Cincinnati 49, Illinois 36

I suppose I ought to be embarrassed that Illinois gave up 49 points, but I was actually kind of excited that they scored 36 themselves and outgained a 10-0 team on the road.  In actuality though, the fact that Illinois had more yards is misleading, since they ran over 20 more plays, a testament to Cincinnati constantly starting in good field position and scoring quickly as well.

The chart:

Funny thing about this game: Illinois was more effective than Cincinnati when they ran the ball, and also more effective when they dropped back to pass.  Yet Cincinnati was much more effective overall.  The reason is that Illinois called 45 runs and 36 passes, while Brian Kelly called an absurd 46 passes to just 13 runs for the Bearcats.  Given that both teams' pass offenses were much more successful than their run offenses, this imbalance worked out rather well for Cincinnati.  So although Tony Pike was no more effective on a per-play basis than Juice was, his performance was actually much more impressive given that his team almost never ran the ball, and when they did run it, got nowhere.  Illinois knew Cincinnati was going to throw and throw again, and there was nothing they could do about it.

So sure, the defensive performance was sorry, but we're talking about the 98th ranked secondary against the 5th ranked passing offense in the country.  What did Illini fans really expect?  The thing that caught my attention more was Brian Kelly's willingness to flout typical run/pass convention.  You shouldn't call runs just for the sake of calling runs and if your pass game can be that successful without running the ball, you might as well keep throwing.  Mike Schultz, however, called more runs than passes despite the Illini gaining no traction on the ground all day.  I don't blame him for starting the game more conservatively, but especially in the second half, facing a deficit, Illinois might have been well served to pass more and more often.  It's all moot at this point anyways, as the Illini have found their offense a few weeks too late.

Illinois 94, Presbyterian 48

The memory I'll take away from this game is turning the TV off with Illinois up 43-28 at halftime, then turning it back on in the second half and seeing that the score had suddenly ballooned to 68-32.  Admittedly, Presbyterian is undermanned this season, but there's no reason to feel guilty about the Illini's second big blowout win in three tries.  Presbyterian actually executed their game plan, holding the tempo to 64 possessions (after Illinois averaged 75.5 in their first two games), while their 2-3 zone kept Illinois off the foul line (just 7 free throw attempts).  Unfortunately for the Blue Hose, the talent disparity was too great, as the Illini hit 11 of 26 from 3 and 28 of 46 from 2, and despite missing only 33 shots, picked up 20 offensive rebounds (!).  Illinois scored on a ridiculous 64% of their possessions and the defense wasn't too shabby either, as Presbyterian was just 4 of 24 from 3.

Plus/minus chart:

Once again, the team played well no matter who was on the court.  D.J. Richardson led the team at +31 but he also played the most non garbage-time minutes.  The one starter who scuffled a bit was Mike Tisdale, who has had a slow start this year.  At some point, I'll start posting season-long plus/minus statistics and examining lineups, but the numbers don't really mean anything at this point in the season.  Next up: Wofford!

Northwestern 21, Illinois 16

I'm way behind on this, but I figured it was still worth posting a recap considering this was the first game I actually attended in person this year.  Without any further ado, the stats:

In my preview, I predicted that the game would come down to the two teams' strengths: run offense and run defense.  But really, the match-up proved to be a wash.  The Illini outperformed the Wildcats on the ground by a good margin, but were a bit below their season rushing averages (.408 points/play, 47.8% success rate).  Illinois lost because they were simply decimated when Northwestern took to the air.  I was worried that QB Mike Kafka's accurate passing would be a bad match-up for the Illinois secondary and that is exactly what it was.  Illinois' soft coverages only work if they are able to generate a pass rush, but for the majority of the year, they haven't been able to, and Saturday's game was no exception.  Since I was actually at the game, I could better observe the Illinois secondary, and it wasn't pretty.  Northwestern receivers were open all game, and were able to run the same flag route to the outside corner over and over again for big gains.

