High expectations are plaguing my season right now for the Illinois basketball team.
I came into this season with, probably, a little higher expectation than I should have had. Toward the end of the John Groce era, I was pretty anti-Groce and this may have blinded me into expecting greater things from year one of the Brad Underwood era.
Through 13 games this year, I have noticed some changes to the program, though. While the Illini still aren’t closing out games, they are competitive in every game they have played so far. Now sitting at 8-5 for the season, Illinois’ five games they have dropped consisted of two true road games in Wake Forest and Northwestern. They also lost to UNLV in Las Vegas and New Mexico State in Chicago. The only game that was at home was Maryland, and the Illini should have won that game after an amazing comeback.
There have clearly been some struggles with this team so far, but the change of being competitive in every game is nice to see. I have also liked to see the young players getting big-time minutes. Underwood coming into a new program and installing his system has to be a big change for the team. He has then added some new players to the mix and that spells struggles early on.
When you break everything down, though, Illinois hasn’t been too far off from being a team that wins this year. There are times they look like a surefire NCAA tournament program. But, then there are times they look like the most inexperienced team in the nation. This usually comes in the first half for the Illini.
If Illinois only played the first half of games this season and then the game would be over at halftime, the team would be 7-6 with a plus-minus of +61. This is really only one game different than what the Illini are currently sitting at.
If the #Illini played just the 1st half of each game, the team would be 7-6 this season with a +/- of +61. If they just played the 2nd half of each game, they would be 10-3 with a +/- of +97.
— Writing Illini (@WritingIlliniFS) December 18, 2017
Illinois is a much better team in the second half, though. If they just played the second half of games this season, the Illini would currently be 10-3 with a plus-minus of +97. That is a startling difference and something the coaching staff should pay attention to.
Next: Breakdown of the Illini against Longwood & NM State
Something happens at halftime – coaching, lineup changes, etc. – that makes a difference in these games. Moving forward, Illinois needs to start games off better so they can put wins up more consistently. This team is good, but they need to perform for an entire game.