No Unbeaten Teams Left

No team wants to be ranked number one
Each then tanks on the road.
The burden makes basketball less than fun.
Emotional circuits on overload.
#PurdueAndHoustonBothLostYesterday

Fodder for a Loren Tate Column

Recently, Loren has been giving readers a stroll down memory lane (and for most of us he's also going into history before we were around) about Illinois sports, trying to tie past to the present where possible.  Here is an example that might prove especially relevant, should Illinois beat Purdue in basketball tomorrow night or, even if not, should be it be a tight game in the closing minutes.  

The example comes from the Lou Henson team of 1983-84 that made it to the Elite Eight and lost to Kentucky (some say they were robbed by the ref's bad non-call near the end of the game).  The point of interest, however, happened before the season began.  Forward Anthony Welch was lost for the year due to injury.  Lou needed to replace him, but his available personnel didn't have another small forward to step in.  So, instead, Lou moved Doug Altenberger to small forward from shooting guard and had Quinn Richardson take over for Altenberger.  In effect, the team played with three guards, later to become the norm, but it wasn't then.  It is unlikely that Lou would have come up with these changes on his own had Welch not been injured.  Yet this team performed extremely well, tying for the Big Ten title with Purdue. 

Now I'm not saying that losing Welch back then is the same thing as losing Terrence Shannon now. But might the Illini without Shannon actually be better than they were before, perhaps because the pieces fit better and/or because the players better understand their roles?  That question might be asked after tomorrow's game.  For that Lou Henson team, losing Welch made them better.

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Now I want to make a different comment, also based on Illinois history, this time reacting to something that Brad Underwood said regarding caring about the point spread in a game, even when it's not close, because it matters for the NCAA's NET rankings. Screw that. Every time that the Illini have gotten far into the NCAA Tournament, the games Illinois played at Rupp Arena in 1984 were an example, a key player was injured and that hampered team performance.  Brad Underwood should focus on minimizing the impact of injury on Illinois Basketball players from here on out.  

I'm not a medical doctor, but it's evident that playing increased minutes raises the risk of injury and/or increases the risk of exacerbating a prior injury.  Both Coleman Hawkins and Quincy Guerrier have prior injuries that are still relevant.  Consequently, to me its obvious then that Dain Danja should get more minutes, subbing for one of them while he's in the game.  I understand that this changes the nature of how the Illini play, because style-wise Dainja is quite different from the other two.  But the team needs to figure out how to be effective with Dainja in the game and figure it out now.  It shouldn't wait till one of the others gets seriously injured again. 

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Here is one last point.  Where the current team has looked bad it's been against full court pressure.  Northwestern didn't try that at all.  If Illinois doesn't see it much more in Big Ten play, how does it prepare for that in the NCAA tournament?  

My own view on this is that Domask, as good as he's been with booty ball, is not that great bringing the ball up because he has a tendency to turn his back to the defense while he's dribbling, which gives the double team an advantage of surprise.  Indeed it seems to me that none of the starting guards are very strong in this area.  The guards coming off the bench may be better in this dimension.  

Maybe this says something about the playing time they get.  But maybe it says more about how practice goes.  How much of it is preparing for the next opponent and how much of it is preparing for the NCAA Tournament, without knowing who that opponent will be?  I don't think it is too early to be asking that question.