Last Sunday, John Groce out-coached Matt Painter. On Saturday, he was out-coached by Tim Miles. Just as the Illini exploited the holes in Purdue’s game and ruthlessly attacked them, Nebraska did to Illinois in a 78-67 win.
The biggest difference in the game was rebounding, a common refrain for Illini (9-9, 1-4) fans. Nebraska (11-8, 3-3), not a huge team but a talented rebounding team, maximized its efforts on the glass. The final tally was 42 to 24, in favor of Nebraska, but even that needs further dissection. Of those rebounds, 34 were on the defensive end, whereas Illinois had just 3 offensive rebounds. The Huskers simply denied the hosts any chance of getting a second chance on offense, and it was a big difference maker.
In a press conference previewing the Nebraska game, Groce used the phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” to describe his team’s emphasis on getting back on defense rather than looking for offensive boards. Miles obviously identified this on game film, and Saturday his charges made good on his instruction.
Nebraska was adept at more than just rebounding, however. Without Leron Black and Mike Thorne, it’s easy to identify Illinois as a three point-shooting team (only Northwestern and Purdue have attempted more threes in the Big Ten), so the Huskers simply cut off access to the interior and made the Illini jack threes all night. Of the team’s 59 field goal attempts, 37 were from beyond the arc: that’s 62%. And Illinois made just 11 of those threes. The shots came at the beginning and end of the shot clock, with only the common thread that their selection was poor.
Again, this is all credit to Miles and Nebraska where the credit is deserved. They executed a great game plan, stifling Illinois’s greatest threats and ensuring they didn’t get second looks. Those threats, Malcolm Hill and Kendrick Nunn, were held to 17 and 15 points, respectively; the Huskers’ hotshots, Andrew White and Shavon Shields, played them physically and took them out of the rhythm that saw them put up 52 combined against Purdue.
There are many ways for Illinois to excuse this loss, just as there have been many ways to excuse previous losses. Injuries, freshmen playing oversized roles, lack of depth around the two studs; but fans have seen what happens when those excuses aren’t a factor. They’ve seen this group rise up against greater competition and achieve great things. And this comes down to Groce.
After the game, the Illinois coach’s comments reflected some of the frustration he’s feeling regarding this year rather than this individual loss. These comments could easily have come after the North Florida loss as Saturday.
“They were tougher and smarter.”
“They had more of an edge than we did. They set the rules of the game.”
“We didn’t play the right way today. That’s the part that’s disappointing.”
Michael Finke, speaking to reporters, seemed to concur and pointed to maturity as a factor in the team’s inconsistency. But all of this, the way to get through the inconsistency and gain maturity, that’s Groce’s task as the leader of these young men. He’s not measuring up right now.
Now, I don’t think you can fairly judge Groce on this season, not negatively at least. Because of the injuries to 3 players who would be playing 25+ minutes per game regularly, it’s hard to say he’s at fault for the losing. However, if he were to pull off more of the surprise wins, like Purdue, or even hum-drum wins, like Nebraska, it would really speak volumes about his ability as a leader. Fans, administration, recruits, everyone needs to see Groce lead these guys above expectations in order to have more faith in his ability, to have faith that he can bring back a culture of winning. If teams are going to keep playing inconsistently, it will continue to be hard to have any faith in the future with Groce.
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