Illinois @ Purdue
- Thread starter The RUT
- Start date
Purdue seems to always have trouble closing out games vs good teams
Illinois could have easily tossed in the towel. This is Underwoods best team
Underwood's 2020-21 club that was upset by Loyola(Chicago) was his best team. I honestly thought that team could win it all.
That team was great but had Curbello...it was wild...high ceiling but i thought erratic and that was such a poor performance as a 1 seed in that game
Impressed with how disciplined this team is compared to last year
Curbelo was great that year, B1G 6th man of the year. He didn't start flaking out until the following season when he had a terrible concussion in a pre-season exhibition game. Sad situation and his subsequent college career seems to show it's still affecting him.
As an Illini fan, I disagree. While that team was humming (e.g., the three games in Indy on the way to a BTT championship), we indeed looked unbelievably good. However, it was WAY worse at adjusting to matchup problems or other things not going our way than this year’s team, so it had the ability to sort of “shut down” and look like crap sometimes (e.g., losses to Mizzou and Loyola). If Ayo was contained and Kofi was double teamed, we were totally inept. I think this year’s team when we had TSJ was better … now, it’s a closer call. We will need to see more.
Uh, what? Yeah they were totally inept when they won @ Wisconsin and then destroyed Michigan in Ann Arbor without Ayo. The Mizzou game was at Mizzou with some horrifically bad SEC officiating, remember that bogus flagrant on Kofi? And the kenpom AdjEM of that team was 29.06, this year right now is only 25.22. Can't actually compare different years but does give a rough idea. The Loyola loss was bad but IMO Ayo still wasn't right after getting hit in the face during the Ohio St BTT game which re-aggravated his fractured cheek. And we also just missed a bunch of shots. This year's team is good but has a long way to go to accomplish what the '21 team did.
And how the heck was Brandon Podziemski getting only 5 minutes/game 2 seasons ago for the Illini, transfers out to Santa Clara, plays 1 year and becomes a first round draft pick?
Amazing how this stuff works out sometimes. Kofi, whom I felt could help some NBA team’s frontline after the ‘20 or ‘21 season, can’t get a spot in the league and Curbello is now on his 3rd school. Podziemski, who couldn’t get off the bench on that team is now playing 20-25 minutes/game for the Warriors.
Amazing how this stuff works out sometimes. Kofi, whom I felt could help some NBA team’s frontline after the ‘20 or ‘21 season, can’t get a spot in the league and Curbello is now on his 3rd school. Podziemski, who couldn’t get off the bench on that team is now playing 20-25 minutes/game for the Warriors.
Last edited:
I didn’t say they didn’t have a long way to go. It’s early January, they haven’t accomplished anything. I said that with TSJ playing I thought they were better, and that they appear to be more effective at responding to when the game plan isn’t going our way (obviously the game plan for games without Ayo didn’t involve Ayo…). This isn’t some knock on the 2021 team.
But what do you want me to say? That this year’s team (with TSJ) also freezes up and goes down to Loyola in the Second round if put in that same game? Because I don’t believe that.
Just thought it was odd to disagree with someone saying the '21 team was Underwood's best and the reasoning is some nebulous "response when things aren't going good" stuff. When we don't really even know that yet about this team. The '21 team had some ups and downs but was most certainly peaking late by running through those roads wins I mentioned and then the gauntlet of the BTT. Which made the Loyola game all that more surprising. We really don't know what this team would have done with TSJ or what they may do without him.
Yeah, the Podz stuff is amazing. I'll just say he made a great choice for himself by dropping down a level to Santa Clara where he had the ball in his hands all the time and could showcase himself. Not likely to get that at Illinois or many other high major programs.
The problem at Illinois was he was just buried. After he signed, Frazier and Williams both decided to return and use their covid season. And they also had 5th year guys Plummer and Grandison at the wings. Plus 2 other freshmen wings in Goode and Melendez that both played well. They won the Big Ten so hard to fault Underwood too much there. But I do wonder what he saw in practice and if he had any idea of what talent Podz had?
Similar threads
