Illini soundly defeat Presbyterian, led by second half defense.

Joe Kutsunis — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:52:56 -0000

More photos » by STEPHEN HAAS - AP

Not much can be learned from this game I would say, other than team defense will not be a concept that will be lost in the shuffle this year. There was no real stand out individual performance like Brandon Paul has had the two previous games, D.J. Richardson to his credit did score 15 to lead the Illini, but scoring was overall very balanced Saturday night. Mike Davis had another solid game but fell one rebound short of a double-double. Alex Legion came out with his first real scoring night of the year, scoring 11 points fueled by his 3-point shooting. But no single player really stood out to me as taking the game over.

The real story of this game was the way in which the team played defense. We already knew that D.J. wanted to become the defensive stopper to replace Chester this year, but aside from stopping one single player in one on one, the overall team defense has not really been up to Bruce's expectations.

In the second half of Saturday night's game, I would have to say it was. The team jumped out onto a 25 to 4 run to start the second half and did not really look back. The run was marked by efficient and solid offense yes, but also by a team wide defense that suffocated the Blue Hose and never let them move the ball. The return of Jeff Jordan, who has long been known as a very tough defensive player surely did not hurt, and his increased minutes due to Demetri McCamey's early foul trouble allowed Bruce to really see how Jeff handled the duties of PG.

While the offense was not as dazzling as when Demetri McCamey was running the show, it did run well enough. Jordan looked especially good on defense once again and showed why there will always be minutes available for the walk-on. The guard rotation relied mostly on McCamey for ball handling duties, and by the looks of it, D.J. will have to wait a while to really take over as the primary backup again.

Final - 11.21.2009	1	2	Total
Presbyterian Blue Hose	28	20	48
Illinois Fighting Illini	43	51	94

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Bruce looked to be experimenting with all sorts of different line up in the second half, presumably to see how well the functioned as an offense. At one point we even saw Jeff Jordan at 1, Bill Cole at 2, Dominique Keller at 3, Tyler Griffey at 4 and Richard Semrau at 5. In all of this we saw more of every primary back up than we have seen all season. Even Stan Simpson and Bubba Chisholm were able to get in on the action near the end. I know Bertrand is still out with injury, and he is expected to return sooner or later but I am wondering if Bruce is starting to contemplate a Red Shirt.

Back to the defense though, the Illini would ultimately hold the Blue Hose to only 20 second half points, and that may be the best news yet for an Illini fan this year. After the NIU victory where the team had neglected to really put the Huskies down for good, there were already rumblings about this team not being as defensively sound as last years and that it looked like we were going to have to rely on offense alone to really win games. (After two games, I know, but people read too much into everything these days) A no doubt about it defensive win should hopefully put these fears to rest for the time being at least. Once Big Ten teams like MSU and Purdue come to town of course, the Illini will need every bit of offense and defense they have to stay in the game.

Mizzou-Illinois: A wonk's preview

Bill C. — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:30:06 -0000

Quick programming note: I was supposed to be driving to Oklahoma tonight (and therefore listening to the dulcet tones of Mike Kelly filling me in on the action), but we are now not leaving until tomorrow morning. Which means I get to watch the game tonight after all. Which means...LIVEBLOG!!!

Anyway...

Since it's the biggest game of the season thus far, I figured I could throw together my fun, wonky numbers for a preview...

	Illinois	Opp.	Mizzou	Opp.
Points Per Minute	1.78	1.38	2.16	1.61
Points Per Possession (PPP)	1.10	0.85	1.18	0.88
Points Per Shot (PPS)	1.26	1.03	1.31	1.14
2-PT FG%	52.2%	43.9%	53.5%	42.3%
3-PT FG%	39.1%	28.7%	36.4%	30.0%
FT%	71.5%	56.2%	63.1%	63.6%

	Illinois	Opp.	Mizzou	Opp.
Assists/Gm	19.7	11.4	20.4	10.5
Steals/Gm	6.5	5.7	11.3	6.9
Turnovers/Gm	13.6	16.7	12.1	19.6
(Assists + Steals) / TO	1.92	0.96	2.62	0.89

	Illinois	Opp.	Mizzou	Opp.
Exp. Offensive Rebounds	122	141	136	138
Offensive Rebounds	123	141	153	141
Eq. Rebound Margin	+1	0	+17	+3

You probably didn't need these numbers to tell you that Mizzou is the more up-tempo, offensive team, while Illinois is the slug-it-out, defensive team. If Mizzou has an advantage here, it's because their margins are better. They are +1.73 on the (Ast+Stl)/TO ratio, while UI is +0.96. They are +0.30 on Points Per Possession, while UI is +0.25.
Illinois' rebounding is not quite what I thought it would be. Again, the Expected Offensive Rebounds figure is based on the fact that there are different offensive rebound %'s for 2-pointers, 3-pointers and FT's...plus, both UI's and MU's opponents have missed more shots than they have, so they expected number is higher. From the Expected Rebounds standpoint, Illinois is...only average. They have both grabbed and given up pretty much the exact number of expected offensive rebounds.
Missouri, on the other hand, has been slightly below average in defensive rebounds...but great in offensive rebounds. Strangely, Mizzou might actually have the rebounding edge here.
Projected score based on Points Per Minute: Mizzou 71, Illinois 68
Projected score based on Points Per Possession (and average possessions per game): Mizzou 70, Illinois 69

