Illini Zip

For those wondering, Evansville lost by 31 to Purdue. But their 2 starting bigs still scored 15 and 14 points against Purdue’s bigs.

Anybody happen to know what is Groce’s best Kenpom ranking at Akron? Today’s 71 has to be it or close, right?

I believe it was double-OT. That would mean that with an additional 10 minutes of play Iona still scored 5 points less than us in regulation yesterday. (91 vs our 96) And Oregon State doesn’t strike me as a defensive juggernaut.

Evansville started 2, 6-10 forwards and brought a 6-6 and 6-9 forward off the bench for significant minutes against Oregon State. I imagine we will play bigger, but how much bigger? Against Iona a fast team that likes to run we played a lot of five guard lineup; Tavari, Scott, Young, Evan and Eric. Groce said after the Purdue game that one positive was Purdue had trouble guarding us as well. So do we try to run Evansville off the court? Do we give Lyles, Marvin, Oggie, Barre and maybe even Brisco the call? Or split the difference with just more Amani, Marvin and Oggie than we saw in game 1?

We will see soon enough, but I would guess worse than Toledo and OU. I don’t remember any transition game. Mostly walk the ball up the court.

Watched the last 8 minutes. Not many 3 point shots taken by UMass. Not very impressed with them at all.

Look out, Gottlieb has Green Bay rolling now!! Down goes UMass, again.

You’re right I was looking at last year’s NET. Is it too much for me to ask that the numbers speak for themselves? Let teams jump around for a couple of weeks until the dust settles. Again, either be objective or subjective. Don’t use polling in a metric people. Good grief.

I’m not smart enough to tell you the difference between the metrics. Even if they use the same criteria they must weigh them differently. Look at the difference pertaining to Purdue. Kenpom has Purdue ranked 2nd and the NET has them at 19. All of the national polls see Purdue as a top 1 or 2 team. To me, Kenpom is just more believable. I should do a test. Document the rankings at the end of non-conference and see how these metrics adjust by the end of conference play. Something seems squirrelly. And I completely agree, half the time the committee is objective and the other half subjective.

Also, I realize the NET is here to stay and it’s the metric we must use to justify our participation in the NCAA Tourney. But I do not see it as the better tool for evaluating a teams performance over Kenpom. I think the NET is the P5 cartels tool to distort reality, not better understand reality. And when everything is based on “quality wins” played on the cartels home courts with home refs you have further distortion. Garbage in means garbage out.

My prediction is that the P5 cartel will continue to concentrate their financial power and control. Perhaps breaking off into their own super league making them essentially the new D1 and turning the rest of D1 into D2 and so on down the line. They will just assume that their business model of paying the best players in the country big money will maintain their elite status. But all it will take is for 1 really great team in the new D2 to refuse to play for them or with them to cast doubt on the whole project. At that point negotiations will take place or the NCAA will completely implode and we start again with who knows what.

Here’s an interesting Loyola Chicago Ramblers tidbit. They actually have a 1963 NCAA championship banner hanging in their gym. Now granted back then the NIT was the premier annual college tournament, but you can say it aged well to their benefit.

I’m not making a prediction, but with his skills and maturity this early and for that size I could see him going pro after his junior year. I mean legit first rounder. So yes, precedent would be something like play at Akron for 2 years, then go to Duke for a year and then go pro. It would be nice if the Mahaffey clan gave Akron a family discount and he finished his college career at Akron. He would be like Larry Bird putting Indiana State on the map. That said, I want to make sure Evan gets his due. I especially like his defense and calm presence on the floor. He’s going to get fouled a lot so he needs to pick up his free throw shooting, but he’s been great so far. Great leadership. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

It is different. But I like it. It gives the top teams a rest day so they don’t have to play 3 games in 3 days. Something the MAC should avoid as well. Reward the top conference teams with a shorter road to the title.

I agree, just emphasizing the word “at”, because in my world our 18 point loss at Purdue equates to an 8 point loss on a neutral court. Much better than the 30 point drubbing Texas Tech just took.

Does Barre finally get playing time against Evansville? They are taller.

I’m surprised Oregon State is so non-athletic.

Yes…it…is.

The Evansville vs. Oregon State game about to start.

Bummer. No free tacos tonight.

@Blue & Gold, you watched Eric Mahaffey in high school. Did you see this coming? I mean, 20 pts tonight as a freshman?

He has looked slow tonight. Almost like he’s sick or something.

Eric going end to end for the dunk was sweet!!

Doesn’t our radio guys usually travel to these holiday tournaments?

Terrible close to the half. 11-0 run by the Gaels. Ugh!!