Illini Outlook

First of all, it's official. I just won my 2nd meaningless fantasy football league of the year. Somehow, I'm still bitter over winning these two leagues, and not the UPL league. I think that it's because I'm watching the players on my UPL league all put up big numbers this week, almost as if they were mocking me. Still, if I was a reasonable person, two wins and a runner-up would be a good season. But, I have some sort of mental disorder, so somehow I'm still annoyed. Oh well.

In any case I want to have a little discussion about our Illini hoops squad this year. Right now we're 8-5 with a couple of nice wins over Arizona St. and Mizzou. We've had 2 tough losses to Maryland and Arizona, and two terrible home losses to Miami (OH) and Tennessee St. Really, any of those could have been W's. Our only legit loss was to a pretty good Duke team. Even being optimistic, we're looking at something like 19-10 in the regular season. If we can get a win in the Big Ten tourney, we'd be 20-11, and firmly on the bubble for another trip to the big dance. I have a suspicion that it would take 11-5, and 2 wins in the Big Ten tourney to lock up a trip, which will be a tough task.

There are some things that are good about this squad. First of all, we're good on defense. We're not dominating, but if you're a bad team that only has 1 or 2 legit ball handlers, we'll tear you up. We'll talk more about our defense later. And I love the effort that we play with on both sides of the ball. We work hard, scrapping away, getting loose balls, and fighting on the boards. Shaun Pruitt is an adequate rebounder for his size, and Chester Frazier is the best rebounder on our team, and one of the best I've ever seen, pound for pound. We're also athletic. In addition to Brian Randle, we also have Mike Davis and Rodney Alexander as 6'8", wing guys that can fly.
Of course, if you've watched any of our games, you also know that we're flawed on offense, perhaps fatally so. Obviously, there are problems with shooting. We don't have much as far as consistent shooting goes. Pruitt is a rock down low, but you see some flaws that will keep him from being drafted (barring improvement). He's sort of flipping the ball at the hoop, rather than elevating and shooting it. He won't get away with that at the next level. He's picked up a little hook shot to go with his drop stop and his step through, which makes him legitimate in the low block. However, his lack of explosiveness keeps him from being dominant. One thing that he's improved on this year is putting the ball on the floor for 1 or 2 dribbles, and creating a little more on his own. Also, he's had a number of assists from the high post to open cutters, primarily Randle. So, he's improved, but it's been an incremental improvement, rather than a quantum leap. He may get a look from some NBA folks just from his size, but will need a lot of work to get drafted at all. But he is still one of the better offensive options in the Big Ten.

The rest of the squad is less inspiring. Two players that have done alright are Trent and Randle. Trent needs to have someone else make a play so that he's open. He's absolutely deadly against bad defenses, but struggles getting open shots against good ones. Randle has improved his outside shooting, but it's still only adequate, and not a n offensive strength, as he has not been actively taking the ball to the hole. One thing that I would like to see is for us to trigger a screen and roll with Randle as the handler and another big as the screener. That would make for a much tougher switch for most teams that the big/little screen and roll that most teams use. This doesn't require excellent ball handling, and can get Randle a lot more looks going to the hoop. Remember, with a big/little pick and roll, teams either double or fight through. If we had good penetrators, that becomes advantageous, but we're not great off the bounce with our guards. However, with a big/big pick and roll, most teams will switch. You also don't see teams double the big/big, because it's easier for bigs to pass over the top from doubles, and teams hate it when their bigs get fouls 20' from the hoop. If you fight through, you end up with an easy roll to the hoop for Pruitt. Off of the switch, you get Randle against a 5, creating a mismatch against most lineups.

I'd say that Calvin Brock has improved a bit on offense. He's hitting some clutch shots, but misses a lot of easy shots over the course of the game. It would be better if he was creating, since he's like Trent in that he requires someone else to get him an open shot, but has a little more versatility in how he can score.

