IU has more talent on their roster than anyone. Same for Howard at Michigan until his last year. Coaching matters as much as roster management.
Illinois obliterated by Maryland
- Thread starter CappyNU
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I believe you need good players and a good Coach. Undie is a good Coach and I don’t believe he should get blamed every time you lose. John Wooden would have had trouble Coaching the Cats to a W today. It was very predictable.
Yeah agreed. Although I still feel like coaches should always be blamed at a macro level. They’re making huge money and over the course of the season the teams performance reflects their ability to build a roster and coach the team.
Agree. My beef is after every loss fanbases tee up the HC. Undie got destroyed by your fanbase after losing in Evanston. I could actually see that one as the Illlini clearly are deeper and more talented than the Cats. If you are going to blame the Coaches for this loss then you might as well blame them for every single loss. Oh, and conversely give them credit for every win.
You want to blame Coaches watch the ending of the Indiana versus Maryland game.
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And some think I take a radical position in defending Collins when crap like this comes up so, so regularly.
Oh yeah, there is a classic overreaction to every game, the coach sucked, that player has been figured out, etc…….
Sometimes a team just doesn’t play well. It happens!
Sometimes a team just doesn’t play well. It happens!
When you lose pretty badly to a team you had previously beaten, the players and the coaches usually had a bad night.
This should surprise no one - and yet it seems there are people who believe differently.
How much blame goes to the coaches and how much blame goes to the players? Its up for debate.
In my view we weren't ready for what Illinois was doing defensively. This has happened before. We didn't do much to change that during the game. You can't just shut your eyes and say it didn't happen - or maybe you can. I can't.
This should surprise no one - and yet it seems there are people who believe differently.
How much blame goes to the coaches and how much blame goes to the players? Its up for debate.
In my view we weren't ready for what Illinois was doing defensively. This has happened before. We didn't do much to change that during the game. You can't just shut your eyes and say it didn't happen - or maybe you can. I can't.
Sometimes a team doesn’t play well but the effort by NU in the first half today was bad. Outhustled to every loose ball and just did not match the intensity of Illinois. Which is disappointing because they had to know Illinois would come out with max effort today after their last loss. And they had to know if they didn’t match it they would be in trouble.
This isn’t your finest moment PWB. My eyes are wide open and I see NU up against a team that Clearly has better players overall. Did you ever consider that we beat them the first time because our staff did an incredible job in that game? What exactly did they do that was so innovative that it perplexed a staff with about a century of experience? Where we ready for their offense? Didn’t see that mentioned, yet we had no clue how to stop them despite us having a defensive guru on our Coaching staff.
Players win and lose game the majority of time. Coaches at this level make a difference in a few games a year. Good coaches win a few more than they should, bad ones lose a few more than they should. The players were casual to start. Our best player sure seems to be playing through some nicks, our top scorer started slow and our big men lost the battle to a Freshman. We are playing with 4 offensive threats at most. It’s damn near a miracle, we have done as well as we have this year.
It’s mind numbing that after every loss some can find ways to blame the HC. I’m not Gordie nominating CCC for Sainthood, but as I said before, if somehow we take that approach that Coach is so impactful , I would like to see a balance where he gets credit for our wins too. Trailing by 20 early on is on the players. Anyone who has played high level sports would tell you that too. I don’t want to hear the Coaches didn’t have them ready. Use that excuse when it repeatedly happens. It’s not 1967, where coaches throw chairs against the lockers and peel the paint off the wall at halftime. Players are responsible for how they play once they step on the court. The blame is primarily on the players, just like the credit is primarily with the players when they play well .
When we come out and can't do jacksquat on the offensive end of the court, I find it impossible to absolve the coaches.
Our guys looked a) unprepared and b) a step slow. I think our coaches were also a) unprepared and b) slow to respond
Not sure how one can argue otherwise.
I just did argue otherwise. You choose to ignore the argument. The Players are 18-23 year old human beings not images in a video game controlled by a joy stick. Coaches can yell FOCUS FOCUS all week before every game ( not that it matters) do everything possible right and the team will still occasionally lay an egg. Players are responsible for their own effort. They control that. They shouldn’t need a cattle prod from Brian James to go after a rebound. They shouldn’t need a tongue lashing from Chris Lowrey to spur them to actually stop a drive to the rim.
Adjustments? This was tried but there are limited options when the big 2 are not playing well. I say this after every loss and you say Gelo or KJ. Yet it rarely works because they aren’t as good as Berry or Leach just yet. We have had 3 games this season that were over at the 10 minute mark. Purdue, MSU, and Illinois. What’s the common denominator? Might be they all have much deeper rosters. CCC and staff didn’t rest on their laurels and relax preparation for those games. This is a ridiculous argument. I can’t remember a high level player ever saying, “ boy, I wasn’t ready to play today”, Coaches got to be better”.
I think you give way too much blame on the CCC when things go South. Conversely, I don’t see much credit when things go well. Consistently much? Now, personally I believe the players deserve the lions share of the credit and the blame for the results. You need good game plans, you need good Coaches, but even with both of them, you still need players! Generally, Teams with the best players win more games.
I don't disagree that yesterday there was probably nothing that could have been done.
But coaching is more than choosing lineups, calling plays, scouting, strategizing for a game... It includes prepping your guys for the environment they're going to face, for the attitude you want them to have, etc, etc. I mean the announcers multiple times mentioned how Undie's shootaround was intense. That's an example. He had lost 2 in a row, he was going to try to make up from some potential confidence problem. He was going to lit fire under their butts.
Again, I don't believe much could have been done, and I have no idea what Collins did. But blame is almost always to be shared, even if not in equal parts, by players and coaches. If I had to guess yesterday was 80% players, maybe even 90%, and not because they did not want it, they just did not have it. Could recovery been done better by staff? Maybe. Could they have found a way to make them come off the locker room more aggressive? Maybe. But it surely looked like one of them days, or one of those environments this group is not ready for. Just like they were not at Mackey.
This would be an excellent time for out students to come alive again and make our environment very complicated for other teams. I mean last couple of years it would not surprise anyone we won 3 in a row at home. And we did not even need it to be 3 more accessible opponents.
I am curious to see what wildside brings to the table on Wednesday night. I could see it going either way. I hope they are out there.
I agree with this. I believe it is really really rare that any team comes out firing on all cylinders every game. It’s human nature to have those ups and downs. I know you played high level BBall, and I am sure there were a few team clunkers in there where Coaching was pretty consistent to when you came out clicking. This just seemed like one of those days and I strongly disagreed that the Coaches were the main culprit.
I hope the team comes out with a little edge to their game after getting dismantled yesterday. Wildside can make it more likely, but the only baskets they have ever made have been at halftime.
