Illinois

Currently Illinois is 11-1 with their toughest test coming up on Thursday (at #8 Mizzou).  Their only loss was to a decent UNLV team.  I would put UNLV and Virginia on a similar level.  They also have been Gonzaga.  Illinois almost lost to Cornell last night.  The rest of the non-conference schedule has been very weak. 

Illinois has two very good guards (junior DJ Richardson and junior Brandon Paul), and then they have their standard 7 foot goon that has unexpected range (Meyers Leonard). Their bench is pretty thin as of right now, and the remaining 2 starters are more role players and defensive specialists. 

Bruce Weber had built up a national power and was thought of to be one of the top coaches in the country, but that was almost 10 years ago and now he is on the hot seat.  He needs a solid year and to get back into the NCAA tourney to save his job.  Illinois has never lacked talent under Weber, he just seems to lose control of his players by the end of the year. 

Illinois likes to run a high pressure defense that funnels everything to the basket where their amazon will be waiting for blocked shots.  They will try to jump passing routes and will hedge out a long ways on the pick and rolls because of their confidence in the post players.  Leonard has improved drastically since last year (he played with Hardaway over the summer for Team USA).  He just registered his best collegiate performace last night (19 points and 16 rebounds).  He spent most of last season out of position which led to some foul problems, but this year he is staying on the floor for 30+ minutes a night. Think of how our offense would look if Smot could do the same! 

On the offensive end, Illinois likes to move around their center while posting their power forward up.  They like to run high screens with the center, and instead of a normal hard roll to the hoop, the center will subtly roll to the elbow or 3 point line for an open jumper.  Most big guys struggle at reading this and defending since they are so used to hedging out and then recovering towards the hoop not to a jump shooter. The Illinois offense runs through DJ Richardson.  He leads them in scoring and assists.  He will be a tough matchup for many B1G point guards.  He is 6'3" and very strong.  With his size, Illinois will try to post him up against smaller gaurds (like Burke).  The point guard position might be the deepest position in the entire conference with most teams claiming their own should be All Big Ten.

How do they matchup vs Michigan?  Michigan always seems to struggle against the Illini, especially on the road.  I think this is likely to continue this year again.  I would be disappointed if we went 0-2 vs Illinois, so the likely scenario is winning at home.  Burke will have one of his toughest defensive assignments in this game, and will likely concede 15-18 points.  Since Richardson is averaging 15, this is not too bad.  The problem will be if Burke allows Richardson to get the role players involved.  Richardson has the size to collect 7-10 rebounds in a given game, and also have 5+ assists.  This could result in a lot of second chance points. Leonard will be a tough matchup for whoever has to guard him, and he will likely have a double double against our poor low post defense.  Illinois does not mind playing at a slow tempo with us, so any fast break chances need to be converted on both sides.  Our bigs will have to avoid foul trouble for Michigan to win these games. 

On the offensive end, they will struggle with our lineup even more than we will with theirs.  Like most teams in the nation, they lack the athletic wing player to shut down Hardaway.  If he can come out and be aggressive for 40 minutes, he will easily get his 20 points.  If our bigs can stay on the floor, Smot and Morgan can have big offensive days.  With our pick and roll and back cut offense, it will challenge Leonard to play more defense than usual and could tire him out for offense or more importantly put him into foul trouble. I am not worried about our ability to score the basketball against Illinois.  Any of our 5 starters will have the chance to score 15+ points in this game, so it is just a question of who has the hot hand.  What is more likely to happen?  Smot has 2 fouls before the opening tip, and we struggle to contain Leonard all game.  We have to rely on our guards to create points, and when Burke and Hardaway are off the floor we have no offensive consistency or ability. 

Illinois prediction: 9-9 conference record, good enough for an NCAA tourney appearance.