Illini Zip

I honestly don’t know enough about them yet. But the video above of Devan is quite impressive. Is he really 6-9? He sure is skilled and athletic for a young forward.

Bummer. I thought a high motor was a strength of his. He is still young and bigs take longer to develop. Hopefully he has a high ceiling and can hit the midrange shot.

I differ just a bit. I think if Groce could dictate the style of play for every game it would be wide open and fast. He would play with 5 guards or 4 guards and an Oggie type wing. He has always been that way. We slowed the offense down because our best player was Freeman and Groce adjusts to his roster and the strengths of the competition. Now he is just getting back to his natural identity. What I do agree with is Brisco will likely only get spot minutes this year and only when the matchup justifies it. Purdue is exactly why you need players like Brisco and Barre on your roster. Should be interesting to see how the staff approaches this challenge. For Brisco to ever play significant minutes he will need to grade out as a top producer in practice like everyone else.

I am following up my own post. Ha!! I thought Brisco was going to be an explosive rebounder, power forward type. But Groce has said he will play strictly the center position. Well, he’s only 6-8 so he’s not a rim protector. All accounts say he moves slow and I watched him miss a dunk against Princeton. So he’s not going to be an athletic, jump out of the gym, Freeman type center. That only leaves the traditional, back to the basket, play under rim, earth mover type. He’s currently 240lbs. Maybe he gets to 245-250lbs by his senior year. The question I have is can he shoot at all away from the rim? Right now I believe he adds value by banging down low with the big boys and rebounding. Let’s see. I have posted this video link before of Maverick Morgan at Illinois under Groce. He was 6-10 and maxed out at 250lbs. This video is from his Junior year without a redshirt year. So he was even bigger as a senior. Notice how like a big tight end in football he gravitates to the open holes in the defense. Not flashy, but effective.

Zips add Devan Christion. Also, Zachary Halligan is a redshirt sophomore. Correction made.

Good post. I just want to launch a conversation off of it. We have had a few centers at Akron during Groce’s era similar to Barre. Tall, mobile, shot blocker type; Riak, Aziz and briefly Gueye. The other type of center we are accustomed to obviously is the Freeman type. Very versatile, athletic and skilled with more of a power forward frame. You can add Sayles, Lyles and now Marvin to that list. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Oggie play the 5 spot in time as well. But the last center type we are not too familiar with at Akron is what I call the “earth mover” center. I witnessed it with Illinois. They are big, strong and weigh about 250lb. They typically range between 6-8 and 6-10, but have a low center of gravity. They are immovable objects. The only guy that has fit this description was Kostelac. They are less versatile and athletic, but can be highly skilled and effective in Groce’s system. They don’t run the break as fast as the others, but they do run the court. Brisco is an earth mover. We have had other MAC teams use earth mover centers against us recently. I don’t remember their names, but the Zips recruited one of them. Any way it will be nice to have a big body to throw out there during those match-ups especially. Personally, I would like to see Brisco cut his teeth with some time against the 6-11 big for Purdue. And I would let Barre get some time against their 7-4 center. The rest of the time I would play small with Lyles and let their bigs chase us up and down the court.

That was one of things I loved about Freeman early on. Of course, Freeman’s list of accomplishments went through the roof and it was easy to take that quality for granted. Hopefully our guys just need to get some reps and work out any jitters.

One has to think that with the limited playing time through 3 games these 2 big guys will have little impact on the Purdue game. Or is that what Groce wants Matt Painter to think. Hmmm. 🧐🥸🤫

Always a bonus when Evan hits from deep.

I will be listening tonight, but I would appreciate any further observations especially pertaining to Barre, Brisco and Halligan.

Maybe it’s already been said, but I’m so happy that the Paradise Jam games will be shown on ESPN+. It’s fairly reliable, I’m familiar with it and have already paid for it.

That surprises me. Although I can see Buffalo being more of a football and hockey school.

Maybe Buffalo is a good example that NIL alone can’t buy you a successful program. I have to think that university has some wealthy alumni.

I can’t believe Buffalo is currently the weakest team on our schedule.

I did see that JMU got consideration.

I imagine Evan Mahaffey’s experience playing against Purdue and occasionally at their place will be helpful for our locker room. And to a lesser degree Hardman’s experience.

Good representation by the MAC. I think this might be Bowling Green’s year. Are there any Sun Belt teams on there?

I hope our defense travels for this one. It has been impressive the first 2 games. There isn’t a large size discrepancy except for at center (depending on who is playing the 5). It is a road game, so I expect plenty of fouls called on us. And we will see Tavari and Young stuck trying to guard a 7 foot center after a defensive switch. Not much you can do about that. Better than giving up an open 3. Groce has never played much zone. Only as a change of pace tactic. I would prefer fronting the bigs to deny entry and pester the hell out of the ball handlers so they can’t dump easy lob passes over the top. I too would be happy with a competitive game for 40 minutes and in a sense we are playing with house money.

I plan to watch that Purdue vs Alabama game and do a little scouting. I’m really excited to see how we choose to match up with them. Do we put in Barre to lean on their big centers or do we play our regular, smaller lineup and try to run on them.

I would add, protecting blue blood fan bases which travel in big numbers and spend a lot more money on everything.

I’m going to have to fix my scholarship chart. GoZips.com has him as a R-So. Could he possibly take over Hardman’s role next year?

Yeah, I respectfully disagree.

Oh, for me it’s the fact that Groce beat Toledo in the MAC Tournament one year and it seems like our Zips have been rolling ever since. Where as Toledo has good conference records, but can’t get past Groce (or Miami, Ohio, Kent). But because he does seem to despise Groce, I like to give Groce credit for breaking him. Just having fun and I’m biased of course.

The UCLA game haunts me. I thought we were the better team that day. Ugh!!

I agree. The Zips players shouldn’t look ahead, but I don’t see why us fans can’t start talking about Purdue a little early. Purdue page please. 🙏