The Illinois Game:  What the Heck Happened?

(Bloomington, Ind.).  The Hoosiers looked flat against Illinois.  Flat as a punctured tire.  And no lug wrench, jack or spare to get it going, which means, of course, no movement and a lot of standing around. 

I understand the theory about slowing the game down when you're playing on the road in a hostile environment and, oh, there was no shortage of hostility in Champaign.  Even Bruce Weber, who still has his panties bunched up over losing out on Eric Gordon, displayed hostility.  Did you see the perfunctory handshakes with Kelvin Sampson before and after the game?  The only way he could have created more distance between Sampson and himself would have been to extend a stick with a glove at the end.

The Hoosiers' guard and wing play lost this game.  Sampson had them walk the ball up court to slow the pace of the game, which is a good strategy when you want to keep it tight and deflate the crowd, but once you cross the ten-second line, you can't be tentative.  You have to create something and that means having some motion in the offense--some cuts, some screens and some curls.  I didn't see much of that.

The guards and wings are the ones who have to get the offense moving.  If that doesn't happen, you wind up doing what Indiana did last night.--running the shot clock down to desperation time and throwing up something that vaguely resembles a shot.  Of course, doing that only feeds the crowd.  With the shot clock at 10...9...8...and only then you start working for a shot, the crowd is hooting and hollering and the defense reacts to by racheting up the intensity and pressuring the ball.  Bad things happen in that hurried situation--a poor shot, a turnover, a charge. 

As always, the Hoosiers looked to DJ for points.  Against Illinois, though, he was smothered and pushed out of position.  I lost count of how many times DJ got the ball behind the three-point line and, on the few other occasions the Hoosiers threw it to him inside the arc he was still 10-12 feet from the basket.  That's okay once in awhile, but that can't be the Hoosiers' offense.  DJ has to set up lower in the block.  He has to work to establish position and then maintain it if he's going to make any sort of power move to the rim.  Pruitt had his way on defense and DJ lacks the ball handling skills to get to the rim from 10-12 feet.

All in all, the Hoosiers had little inside presence against Illinois.  Lance Stemler is a hard-nosed, gritty kid, but definitely not a player who can outmuscle the typical power forward.  Mike White, on the other hand, is a banger.  He got the ball in the paint a few times off feeds or the rare offensive rebound, but then failed to finish.    If you wind up with the ball at pointblank range, you've got to do one of two things--make the basket or draw the foul.  He did neither.

Free throws or, more accurately, the lack of them hurt Indiana.  When your outside shots aren't dropping, you have to get in the paint.  The guards have to penetrate or someone on the weak side has to flash into the paint for a pass.  You can't be content to keep throwing the ball up there hoping something eventually drops.

Indiana played well enough on defense to win this game, although the Hoosiers committed way too many fouls (20) and got outscored at the line by nine points, i.e., one more than the margin of victory.  They also allowed the Illini more second chance points than they got.  Still, holding the opposition to 51 points on 40.5% from the field, including 23.9% from the three-point line, puts a team in good position to win.

 I've got a theory on why the Hoosiers played flat against Illinois.  One word--Connecticut.  Scheduling that game in the midst of Big 10 season was tantamount to conceding the Illinois game.  After beating Iowa on Tuesday, the Hoosiers, had they not played the Huskies, would have had six days to prepare for Illinois.  Six days.  You can dissect a team down to the managers in six days.  Instead, Indiana spent the rest of the week getting ready for UConn, left on Friday for Connecticut, played a tough, physical Husky squad in an emotion filled game on Saturday afternoon, got back to Bloomington on Saturday night, had just one day of practice at Assembly Hall on Sunday and then took a three-hour bus ride to Champaign on Monday.  Anyone see any sense--besides dollars and cents--in that?  I sure don't.

--Ed Anderson 1/24/7