Illinois 79, Vanderbilt 68

I was nervous coming into Tuesday night's game after yet another lackluster performance against an average Division I team (the close victory over Boise State on Saturday night) but the Illini got off to a 9-0 run and played well throughout, especially on offense. Although Vanderbilt kept the game from being a blowout, there was never really a moment where the Commodores seemed like they were going to come back and that is a tribute to the consistency of effort from Illinois.

Plus-minus chart:














Despite a great scoring line from Demetri McCamey (23 points on 8-10 shooting), Illinois was actually outscored when he was on the court while going +15 in Jeff Jordan's minutes. In general, Illinois will be better on offense with McCamey in the game and better on defense with Jordan, but last night with McCamey committing 6 turnovers and Jordan scoring 7 points on 3-4 shooting, the team didn't suffer on offense when Jordan came in and was better defensively as expected. McCamey still ranks as the most valuable player on the team in his season-long plus-minus count, but Jordan will be quite important himself if he can continue to nail open jump shots.

Nine games into the season, it's clear that Illinois has taken on a new identity as a more up-tempo, potent scoring team whose defensive effort comes and goes. Last night, they scored 79 points in 67 possessions, cracking the 1.1 points/possession barrier for the third game in a row and the sixth time in nine games after doing it just 12 times in 34 outings last season. On the other hand, it was also the fourth straight game they've given up over 1.0 points/possession after permitting teams to cross that barrier just 11 times all of last season.

What's changed? The most noticeable difference is an increase in tempo by nearly seven possessions a game over last season. Pushing the pace and adding two more capable scorers to the starting lineup in DJ Richardson and Brandon Paul has increased Illinois' effective field goal percentage (taking into account three-pointers) from 51.1 to 54.9. The other significant difference is an increase in offensive rebound percentage from 29.9 to 36.1. The credit here partly has to go to Mike Davis (up to 2.7 offensive boards a game from 1.8 last year), especially given that his totals have increased despite the team missing fewer shots, but the team effort on the offensive boards as a whole has been good. For all the talk about the team lacking physicality, they have been good at rebounding on both ends of the floor, according to Ken Pomeroy's stats. The drop on defense, though, has come partly from an increase in two-point percentage by opponents, perhaps an indication of too much dribble penetration, and regression to the mean in opponents' free-throw percentage (up to 70.9% after a flukishly low 63.1% mark last season). I still think that Bruce Weber will get the defense turned around, but I hope he won't have to sacrifice too much of the offense to get there.