As for the future of Ron Zook, I read somewhere (I think it was in this excellent book) that the minimum winning percentage a coach needs to stay afloat is .600, not .500.  This theory makes sense since although .500 is enough to make a bowl every year, a 6-6 record doesn't have much sex appeal.  .600, however, is 7.2 wins per year (in a 12-game schedule).  That puts you in a solid bowl every year and probably means there will be some very good seasons mixed in there as well.  Of course, Zook had a .622 winning percentage at Florida and got fired, but I'm talking about .600 as a minimum, and Florida has higher expectations than most programs.

Zook's winning percentage after 5 years at Illinois is .362, which is far below .600.  Even if you throw out his first two seasons as rebuilding years, his winning percentage is just .486. This means that Illinois would have to finish 4-8 and go 12-1 next year for Zook to reach the .600 mark - and that's excluding his first two seasons, where he was just 4-19!  I plan to conduct a more extensive analysis of Zook's tenure at the end of the season but suffice it to say, although I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea of giving him one more try, I'm not confident in his ability to lead the team back to a bowl next year.

Illinois 96, SIU-Edwardsville 69

Last year I started work on plus/minus analysis for Illini basketball and I am going to keep it up this year.  Here is the plus/minus chart from Friday night's game against SIU-Edwardsville:

I included the number of minutes played by each player, the points scored and allowed by Illinois while that player was on the court, and then translated those to per 40 'Off' and 'Def' numbers.  As the careful observer will note, I only included the first 29.6 minutes of the game, at which point Illinois was ahead 77-41 and projected to win 104-55.  The reason?  This was the point where the game was determined to be 'statistically over' at statsheet.com.  It's an approximation, but I don't want the data to be skewed by 'garbage time' statistics.  I like the methodology Statsheet uses (based on a Bill James formula) because it is rather conservative for determining when a game is over (something like 99.99% win probability), and I wouldn't want too much of a game to be classified as garbage time.

Anyways, I don't think there's a whole lot to be gleaned from this plus-minus chart, since Illinois started the game on a 12-2 run and didn't let up until being ahead 77-41.  Alex Legion had the highest rating on the team as he was +23 in just 14.5 minutes.  The team gave up just 38.5 points per 40 minutes when D.J. Richardson was on the court.  But really, Illinois was dominating no matter who was on the floor.  I wrote in my season preview that the offense would have to get to the foul line and get more offensive rebounds to make up for an expected regression for the defense, and that is exactly what happened against SIU-Edwardsville.  D.J. Richardson scored 14 points on just 5 field goal attempts by getting to the line 10 times, an encouraging sign for the future.  Even though they slowed down a bit towards the end, the offense scored 96 points on just 73 possessions, which is hard to beat. 

On the surface, the defensive performance was poor, as Illinois surrendered nearly a point per possession to a team which ranked 335th out of 344 teams in Division I last year.  But that's why the garbage time adjustment is so relevant.  Ken Pomeroy lists an offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) of 131.1 and a defensive efficiency of 94.3 for Illinois for the game.  But when the game was already statistically over, Illinois' offensive efficiency (approximately) was an even more astronomical 142.2 and their defensive efficiency a stalwart 75.7.  This fact is worth emphasizing in comparison with SIU-Edwardsville's subsequent 82-60 loss to Illinois State, which wasn't statistically over until there was 4:20 left in the game.  The final score was similar but at the 10:22 mark ISU led 58-43 as compared to Illinois' 77-41 margin.  Can you really blame Illinois for not defending with as much fervor when they had a 36 point lead?  I don't think so and as such, I have nothing but good feelings about this game.

Northwestern at Illinois, Preview

Although I'm getting hyped up about basketball, I haven't lost interest in the Illini football team, which is still technically in the running for a bowl at 3-6.  Tomorrow's game against Northwestern will provide an excellent opportunity to continue the team's recent win streak.