After that it gets ugly. Rodney is about the same as Randle, only he gets lost more on offense (and defense, too). Right now, he's a bit in Bruce's doghouse, and seems to only score off of hustle (though you can say the same thing for the entire team). I think that Chester looks better shooting than he did last year, but he's still a liability out there as a shooter. However, his form looks to be alright, and it wouldn't shock me if he were to improve quite a bit between now and when he graduates. As far as the newcomers go, there are some worth talking about.

Dimitri is a little streaky, and probably is still used to being the lead scorer, and has to adapt. However, he's getting to handle the rock more, so maybe his offense will pick up. I like his game, though. He's sort of a power guard, in the Deron Williams mold. He moves his feet quickly enough to be a solid defender (can't tell if he can be shut down defender, yet). His outside shooting is a bit streaky, but the fundamentals are there, though from what I recall, his shot is a bit long. He's also able to get to the middle of the court consistently for a mid-range J (which is what I loved about Deron, even when he was shooting poorly as a freshman). What I haven't seen is his court vision, but in our offense, that's one of the hardest things to pick up.

Early in the season, I commented that if this team was going to do well, Dimitri would have to emerge as the 2nd best guard on this team. So far that hasn't happened, but I still believe that the rotation at guard needs to have both Chester and Dimitri in there if we want to get effective movement on offense. Trent doesn't make mistakes, but doesn't make the people around him better. Calvin is pretty much a liability on offense until he gets the ball in his hands.

One player who I could see getting more run down the stretch is Bill Cole, as his outside shot looks to be legit. He also has a solid hoops IQ/court awareness. He seems to move in the motion offense naturally (while many of his teammates still look like they need a GPS out there), and consistently makes the solid pass. I have a suspicion that he's our best option in the high post against the zone. Of course, he's a bit slow to play against a lot of 3's, and not quite strong enough against 4's.

Mike Tisdale has been the first center off of the bench, and has been very solid defensively, despite not being strong enough to really play. You can also tell that he has some very good fundamental offensive skills (a hook shot and a drop step down low), but isn't strong enough to get them working, yet. He also has a reasonable outside shot, ala Nick "Chainsaw" Smith. In fact, I think that we heard some "Chainsaw" chants from Krush earlier in the season. In 3 years, I think that he'll be awfully good, but right now, he's just not there. That said, he competes on defense very well, moves well for a 7-footer, and seems to be a pretty good shot blocker. He draws fouls because he's not strong enough to keep his man from getting the initial contact on him, so he fouls as he's pushed back.

Oddly enough, I think that of all of our big men, Davis already has the most refined offensive game. He's a solid finisher, and has a mid-range jumper, and a little hook down low that is efficient. I actually like his upside quite a bit, with him reminding me a bit of Brian Cook on the offensive end. Cookie was bigger and could get some easier buckets because of his size. But Davis' offensive game is at least as developed as Cook's was during his freshman year, minus the cheap interior buckets. Cook also became a pretty good defender and rebounder as he developed. I think that with effort, Davis could do the same. He's hampered by having narrow shoulders, otherwise his ceiling would be as a legit NBA prospect. But, he can still get stronger and become a very good Big Ten player.

And, our free throw shooting has been atrocious. It all starts with Shaun Pruitt, because he gets fouled so often in the low block. He's shortened up his motion, which helps reduce the number of things that can go wrong, but there's still a bad hitch in there. I'm guessing that there will be a little improvement from last year, but 60% would be considered a success. Our other players all have problems on the line, but without the obvious mechanical problems. As a team, we're giving away about 5 points a game on the line, and I think that we'd only have 1 or 2 losses, at most, if we were an average or better free throw shooting team.

Perhaps our biggest weakness that no one recognizes is our lack of ball-handling/passing. Really, we only have two legitimate ball handlers on our team, Chester and Dimitri. Trent is not a ball handler against legitimate defenses. Calvin is not a ball handler under any circumstance. So even when we're running a 3-guard offense, our ball handling is sub-par, unless we have Chester and Dimitri in the ball game. Our forwards don't help the cause. Brian Randle has been very limited, even considering he's a forward. Same goes for Rodney Alexander. And our centers, Shaun Pruitt and Mike Tisdale are average, at best. When we play against teams that like to pressure, we struggle getting into our offense.

