Down goes Illinois

Hang their “Sweet 17” banner!

Double post. Sorry. Got my buzz on a wee bit early to celebrate the illinilni getting bounced

Yep. Teams need to learn not to slap the floor. Nothing good happens after that. That’s when I texted my Illinois fan buddy and told him it was over. He asked “What do you mean?”

I said this a couple weeks ago and people thought I was nuts.  He's a great player but dominates the ball.  They played more as a team without him.

He’s going to shoot a lot when he’s out there and if he's off his game, they can struggle.  9 points and 7 turnovers today.

and yet still be considered for B1G POY...

Some people laugh at this concept, but I think there's an element of truth to it. Ayo is so ball dominant and honestly a stat stuffer. When he's on the court, it's just him and Kofi and those are basically the only two people you need to game plan for. Ayo was awful today and they triple teamed Kofi and that was it for them. Illinois is much more balanced without Ayo

I thought the same thing when they played UM. He dominates the ball and is stoppable with decent D. Curbelo and Miller, as a tandem, scare me more.

I think it is a bit unfair to put this on Ayo. Illinois was a team where the whole was less than the sum of the parts. When that is the case, I think you put that squarely on the coaches for not putting their players in a position to succeed.

They had a lot of great pieces, but never seemed to find the right lineups and scheme. And it's not just Ayo. Cockburn is a black hole that never seems to find 3-pt shooters when doubles come. It is hard to maximize Ayo's game with Cockburn camped out down low clogging the driving lanes. Curbelo too often would alternate between amazing and bonehead play, but either way he is often freelancing and dominating the ball outside the structure of an offense. It almost felt like Ayo would have been better off playing with Bezhanishvili on the floor, and Cockburn with Curbelo surrounded by 3-point shooters.

That's the only time I thought illinois was going  to catch up is when curbelo came back in!

Me too! I had three different brackets and all three are toast. I suck at this!

as much as i have enjoyed the stanley cup over the years, at least when the wings fielded a men's team, the cup just doesn't have the level of chaos and lightning strikes that the NCAA's do.  way more random results combined with what i'd describe as the pure (more pure?) joy of college kids on a huge stage. 

Back when the Stanley Cup playoffs was played by real men (“men with a pair of balls and a cock,” to use a famous quote from our own Red Berenson) rather than every ticky tack thing being called, it was the best.  Maybe not the most highlighty, but the best tournament. 
 

That one only cost me one game.