Illinois Passing vs. Northwestern Secondary:
EDGE: Illinois

If Jacob Charest can continue his good play from the Minnesota game, this is a favorable matchup for Illinois.  Northwestern's secondary hasn't been much better than Illinois' meager unit.  The Illini certainly have the receiving talent to exploit the Wildcat defensive backs.  My one concern is that Northwestern has picked off 12 passes this year and Charest has been lucky to not have been intercepted so far this season.

Illinois Rushing vs. Northwestern Front:

EDGE: Illinois

Northwestern's strength has been against the run, where they have surrendered 116.5 yards per game as compared to Illinois' 162.2.  The question is how the Wildcats will perform against the Illinois option attack.  Last year they were able to shut Illinois down on the ground which fueled a 27-10 victory but in 2007 they were not.  This is likely the key to the game for Illinois and I think they will prevail, but I am nervous that the option attack will fizzle with Charest at QB.

Northwestern Passing vs. Illinois Secondary:
EDGE: Northwestern

Wildcats QB Mike Kafka has a high completion percentage (66.2%) but a relatively low yards per attempt (6.7) meaning his forte is short, low-risk passes.  His style is a good match against a weak Illinois secondary which usually lines up to prevent the big play and doesn't go for many interceptions (just 4 on the year).
Still, Illinois has a chance to outplay Northwestern here if they are able to generate a pass rush like they were against Minnesota.  Last week, Adam Weber completed just 14 of 31 passes and threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown while being sacked seven times.

Northwestern Rushing vs. Illinois Front:
EDGE: Illinois


The reason Northwestern lags well behind Illinois in yards per play on offense (4.8 vs. 5.5) is because of its anemic rushing attack.  Illinois is 25th nationally in rushing while Northwestern is 90th.  Northwestern's leading rusher is QB Mike Kafka, at just 236 yards.  With the defensive line improving, Illinois should be able to focus its attention on stopping the pass.

Special Teams:
EDGE: Northwestern

Northwestern is one of the worst punting teams in the country, at just 35.5 yards per punt, making mediocre Illinois P Anthony Santella look like an All-American.  Yet neither team is adept at returning punts and kickoffs, and Northwestern has a big edge at kicker, as K Stefan Demos has hit 14 of 16 field goals this year while Matt Eller is struggling for the Illini, with just 4 of 10 field goals made. 

Coaching:
EDGE: Northwestern  

Illinois has the more talented roster but is 3-6 while Northwestern is already bowl-eligible at 6-4.  The Wildcats are certainly not as good as their record would indicate, as their non-conference schedule consisted of Towson, Eastern Michigan and Miami (Ohio), but they always seem to win a few games they shouldn't under Pat Fitzgerald while Illinois can't say the same with Ron Zook.  Illinois has been the better team than Northwestern this year in terms of yardage, despite playing a tougher schedule, but you have to credit Fitzgerald for Northwestern's greater success in the most important category: wins.

The Illini are the more talented team, are heading home, and are favored by 4.5 points.  Still, this game makes me nervous because Pat Fitzgerald gets the most out of his players and Ron Zook often doesn't.  I am still perplexed by Illinois' pathetic showing against Northwestern last year with a bowl berth on the line.  All that said, Illinois is at home, confident, and Northwestern isn't as good as they were last year.

Pick: Illinois 28, Northwestern 21  

Illinois Basketball, Season Preview

The 2009-10 Illinois basketball season begins for real tonight at 7:00 against SIU-Edwardsville.  Here are some key questions Illinois will need to answer if they are to replicate or surpass last year's success.

1.  How easily can Chester Frazier and Trent Meacham be replaced?


The plus-minus data I gathered last year suggests that Frazier and Meacham may have been the team's most valuable players.  Illinois floundered offensively without Meacham in the lineup, not surprising given that his 113.7 Offensive Rating was by far the highest on the team.  Similarly, Illinois' 4th-ranked defense was not the same when Frazier was off the court, and without him, Illinois succumbed to 12th seeded Western Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament.