The other thing is our execution on offense. We are bad at setting and running off of screens. Against Arizona, we had Chester and Randle throwing the ball around the perimeter, while Shaun, Calvin, and Trent were running around in circles. Calvin was setting terrible screens, and Shaun wasn't running off of them properly, and Trent just couldn't get open. It was bad. Rodney gets lost on offense, as do Calvin, Davis, and just about everyone else playing the 2/3/4 for us. Our centers have a pretty easy job, and our point guards do pretty well in the flow of our motion. It gets ugly after that.

So, with more problems than solutions, we're going to be flawed on offense. My best guess is that we need to get more minutes for Dimitri, and keep the minutes that Calvin and Trent are on the floor together at a minimum. When you have those two in there together as the 2nd and 3rd ball handlers, our team ball handling is pretty much terrible. Unfortunately, Calvin and Trent are our two best non-Pruitt scoring options right now. Trent kills bad defenses, and Calvin has been hitting clutch shots. Unfortunately, they kill the half-court offense. Perhaps playing Dimitri and Trent together is our best option, because Dimitri gets penetration the most consistently, which would open up Trent's shooting. Either that, or get our 3's the ball in the high post, and force doubles. One thing that we could do to get some more points is to get more aggressive off our in-bounds plays, particularly off of the baseline. We aren't just surrendering and lobbing high like we did a lot last year, but we're still not getting enough out of it. That's on the coach, both with X's and O's, as well as team execution on set plays.

Our offense has struggled against teams that switch up defenses. We still have problems with zones, and more recently, we've struggled against the press. Teams will mix up their press, disguising it will full-court man at times. Either one works against us, because we'll eat up 10 seconds getting it into the frontcourt, and spend another 5 seconds starting things up. We don't make teams pay for pressuring the ball in the backcourt. If I was coaching against us, I'd show press the entire game, and fall back to full-court man 75% of the time. This effectively dares us to create a shot in the half court in 20 seconds, which we struggle with mightily.

Defensively, you have some similar issues. Trent can't stop the ball against good ball handlers, and Calvin has this nasty habit of not playing defense until his guys gets the ball. Most of the time that's OK, but every once in a while it's way too late (see the easy layups that Arizona got by curling Chase Budinger into the free throw line, followed by a pass down low for a layup/dunk). And in any case, it keeps Calvin from becoming an advantage on defense. If he would make the effort to shut his guy down for the entire possession, he would be a scary defender. But given that he's sort of neutral to slightly positive on defense, it's really hard to make a case to keep him on the floor. So, it's tough to keep them together on the floor against teams with two ball handlers.

Chester is a phenomenal defender, as he's strong, works incredibly hard, and move his feet well. he also competes like crazy on the boards, so he's the lynchpin of our defense. He's our only legit stopper against opposing ball handlers. We'll see with Dimitri. He's got the footwork to play even, and competes well, but doesn't disrupt, yet. Randle can be dominant at times, but often, he's like Calvin, not playing D until his guy gets the ball. This results in some reaching fouls that could be avoided by improved footwork and positioning. But that said, he can guard guys on the wing, and down low, and can be an awesome presence. I think that one of the main reasons that we haven't seen more of Rodney is because he gets lost on D. Not Calvin-lost, but he'll lose guys after a switch or make a soft double that allows the ball to get kicked back out to his guy. Davis is also a little bit passive on D, though he does block shots from the weakside. He needs to get stronger, and keep working on getting low and moving his feet on D. In the interior, Pruitt has improved his D immensely. He works down low without picking up the cheap fouls that plagued him his first 2 seasons. He's not a great shot blocker, but makes shots tougher for the opposition. Ditto for his main sub, Tisdale.