Missouri Season to Date

Player	EqPts/Gm	EqPts/Min	Line
DeMarre Carroll	17.83	0.69	17.6 PPG, 7.3 RPG, 2.0 APG, 1.8 SPG
Leo Lyons	14.50	0.62	16.2 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1.5 SPG
Marcus Denmon	7.96	0.46	7.3 PPG, 2.9 RPG, 1.9 APG, 1.4 SPG
Zaire Taylor	7.44	0.30	4.2 PPG, 3.5 APG, 3.2 RPG, 1.4 SPG
J.T. Tiller	7.21	0.34	6.4 PPG, 3.3 APG, 2.8 RPG, 2.2 SPG
Matt Lawrence	7.17	0.38	9.5 PPG, 2.1 RPG, 0.8 APG
Miguel Paul	4.99	0.31	4.8 PPG, 2.4 APG, 1.2 RPG
Keith Ramsey	4.39	0.36	4.0 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 0.7 APG, 0.7 BPG
Kim English	4.00	0.32	6.9 PPG, 1.5 RPG, 1.0 APG
Laurence Bowers	3.78	0.41	3.0 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 0.7 BPG
Justin Safford	3.77	0.30	4.1 PPG, 2.9 RPG, 1.5 APG
Jarrett Sutton	2.04	0.58	3.0 PPG
Steve Moore	1.45	0.26	1.8 PPG, 2.0 RPG
Michael Anderson Jr.	1.10	0.16	1.5 PPG, 1.0 RPG

Illinois Season to Date

Player	EqPts/Gm	EqPts/Min	Line
Chester Frazier	13.40	0.44	7.2 PPG, 6.6 APG, 3.8 RPG, 1.3 SPG
Mike Davis	12.34	0.43	13.0 PPG, 8.2 RPG, 1.6 APG, 0.8 SPG
Demetri McCamey	11.16	0.37	12.4 PPG, 4.8 APG, 3.3 RPG
Trent Meachem	8.09	0.27	10.9 PPG, 2.5 APG, 1.9 RPG
Mike Tisdale	5.56	0.25	10.4 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 1.1 BPG
Dominique Keller	5.12	0.46	6.4 PPG, 3.5 RPG
Calvin Brock	3.44	0.20	5.2 PPG, 1.8 RPG, 1.3 APG
Jeff Jordan	2.19	0.20	1.4 PPG, 1.5 APG
Richard Semrau	1.21	0.09	2.5 PPG, 2.6 RPG
Bubba Chisholm	0.92	0.55	0.7 PPG, 1 Walk-on, 1 great name
Bill Cole	0.79	0.13	1.9 PPG, 1.3 RPG
C.J. Jackson	0.25	0.11	1.2 PPG, 0.7 RPG
Alex Legion	-0.54	-0.03	6 pts, 2 reb, 3 TO, 2 PF in 18 minutes

Two things to note immediately: 1) Leo Lyons and DeMarre Carroll are the two (statistically) best players on the court, and 2) While UI has four guys averaging in double-digits, it's Chester Frazier (7.2 PPG) who makes this team tick.
Foul trouble could come into play here. UI's Mike Tisdale averages 0.13 fouls per minute, as does Richard Semrau, while MU's Leo Lyons (0.10) and DeMarre Carrolle (0.08) have both improved in their body control from last year...but they still have lots of foul potential. And in the backcourt, JT Tiller is averaging 0.13 fouls per minute (0.16 against 'real teams'--USC, Cal, Xavier), and none of UI's major guards average higher than 0.08.
Another potential issue: depth. Illinois has three guys averaging 30 minutes per game and has another at 28.7. Meanwhile, Missouri only has four guys averaging as much as 20 minutes per game, with another six averaging 12 minutes or more. Plus, Laurence Bowers is starting to work his way into the rotation, meaning Mizzou has 11 guys who could play regularly. Illinois just got deeper with the addition of Alex Legion, meaning their rotation just went from 10 guys at 11 minutes per game or more, to 11, but Mizzou's "line change" could be pretty effective, as their bench has contributed much more.

Strength of Schedule

According to KenPom.com, Mizzou's SOS is #251 (it's gone down in a hurry), UI's is #237. According to CollegeRPI.com, Mizzou's is #145, UI's is #80.

Strength of...Team

According to KenPom.com, Mizzou is currently the #8 team in the country. Illinois: #16. According to CollegeRPI.com, Mizzou is #39, Illinois #26. Lucky for Mizzou, Ken Pomeroy says the RPI is dead. So there!

Jordans

Illinois 1, Missouri 0. A clear Illini advantage here.

Conference Superiority

The Big Ten has recently asserted itself in a major way, especially against the Big 12 in particular. The Big 11 is 4-0 versus the Big 12 this year and 13-4 over the past two seasons. Granted, this year's results have been from just two teams--Michigan State (who beat OSU and Texas) and Iowa (who beat ISU and KSU)--but still...looks bad. CONFERENCE PRIDE!!!

What does StatSheet.com have to say?

God bless StatSheet...a site that is virtually guaranteed to become my favorite website over the next three months. For Braggin' Rights, they have both a written and stat-heavy preview. Plus, all the StatSheety goodies. Point spread history? Yup. DeMarre Carroll vs Mike Davis comparison? Got it. Jarrett Sutton vs Bubba Chisholm? Bingo. (Sutton kicks Bubba's butt.) Fun (and slightly blinding) player impact charts? Hell yeah...

Stats by StatSheet.com

Prediction

This is just about as evenly-matched a Braggin' Rights game has been since at least about 2002 or 2003. This one should be fun, tense, annoying, exciting, etc. I don't know why I'm even making a prediction--in the current 8-game losing streak to Illinois, I'd have probably picked MU to win in at least 5-6 of those games, because I'm me--but the numbers give the slightest of edges to Missouri. Take strength of scheulde into account, and it basically becomes a coin toss. After landing on Heads for eight straight years, surely the coin will land on Tails this time, right? Missouri 70, Illinois 69.

SB Nation - Richard Semrau