right now, you don't need to challenge him until he gets within 4 feet of the hoop. But overall, I like how aggressive Pruitt and Auggie have been the last couple weeks. We're getting very nice looks close in. But it could improve a bit, which leads us to the last point.

Our guards don't seem to recognize when our bigs are fighting hard for position. So many times, you see Auggie or Pruitt fighting hard for the spot, only to have the guard stay up a little too high to get a good angle. So, the guard dribbles away from them and reverses the ball. Instead, I'd like to see one more dribble towards the baseline in the hopes of getting a better angle into the post. Right now, all it takes is a half-front from the post defender to scare off the pass. If you force a 3/4 front or a full front to stop the pass, then all of a sudden, your ball reversal is more effective. Think of it this way. If I force you to put a full front on me, when the point takes the ball down toward the free throw line, even if the ball doesn't get inside, you see the first ball reversal take you back to the wing, and a second pass get to the other side. All of a sudden, if you look back at the original post player, he's got his guy on his back, away from the hoop. Yahtzee. Instead, our guards will hesitate, and not take the dribble deeper, instead staying high. The post defender can stay inside of the offensive player, and doesn't lose position on the reversal. The defense doesn't break down, and we end up with a challenged shot.

I think that we had a nice showing against Indiana, despite the loss. We came back strong on the road against a good team. We dug ourselves too big of a hole by playing poorly on offense early, but we almost got ourselves out. This actually gave me much more of a good feeling than beating Michigan St. at home. We competed hard in a hostile environment, and were legitimately disappointed that we didn't win. It wasn't like Iowa where we just got beaten badly, and had no real shot to win after the first 16 minutes. The Indiana loss is the sort of loss that a young team like ours needs to have once (and only once).

We'll see how it pans out. We're 18-2 right now, and 4-2 in the Big Ten. We'll take care of Purdue this Saturday and run 8-0 at home. We need to find a way to win 3 more on the road to put us at 12-4 in the Big Ten. Figure that we can handle Minnesota, regardless of where we play them. We'll see about Wisconsin, Ohio St., Michigan, and Michigan St. It will be difficult to pull out more than two wins, but if we take Wisconsin, that makes things very different. If we're 6-2 at that point, we're running the conference, and I wouldn't be shocked if we were 10-2 going into Michigan. If we're 5-3 with those road games, it could very well be that we end up 11-5 or even 10-6. I still think that a conservative estimate is that we end up with 4 or 5 losses. And if we Which still leaves us as a 2 or 3 seed, and a very possible road to go deep in the dance. And if we get hot, I still think that a 1 is up for grabs.

-Chairman