Overall, our scheme on D has been reasonable. You'd like to see more effort from Calvin and Randle, but we're a solid defensive team overall, and can be excellent at times (when Calvin and Randle are dialed in). We can be attacked by teams with a 2nd ball handler if Trent is on the floor. And we can be attacked by players who can run off of screens if Calvin is on the floor. Our interior defense is solid, and we rebound pretty well. The problem is that we are so flawed on offense that we need our defense to create points. We can't do that. We can play teams even if we aren't scoring because our half-court defense is solid, but we don't create turnovers and cheap buckets on the other end. I would say that one way to pick up 2 fast-break buckets a game is to have Chester leak out, rather than go for the rebound, but the risk is that we don't have our best rebounder going after the ball. In any case, we need to find ways to create points off of our defense. One thing that we've been doing more in the last couple games is to double the high screens, particularly if it's Chester's man going into Pruitt. I think that this was the recipe from a few seasons ago, but becomes useless if Calvin and Randle aren't trying to get steals.

I still have apprehensions about Weber's in-game calls. I'm not sure why we're sticking with this safe, but solid, man-to-man. It wears us out, and we're not creating points off of this defense. It's one thing to try for turnovers off of a solid man, but if we're going to be passive, and try to play the other team even on defense, I would almost rather see us go 1-3-1, and have our big wings disrupt things, and keep our guys from being so gassed that they're off on their free throws. The motion offense is growing on me, but the set plays that we run when we come out of a time out are still shaky. I think that any team that struggles as much as we do adapting to defensive changes has coaching issues.

On the offensive end, we're not the most talented bunch, but our execution has some fundamental flaws. We have improved on taking an extra dribble toward the baseline to open up passes into the low block (the failure of which was the main reason Dee Brown wasn't a 1st round pick with guaranteed cash). However, we still forget that the high post is a very advantageous position for an offense. For someone like Randle catching the ball at the free throw line, it's almost too easy. You have options to drive, shoot an easy J, or pass into the low block either with a lob over a seal, or with a cutter coming from the wing against a doubler. Arizona won the game with 3 cheap lay-ups passing from the high-post down to a low-block screener. We've gotten some easy buckets with Pruitt serving the same role.

We need to force that option more, particularly against zones. The classic zone breaker is to go wing, high, and low, and force a double somewhere, and either shoot them out of the zone, or pound them out if you can get the ball into the high or low post with a 1-on-1 situation. This requires good timing from your post players, winning the spot a split second before the wing gets the ball. In turn, this requires solid screens from your bigs when they exchange high and low. Done correctly, this allows for the quick pass from the wing, since the double is likely going to hit the wing from a 2-3 zone. Unfortunately, our execution is flawed, so we are bad against the zone. This comes from the coaching, I believe.

With regard to recruiting, I'm actually OK with the kids we've brought in. I see a lot of potential in both Tisdale and Davis as forwards. Carlwell still needs to be willing to get stronger and to own the low block, but has time. Semrau has been invisible this year, but showed a knack for getting his hands on the ball last year. I have no idea what's going on with those two, with regard to eligibility. Bill Cole needs to develop the strength, but his upside is very high, given this high basketball IQ and the shooting ability. I like Dimitri quite a bit. We still need a 2 guard, though I think that Eric Gordon will fit into that role eventually. In all seriousness, we'll see how this Alex Legion transfer pans out next year. Hopefully Jerrance will help with recruiting, and maybe we can get some legit offensive players in here.

As far as this year goes, always being always the optimist, I think that we get our rotation figured out, and get Dimitri more run. I think that we get things figured out and become a scary team in the dance, like we should have been last year (honestly, we gave that game away to VT, and would have drilled Southern Illinois). No one wants to play teams that will beat you up, and make your offense ugly. That's what we do. If we can just figure out how to score a few easy buckets, whether it's on the line or off of turnovers, we have a shot at the Sweet 16. If not, we may have a shot at the Sweet 16 of the NIT.

-Chairman