Frazier and Meacham will likely be replaced in the lineup by four-star freshmen D.J. Richardson and Brandon Paul, and although I have yet to see Richardson or Paul play, I am hearing the right kinds of buzzwords, and eventually the two will prove to be superior to the Frazier/Meacham combo.  Like Meacham, Paul's responsibilities will be slanted more towards the offensive end, but Paul is a much more athletic guard, drawing 14 free throw attempts in 34 minutes in the two exhibition contests against Missouri Southern and Quincy (a valuable skill given that Illinois was dead last nationally in FTA/FGA in 2009).  Meanwhile, Bruce Weber has been hyping up D.J. Richardson's defensive abilities, and Richardson is already more skilled offensively than Frazier, as witnessed by his 23 point performance against Quincy where he hit 5 of 8 3 pointers.

2.  Can the defense repeat last year's performance (4th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency)?

Illinois will likely regress on defense, simply because their opponents shot 63.1% from the foul line, which is pure luck, and probably had a lot to do with Illinois' reversal of fortunes from 2008 (when their opponents shot 72% from the foul line - a rather unlucky figure).  Looking further, Illinois opponents also shot just 29.6% from 3, which can be chalked up to both skill and luck - Illinois ought to be strong on the perimeter this year as well, but probably not quite that strong.  In addition, the Illini's best defender, Chester Frazier, has graduated.  The good news is that Illinois has never ranked lower than 35th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency during Bruce Weber's tenure and has ranked 21st or higher five years running.  Thus I would expect Illinois to slide a bit, but Weber clearly has a system that works and coaches his players to gave maximum effort on defense.


3.  How will Illinois score their points?

Bruce Weber has shown that his teams will defend at an elite level no matter what.  But his offenses have been more dependent on his personnel.  In 2004-2006, Illinois had a top 20 offense.  Yet the last 3 years, as recruiting has tailed off, the Illini have ranked 111th, 83rd, and 98th.  The offense was certainly a lot less ugly last year because the team was so much better at shooting but since their offensive rebound and foul drawing rates dropped precipitously, the team wasn't any more effective on a per-possession basis. 


The Illini almost never got to the foul line last year - perhaps not surprising given that the starting lineup consisted of two thin, jump-shooting big men, two guards who preferred to bomb away from the three point line, and a senior leader who was a non-factor scoring the ball.  The lack of free throws drawn isn't inherently bad, but Illinois didn't do enough in other categories to completely make up for it.  Although the offense had a lot of good shooters, it didn't take many three-pointers, instead relying on the dreaded mid-range jumper, the least efficient shot in basketball.  They managed to get away with it because the primary perpetrators (Tisdale and Davis) are both tall and accurate shooters, but unless Davis or Tisdale has developed three-point range, the Illini will have to start getting to the foul line. How many free throws the Illini can get will likely determine how good they can be this year.  They drew 37 free throw attempts against Quincy, so hopefully that is a good sign.


My prediction?  Eyeballing the schedule, I am unscientifically forecasting a regular season record of 11-7, 22-9 which will be good enough for a second straight NCAA appearance and to raise optimism for the 2010-11 campaign.

Oh yeah, and as for tonight's game SIU-Edwardsville is in their second year of transition from Division II to Division I and ranked 314th out of 344 teams in their 15 games against D-1 competition last year.  As such, this ought to be a nice tuneup game for the Illini.

Pick: Illinois 81, SIU-Edwardsville 51

The National Championship Picture

Using the handy SRS ratings over at pro-football-reference, I thought it would be fun to estimate the odds of each currently undefeated team finishing the regular season undefeated.  The SRS ratings track fairly closely with the Vegas odds this week, so I'm comfortable that they represent an accurate estimate of each team's strength.

It is no foregone conclusion that Florida and Alabama will both be 12-0 when they meet for the SEC championship.  In fact, the odds are only 51.9% that this will be the case.  Alabama still has two potentially tricky road games against Mississippi State and Auburn while Florida goes on the road to play South Carolina this week. 

