Suffice it to say that this game was a worst-case scenario for Illinois. I'm not going to say that the sky is falling. Barring a complete collapse, this still looks like an NCAA Tournament team. But what this game might tell us is that the Illini won't make it past the first weekend simply because they are too one-dimensional on offense. Since they are not a good rebounding team nor a team that draws a lot of fouls, they absolutely have to make shots for the offense to be successful. They came into this game leading the Big Ten in field goal percentage and so the offense had done well enough to complement the team's perennially-outstanding defense. Yet I knew if they ever had an off night shooting the ball, it could get ugly and that's exactly what happened.
I don't think the plus-minus chart tells us a whole lot about what happened in this game, besides to show that the whole team was flat:
Player | P/M | Minutes |
Demetri McCamey | -14 | 24 |
Trent Meacham | -16 | 31 |
Chester Frazier | -16 | 30 |
Mike Davis | -10 | 14 |
Mike Tisdale | -12 | 31 |
Calvin Brock | -5 | 17 |
Dominique Keller | -10 | 18 |
Jeff Jordan | -11 | 6 |
Alex Legion | -13 | 24 |
Richard Semrau | -8 | 3 |
Fortunately, Illinois has an 87% chance of defeating Iowa tomorrow according to the Pomeroy
Ratings, so they should get back on track.
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