Seeing all these teams lose because of poor shooting at the line only highlights how big of an opportunity we missed this year. We actually had one of the core strengths of good teams, and used it to put away tons of teams later in games. Just ask MSU if it's hard to beat a team that cans ~80% of their FTs. The refs have trouble rigging it at that point, apparently.
This begs the question: How bad are the Illini at basketball without the free throw shooting? The underlying team must be even worse than we think if a totally elite performance at the free throw line, and out-FTing our opponents on the year even in conference (first in a decade! wheeee!) wasn't enough to make the tourney. If you told any of us that we'd be the best stripe team over the season by a fair margin, we'd be exploding with confidence, and yet we played so poorly that even a crazy good stat didn't get us over the line.
Based on the perceived talent of this team and the FT shooting over the year, I guess I take this as another data point indicating that chemistry problems or hidden issues plagued the Illini this year. Even if we weren't "top 25 all year" good, there is a nice 20 team buffer below that where we probably thought we belonged even without Paul and Rice and Cosby and Abrams for the whole or part of the year. That's why we're all pissed, right? It's that we expected to compete well this year.
(Tangent: I'm reminded of the 2004 Cubs missing the playoffs entirely as a parallel. Sure, they were overrated to begin the year, but the true talent of that team meant it had no business missing the postseason. They played with fire all year, and then they got swept by a moribund Reds team to clench it for the Cards. All they had to do was beat up a team visibly worse than them, but the Reds looked like the Yankees for three games.)
So, where does this leave us? Well, I think we're in an interesting spot. On one hand, we melted down to varying extents on the big stage in 4 must have games down the stretch (Michigan twice, MSU at home, @Purdue), so the outlook is understandably dark. On the other hand, we still expect to be better than that. Opinions vary, but I think most saw that this year and next would be about the same in terms of talent (as viewed from the past). Thus, a return to expected performance means we make the tourney and move forward. History tells us that this is just about the only Groce team to lose it late. If you believe in the "chemistry" conspiracies as I do, then it's anyone's guess if those issues are resolved. (If not, just remember last year's Indiana Pacers pre- and post-chemistry issues. Night and day.)
John's next season is for all the marbles, but only because: a) we expected to be tourney-level this year, b) we rightfully expect a good FT performance again next season, and c) we expect to be tourney-level even from this vantage point next year. If we didn't think the roster was good enough, we'd be having different discussions, after all.
This begs the question: How bad are the Illini at basketball without the free throw shooting? The underlying team must be even worse than we think if a totally elite performance at the free throw line, and out-FTing our opponents on the year even in conference (first in a decade! wheeee!) wasn't enough to make the tourney. If you told any of us that we'd be the best stripe team over the season by a fair margin, we'd be exploding with confidence, and yet we played so poorly that even a crazy good stat didn't get us over the line.
Based on the perceived talent of this team and the FT shooting over the year, I guess I take this as another data point indicating that chemistry problems or hidden issues plagued the Illini this year. Even if we weren't "top 25 all year" good, there is a nice 20 team buffer below that where we probably thought we belonged even without Paul and Rice and Cosby and Abrams for the whole or part of the year. That's why we're all pissed, right? It's that we expected to compete well this year.
(Tangent: I'm reminded of the 2004 Cubs missing the playoffs entirely as a parallel. Sure, they were overrated to begin the year, but the true talent of that team meant it had no business missing the postseason. They played with fire all year, and then they got swept by a moribund Reds team to clench it for the Cards. All they had to do was beat up a team visibly worse than them, but the Reds looked like the Yankees for three games.)
So, where does this leave us? Well, I think we're in an interesting spot. On one hand, we melted down to varying extents on the big stage in 4 must have games down the stretch (Michigan twice, MSU at home, @Purdue), so the outlook is understandably dark. On the other hand, we still expect to be better than that. Opinions vary, but I think most saw that this year and next would be about the same in terms of talent (as viewed from the past). Thus, a return to expected performance means we make the tourney and move forward. History tells us that this is just about the only Groce team to lose it late. If you believe in the "chemistry" conspiracies as I do, then it's anyone's guess if those issues are resolved. (If not, just remember last year's Indiana Pacers pre- and post-chemistry issues. Night and day.)
John's next season is for all the marbles, but only because: a) we expected to be tourney-level this year, b) we rightfully expect a good FT performance again next season, and c) we expect to be tourney-level even from this vantage point next year. If we didn't think the roster was good enough, we'd be having different discussions, after all.