The two mid-major gate crashers have the best odds at finishing undefeated.  TCU is in a strong position with a game against Utah this weekend, as Utah has not played as well as their record would indicate.  TCU is actually a 17 point favorite, and a 17 point win would look great to pollsters while improving the Horned Frogs' strength of schedule ratings.  Plus, if they beat the Utes their odds of finishing undefeated will be close to 98%. 

The next question is whether TCU or Boise State has a shot at playing for the national championship. I think TCU does but it's tough to predict how things will play out if the teams ahead of them lose.  First, TCU will have to hope Cincinnati loses, as I think a 12-0 Big East champion would pass them in the pecking order, especially with three strong wins to close the season.  Then, of course, the teams ahead of them will have to lose.  Texas losing would be their best bet because I think the Florida/Alabama winner will be in even if one of them loses before the SEC Championship. 

Let's say Texas plays Nebraska for the Big 12 Championship, which would put Texas' odds at finishing 13-0 at 66.4%.  In this scenario, the odds of TCU finishing 12-0, Texas 12-1 and Cincinnati 12-1 are relatively high - 14.5%.  Would 12-0 TCU beat out 12-1 Texas?  I think so, especially if Texas lost the Big 12 title game.  I'm hoping things play out this way (sorry, Boise State) because TCU has absolutely played well enough to be in the same territory as Texas, Florida and Alabama.  SRS would only put them as a 4 point underdog on a neutral field against Texas (though I'm guessing Vegas would put it more in the 7-10 point range). 

Overall, it's still more likely that the presumed Texas vs. Alabama/Florida championship will happen than it won't (I think) but things could still get rather interesting.  Stay tuned!

 

Illinois 35, Minnesota 32

I will admit I was shocked when Illinois led 28-7 at the half against Minnesota.  That put the Illini on a 59-7 tear since falling behind 13-7 against Michigan last week, stunning for a team that two weeks ago was 1-6 and alone in the Big 10 basement.  Although the Gophers made a nice run at it in the second half, Illinois has undoubtedly been playing a lot better the last two weeks.  What has changed?  Let's take a look at the numbers from the game:

Interestingly, after Illinois simply dominated Michigan on the ground, racking up 414 yards on 52 plays, the rush offense had its worst outing of the season against Minnesota.  My guess is that this partially reflects the switch from Juice to Jacob Charest at QB.  Juice is obviously a better runner than Charest, but having Charest at QB also negatively impacted LeShoure and Ford since the Illinois running game is predicated on Juice's ball fakes and option pitches. 

The good news is that Charest more than made up for it through the air, averaging nearly 10 yards per pass attempt, which in combination with Juice's strong start before his injury was Illinois' best passing performance of the season in terms of efficiency.  Charest has an odd throwing motion and can't really zip the ball the way Juice can but he was accurate and would have had better stats if not for several drops by the wide receivers, particularly Jeff Cumberland.

The young Illinois defense is starting to gel (highlighted by true freshman Terry Hawthorne's pick six - the second week in a row he has made a game-changing play on defense) and the dormant pass rush has suddenly awakened (seven sacks, including four by Clay Nurse).  The offense is improving as well, though I think the team will be best served if Juice is able to play this weekend because of his ability to conduct the option offense.  Illinois has struggled against Northwestern the last few years, but I am liking their chances to move to 4-6 before the big game against Cincinnati.

Illinois at Minnesota, Preview

The question for Illinois fans tomorrow is of course, whether the 38-13 victory over Michigan was a fluke or a sign of an impending turnaround.  Although I think the 25 point margin was fluky, there are real reasons to think that the Illini will be more formidable on offense from here on out, as they have finally discovered their running game.  The bad news is that it's hard to imagine they will get away with only attempting to pass 12 times again.  Furthermore, although the Illini's goal-line stand was impressive, they can't count on surrendering 13 points every week if they are giving up 377 yards at the same time.  So we shouldn't expect that the Illini will suddenly be the team they were expected to be before the season, but they ought to be more competitive at the very least.


