One Down, Two to Go
So, in my previous Illini hoops posting, I suggested that we needed 3 more road wins to get to 12-4 and to win the Big Ten. Well, the first step happened in convincing fashion tonight. We thumped Wisconsin 66-51 at their place. This puts us temporarily in first place all alone, and more importantly, this leaves our Big Ten destiny in our own hands.
I think that we came out a little too amped up. Within the first 2 minutes, we missed 3 shots (including a dunk by Randle), 2 free throws, and found ourselves down 6-0. Our looks were fine, and I was OK with Wisconsin getting those two deep ones. You had to figure that our D was going to come through and make it harder on them, which it did. We came back strong to actually take the lead going into the first TV timeout.
And then the wheels almost came off. Rich got 2 quick fouls, we couldn't hit anything other than inside stuff from Randle, and Wisconsin reeled off a 13-6 run before we called timeout. What got scary was that after the timeout, we didn't really score, and then Jamar went off and fouled one of their guys when they were shooting a 3. Whoops. They were up 24-13, when we got things going again. The D turned up a notch, and we held them scoreless for about 8 minutes, while our shooting got back on track. It was strange - you blink, and then boom. We're up 26-24. And we even stretched it out to 8 points, before we eneded up by 6 at the half.
The second half was generally solid, as Wisconsin hung around, made a little run, before we put together a run to close out the game. And as usual, our defense made us go. We ended up with 10 steals, and they all seemed to lead to easy buckets. It was fun to watch us pretty much own them on that end of the court. They definitely were able to get some nice looking buckets, creating isolation opportunities for Tucker. But Randle held his own. And really, they died from beyond the arc, as they started our 2 for 2, but ended up 1 for 18. Ouch.
As I was watching, I was impressed by our team D. They were running this high 4-1, with a bunch of motion from 25 feet away, and then trying to create isolations for Tucker and Taylor. I don't think that you can really keep them from getting those every once in a while, but at the same time, we were all over the place, punishing them when they were forced into having their other players handle the ball. I think that this goes back to other teams needing to have 5 guys who can legitimately makes passes to really beat our defense consistently. Wisconsin clearly didn't have it, as their big men were stiff, and just didn't seem comfortable against pressure. The offense was solid, but not spectacular. We need to get Randle some confidence in that 8-15 foot range. He can get that shot whenever he wants. And really, that's the shot that Rich has brought in, and scored effectively on over the last couple weeks. If Rich is an honest 3rd option (and I mean 10 points a game from here on out), then we become a very scary team.
Anyway, this puts is at 20-2, 6-2 in the Big Ten. We'll handle Penn St. The next interesting test is at Ohio St. We'll have some revenge in mind after last year's debacle. We're still looking at 25-5, and 11-5 in the Big Ten as a worst case scenario, really. That may be enough to tie for the conference championship. And we have a legit shot to win this thing outright at 12-4 (or maybe even 13-3 if things fall in the right places). We're probably not going to win in both Ann Arbor and Lansing, so I think that 14-2 is a bit too ambitious. But most of the other contending Big Ten teams are looking at 10-6. Oddly enough, Iowa is probably the biggest threat to us, as they look to be able to finish up 11-5 (though they are a very unpredicatble team that can be very bad at times). I don't know, but I wouldn't be shocked if we won the Big Ten by 2 games.
Anyway, for now we're first in the Big Ten, a 1 seed in Bracketology, and looking like a legit Elite 8/Final 4 team. Exciting stuff!
-Chairman
3 comments:
Admittedly, I didn't see the game. However, I was encouraged to see the box score reveal 4 starters scoring in double digits and the the fifth being Auggie, who got 10 boards.
It looks like only 3 of our bench players got in the game and scored just 3 points. Although, I suppose that's status quo in the college game.
Well, it's looking like much of who plays is determined by the other team's lineup and style on offense. More and more in college ball, teams are willing to go with 3 guards and only 2 big guys. And sometimes, the big guys are so limited offensively that you don't lose anything by putting a smaller guy on them.
For example, when Wisconsin was running that 4-1, with all the high motion, you really can only have either Pruitt or Auggie in there, as you don't want to expose Auggie to more fouls, and Pruitt can't defend out there every possession. Similarly, you just can't sub in Marcus Arnold, since you have a fresh Pruitt waiting on the bench.
Similarly, against Purdue, they had a big guy (Kiefer) who was much more comfortable on the wing than in the post. He got a couple outside jumpers and a nice drive against Auggie, mainly because Auggie can't afford to give fouls out there, so has to be passive. Pruitt or Arnold would be even worse out there. So, since Kiefer wasn't a post threat, we put Randle on him, and only played Auggie/Pruitt one at a time.
I think that teams are going to do this more, since most teams won't be able to overpower our rotation of Auggie/Pruitt/Arnold at 4/5. If that's the case, then we'll have games where Marcus can't get off of the bench, just because of the matchups.
-Chairman
Interesting points. I'm not up to speed on all of that stuff since I've only seen this team play once. BTW, did Jamar Smith start? One place I read that he started, but another place said Pruit started. If that's the case, then I guess we had 15 points of the bench.
I guess the important thing is that some of the younger guys seem to be adjusting to Big 10 play and meshing as a team.
I think March Madness will be particularly "mad" this year. Whereas last year the top two seeds made the finals, I think this year could be more of a dice roll.
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