Whoops?

Well, so much for that idea. Let's just hope that we don't slide any further than a 3 seed. And really, it's not that we played terribly. We just got a little sloppy with the ball, and Michigan St. was a little better with the ball than they had been against us. Plus we gave away 5 points down the stretch on the line. I'm a little surprised that Pruitt doesn't get a little more leash to get aggressive down low. And I'm just as surprised that Warren Carter was in our crunch-time lineup. I'm even more surprised that he played alright. But, the loss happened. Michigan St. is a very talented team who got points from their bench and pulled it out. Honestly, it wouldn't shock me to see them get a 5-7 seed and cause havoc in the bracket.

We get an extra couple off days, before we get geared up for our run. Keys for our tourney run:

1) Finding ways to get Dee into good scoring position. Michigan St. defended him very well, making him work like crazy for average looks and forcing him into a lot of tough looks with the clock running down. Maybe running our 3-guard lineup with Pruitt, in lieu of Randle. Randle really hurts our half-court set when he's away from the ball. I don't know how I'd handle him, other than to go hi-low with Randle in the low, or leaving him in the post and having him go block-to-block... you just can't leave him out on the wing because they just sag and clog the lanes, plus they can extend to the opposite side much more aggressively.

2) Forcing the issue inside. We got Paul Davis his 3rd foul, and then sort of stopped going after him. If I'm running the show w/ the other team's glue guy (and only inside threat on offense) on the ropes, I stop the motion until further notice, run NBA sets to get iso-posts, and force interior doubles. Run the 3-guards, w/ Pruitt and Auggie. Leave Jamar and Rich opposite, above the arc. Bring whoever Davis is on into the low post on the near side. The other big goes to the opposite corner. Dee dribbles to the near wing, and then trigger the offense. Force Davis to either defend aggressively or to give up a lay-up. Force doubles from guys guarding Jamar and Rich for open 3's or interior doubles with Auggie cutting. Run screen and roll and force the issue with Davis if he doubles. Plus, we get Dee better looks if Davis sags. I wish we had a little more flexibility in our playbook before we get under a minute on the clock.

3) Get open J's. The huge difference between this year and last year's Illini are the number of good, open jumpers we get for our shooters. Rich has been making shots over the last couple weeks that Luther and Deron never had to take. Our combined ball movement and penetration threat was so good that other teams had to over-commit to the ball, which left our reversals wide-open. This year? Not so much. Teams can stick with us because Rich isn't the threat that Deron was. He and Jamar are at their best when they get open shots, not when they have the ball in their hands. One suggestion - instead of having our screen attack the wings, perhaps having more interior screens so that our shooters can attack the free-throw line off of a pass. I think that we need to mix-up where we look to get our shots. Getting a shooter to run baseline, and curl hard off of a screen to the free-throw line leaves you with either an open 14' shot, or a quick dump down for a dunk. Watch how the Larry Brown Pistons would run Rip Hamilton inside of the arc for quick 15 footers. Maybe we can bring that into our fold.

4) Make free-throws. A lot of it is the personality of our team. Our hustle guys don't make free-throws. Hustle guys tend to get fouled the most. Randle absolutely must make his free throws if we want to pull out ugly games like the one yesterday. Ditto for Auggie.

I think that our D is still solid. We made Michigan St. work for buckets. They didn't get much in transition. They made some tough jumpers on us. And after the first 8 miutes, we even made Davis work for his buckets (he got some easy 16 footers on us early, and hit them all). We won't face a team that talented until the Sweet 16, or maybe the Elite 8. Hopefully, we'll have time to get on a run in time for that. Otherwise, it'll be a lousy spring break.

-Chairman