The next question, then, is what to expect from the Golden Gophers.  The good news is that despite their 5-4 record, Minnesota has been outscored and outgained on the season.  They also lost star WR Eric Decker to a season-ending injury (50 catches, 758 yards) before last week's 42-34 victory over Michigan State.  Ironically, their scuffling offense found its mojo without Decker, as QB Adam Weber threw for 416 yards (beating his season high by almost 150 yards), and Minnesota posted its highest offensive output of the season in terms of both points and yards.  Although I don't expect Weber to perform that well two weeks in a row, he has been successful against defenses not named Penn State or Ohio State (7.6 yards per attempt on the year) and has proven for the time being that Eric Decker was not the sole reason for his success.

Ultimately, I think the Illini will score some points since Minnesota's defense hasn't been particularly successful against the run (or the pass, for that matter) but will also give up points against a solid Gopher pass attack.  I am tempted to pick Illinois since I suspect Minnesota will start to feel the loss of Decker this week, but they are at home, and it's tough to win on the road in conference.  Still, I think Illinois will continue the momentum from last week and I wouldn't be shocked to see them pull out a second straight victory.

Pick: Minnesota 27, Illinois 24

Michigan at Illinois, Win Probability

I love following Brian Burke's work over at Advanced NFL Stats, and in particular, his win probability graphs for NFL games.   Using down and distance, yards to go, and time left in the game, Brian can model the probability of each team winning in any game situation.  Using the handy Win Probability Calculator he provides on his site, I took the opportunity to graph Illinois' probability of winning over the course of their 38-13 defeat of Michigan on Saturday.  Be warned, the following chart is rough because my Excel graphing skills are somewhat lacking:

I had to keep the model simplified (both because of lack of data and time constraints), so the win probability is modeled drive-by-drive as opposed to play-by-play like Brian models it.  Even so, you can see that llinois' odds of winning were around 20% early in the second half (when Michigan was leading 13-7 and also had the ball).  And in fact, when Michigan achieved first and goal on the 1, Illinois' odds of winning were down to just 10% seeing how they were almost certainly about to fall behind either 16-7 or 20-7.  Although Terry Hawthorne's stop of Roy Roundtree on the Illinois 1 proved to be a huge play, it didn't make much of an impact on Illinois' win probability since Michigan was still expected to score 92% of the time from first and goal on the 1. 

I didn't think much about it during the game, but now I wonder if Rich Rodriguez' decision to go for it on fourth and 1 was a good idea or not.  I'm not going to judge by the results but by the probability going in.  Let's look at the scenarios:

4th and 1, Michigan scores a TD to go up 20-7: Illinois' odds of winning are 4% if they get the ball on their own 20.

4th and 1, Michigan kicks a FG to go up 16-7: Illinois' odds of winning are 25% if they get the ball on their own 20.

4th and 1, Michigan goes for a TD and doesn't get it, giving Illinois the ball at their own 1: Illinois' odds of winning are 19%.

So according to this model, had Michigan attempted a field goal, they would have been better off missing the attempt rather than making it.  This is rather counterintuitive, but there is a logical explanation, which is that the negative value of Illinois' field position backed up on their own 1 was greater than the positive value of Michigan scoring 3 points and giving Illinois much better field position after a kickoff.  Clearly, Rich Rodriguez made the right decision because going up 20-7 would have been decisive and going up 16-7 wouldn't have been.  Furthermore, even if they didn't get the touchdown, by far the most likely outcome was that Illinois would punt and Michigan would have great field position to attempt another score.  So don't blame Rodriguez for not taking the easy points.  There was enough time left in the game that he was best off trying to maximize his team's margin rather than playing it conservative.  What really changed things was Mikel LeShoure's 70 yard touchdown run, and that is all on the Michigan defense.