Random thoughts from Braggin Rights

Posted on: December 14, 2020 at 11:19:35 CT

Unquestionably a great win, first victory over a top 10 ranked opponent since before we gave up on men’s basketball in 2014. That is definitely a statement game that MU is back, and it happened at the hands of our rival. Also the first time we have been 5-0 since hiring Kim. Very satisfying.

Little known fact, the last time we beat the Illini when they were ranked in the top 10 was the 1955-56 season.

Getting to 49 points at half was huge, possibly the best first half we have played. 16-16 from the line was also particularly important and certainly not fluky because this is an excellent free throw shooting team. Only 67% in the second half from the stripe and 18% behind the arc as we started settling offensively but we had built a large enough lead to hold on.

I don’t know what it is about this matchup, but Mark Smith is now avging 3.3 ppg in Braggin Rights games for MU and Pickett is avging 15.7 ppg. When they write the summary of Pickett’s career at MU, Braggin Rights will be prominently featured.

There is one pattern I’d like to see stop….when we sit Tilmon for prolonged periods to end the first half of games attempting to protect him from foul trouble he almost always is predominantly ineffective the remainder of the game because he comes back timid and overthinking. He also mostly fouls out in such situations anyway. He is a most important player by a wide margin, we simply can’t afford to manage his minutes that way. Also it would a be much more effective way to control his fouls to double down from up top occasionally when he is defending the post, 2 of his fouls could have been easily avoided if Pinson doubled down on Cockburn.

Kobe Brown is turning into the player we hoped that Puryear would evolve into but topped out before reaching it. His rebounding was key, particularly with Tilmon not controlling the boards as usual. This is a flat out excellent rebounding team, rebounding may be its #1 strength right now.

I thought Wilmore gave quality minutes in his brief appearance. Was surprised we didn’t go to that again when foul trouble really started impacting us. I think he would have risen to the occasion. That said, Mitch did a pretty good job defensively for most of the game. Braun can’t guard anyone, its just too much of a liability to have him out there at this point. Other than shot blocking it doesn’t appear he even gives effort defensively.

I can not believe how limited Trent Frazier has become in the Illini offense. He made 1 shot. This is a guy who as a sophomore scored 44% of his team’s points in the 2018 Braggin Rights game and did it very efficiently. I would have thought that guy was headed to superstardom.

That Burbelo guyis really good. I’m not going to enjoy watching him play against us in upcoming years because he will probably evolve into a real problem for the Tigers.

We have now given up a 31 point game and a 36 point game. Defense is obviously Martin’s calling card and in general we have been fantastic defensively. But Ayo simply did the same thing over and over again and we had no answer. I guess maybe the tactic in these scenarios is do enough so the rest of the team doesn’t beat you but it’s a bit unnerving that we don’t make adjustments when a guy is going off and simply allow him to do the same thing over and over each possession to success. That is what the guy at Oregon did too. Maybe deny those guys the ball a little better.

Dru Smith was his consistently steady very good self. He is probably as close to Melvin Booker as we have had since Melvin in that he just does so much in so many different ways contributing to wins.

Unfortunately the story was officiating, and they certainly impacted the game in way too many ways. Just completely controlled the tempo and caused all kinds of foul trouble issues, although probably to MU’s favor given how good of a free throw shooting team we are. The sequence where Cockburn lowered his shoulder and absolutely plowed through Tilmon who took the charge but got no call, then Tilmon fouling out for a non-existent hooking, and then Cockburn scoring an uncontested basket after knocking Mitch to the ground with a strike to the face was certainly a bit absurd. Glad the good guys ended up winning.

My 1 complaint (other than the previously mentioned use of Tilmon) is highlighted by our most crucial possession. With 40 seconds remaining and possession of the ball, it was absolutely critical that we get a basket. So we had Pinson stand at halfcourt and hold the ball while the other 4 players stood motionless spread around the 3 point line. Pinson penetrated, was denied, and kicked it out to a guarded power forward who shoots 25% for his career behind the arc that predictably airballed it. It was just a complete waste of a possession other than I suppose we did kill clock but certainly failed spectacularly in generating a good look. Thankfully the Illini immediately called timeout to diagram up a strategy with the 10 seconds remaining, and broke huddle with their career 33% three point shooter flinging a guarded running prayer with about 7 seconds remaining that equally wasted their possession. College bb coaching….its fantastic. There are going to be situations that require us to get a bucket this year because this year is going to matter, we are good. Its going to kill us at some point to simply give those important possessions away.

Great win, glad to be ranked, and its well deserved. We still haven’t come close to putting a complete game together, so this team with 2 top 25 wins that sits undefeated and ranked is just scratching the surface of how good we will ultimately be. Its great to see expectations starting to emerge that MU can viably compete for a conference championship.