The Illinois basketball team had a good showing in their first outing of the season. They will return to the court this weekend to take on Quincy University who will already be battle tested after a match-up with Notre Dame taking place tonight. I expect the Illini to win obviously, but for me to call the game a success, there are a few things I will be looking for in particular.
1. Rebounding with attitude. A lot has been said about this team's lack of a true bruiser down low. Mike Davis is an exceptional rebounder for someone with his body type. Mike Tisdale, who has a similar frame to that of Davis, has a little more trouble banging the boards. I never expect Tisdale to pull in 8 rebounds per night, but the number needs to be higher than 4 like it was last year. He did a good job against an undersized Missouri Southern last week and led the game with 9 boards. Guys like Tyler Griffey, Dominique Keller, and Bill Cole can up their playing time in a big way by showing this coaching staff that they are able to grab some missed shots. Overall, this team is going to out rebound others by hustling and not pure rebounding prowess... and that's ok. Bruce Weber has really gotten the whole team, including the freshman, to buy into the Matto Chart, and I would say that one thing his teams always do is work hard.
2. Cut down the turnovers. Demetri McCamey said after last week's game that the turnovers were obviously an issue for a team that runs an offense hinging on clean passes and crisp ball control. He did, however, say that it wasn't a concern, and it's something every team will go through while knocking the rust off. Either way you have to agree with McCamey that the turnovers are understandable at this point. Out of the 200 minutes played for the Illini in the first game, 78 of them went to freshman... and so did just under half of the turnovers. I'm not trying to say that 19 turnovers is ever acceptable, but I'm not worried about that aspect of our team just yet.
3. Take it to the hole. How much fun is it watching the guys go strong to the bucket and look to score? I think the whole mentality of this offense has changed. Brandon Paul tells us that coach Weber doesn't want the team constantly walking the ball up the floor anymore. There were a few times already against Missouri Southern where you saw this quick pace create advantages for our offense. Brandon Paul had 10 free throw attempts, D.J. Richardson made 4 of 4, Griffey 2 of 2, and while Bertrand didn't shoot his the best, he took 6. Once again you can see the impact these freshman are making as over half of the team's 37 free throw attempts came from first year players.
4. Someone become a consistent threat from deep. The team shot only 3 of 15 from behind the three point line against Missouri Southern, and that's not going to cut it. The Illini have had a problem in the past with occasionally falling in love with the three. 15 shots aren't too many to take in a game, but we are capable of hitting a better percentage than that. I hope we will start seeing some open looks this year from deep as the freshman guards continue to attack the basket. Trent Meacham would have benefited from having these guys on the team.
5. Get this zone business worked out. Bruce Weber's man to man defense is a model for many high school coaches... so why then is he implementing a zone defense? Well before you get upset, don't expect to see the face of this defense change any. Weber is still a master at getting his guys fired up on defense, but with the zone, you can do some different line-ups out there which create match-up problems on the other end. If you watch a Louisville game, look at how they work in that zone. Every player is working just as hard as Weber's guys do in the man to man set-up... and that's the key to a zone. You may think it's for teams who don't have the ability to keep up on defense, but to run a good zone, every player has to work their butt off.
0 comments:
Post a Comment