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#6 Ohio State 62, Illinois 44 (Final)

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bkochmc;708174; said:
The two weakest points of Conley's game are his free throw shooting and outside shot... once he gets those he'll be more lethal than he already is.
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can you imagine just how lethal he will be? defenders are playing somewhat off of him partly because of his lack of touch from the outside. once he makes the defenders honest,... wow. and oddly, it's not necessary at this point that conley's a great finisher. with oden and hunter, they can pick up the pieces.
 
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bkochmc;708196; said:
Final: 62-44

Combine this good win with Dook's loss and we'll have a #4 vs. #5 matchup in Madison on Tuesday. Good win Bucks!
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True. Did you see the Va Tech guy jump over Paulus's head? Amazing!
 

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What a game to win , away and at ILL. That is just awesome. I didn't get to watch much of the game but from what I did;

This game is the first where I saw consistant outside D and rotation to the ball. They need to get better but they are coming along. I was surprised at the amount of times Oden didn't block a shot.
outside shooting looked better along with hunter.
Good job Bucks!
 
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Steve19;708240; said:
That is a surprising outcome to me. I thought we win by say 6 - 8 points, but not like this. A very solid performance.
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though there was more on-the-ball pressure, the illini cannot consider our defense to be the primary reason for their low percentage. they just sucked with their shooting this afternoon. they shot 24% (!) overall and 13% (3-of-23!) from beyond the arc. of course, part of that poor shooting performance is attributable to the inside presence of oden and hunter, but, again, the bucks cannot claim success otherwise. battling the screens and picks continues to be a problem. too often the man being picked goes underneath instead of overtop, the step-out is weak or nonexistent, and both players stay with the ball too long, which leaves the rest to scamper for the soon-to-be open shooter.

the team cannot expect wisky to shoot anything close to that bad. wisky also doesn't base their offense on the 3-ball, which ohio state appears to be doing. as was shown tonight, greg can be pushed around (at least 6 more fouls could have been called on the players guarding him), and butch is strong enough to do that.

watching conley at the point today, i definitely see where jimotis and stadium dorm are coming from with their statements that mike dribbles too much; although, whatever concerns i have here are not as severe as stadium's. mike does an exceptional job of breaking down an offense off the dribble, yet the offense becomes predictable if he attempts to do it too often. there were a few offensive series tonight that were much different than what we've seen so far. there were a couple trips where the ball rotation was outstanding. the results were either wide open shots from the outside or dumps to the post from the backside rotation. teams are going to be successful with guarding oden if they have time to set up. rotating the ball will create weaknesses in the post defenses. hunter's been the beneficiary of that numerous times. i must state, though, that however stagnant the offense is at times, conley is not the lone reason. cook and and especially lewis hold the ball in their hands for too long.

if i had any doubt before about greg's brace bothering him, i certainly don't have it now because of one play in particular (well, not really just that play, but it did hammer home the recognition). about halfway through the second half, he got the ball underneath the bucket on the right side. there was some pressure but it was to his back and left side of the body. he went up with the ball in his right hand and missed the one-handed dunk. there was plenty of elevation. there was little pressure. there is no way he misses that if he's not wearing a brace or at least if he's wearing that confines him much less. this makes me feel better. i know that the brace has been hampering him all along, but, again, that play really brought it to light for me.

on the other hand, he was getting legally backed down a lot today. he's getting handled, and it's obvious that he needs much more weight on his frame. no worries. he'll gain that weight, but it may not be until he's finished here. until he loses that brace or gets one less restrictive, it doesn't seem that oden can be counted on to create a lot of offense, at least not directly. but i'm fine with him taking defenders and cleaning the glass for putbacks.

this brings me to butler. man, how nice was that to see today? more important than his success with knocking down the shots was his thirst to shoot. he shot as many shots against coppin state, but that was coppin state at home. it also just appeared to me that he was trying to create more.

cook and especially hunter continue to impress. hunter has an exceptional awareness on defense. the awareness on offense is obvious, too. he constantly puts himself in the spots for success, and that's largely testament to his hustle. this guy is a hard worker. i think hunter may be my favorite player.

i don't even feel like talking about harris. it's not so much his poor shooting today (1/9 and 0/6) that bothered me... it was his play and shot selection during so-called junk time. one thing that i appreciate in knight is that there is no garbage time. it was sickening to watch the last six or so minutes of the game. absolutely no offense was run and it resorted to a free-for-all from downtown. i wish matta would use this time more constructively. there's still plenty of work to do.

i still don't know what to think about lighty. the boy can ball on offense. we know his defense is good; however, with hunter securing his time playing alongside oden, lighty will lose playing time. of the players in the rotation (minus twiggy), he tabbed the fewest minutes. matta wants a high-octane offense, and perhaps coach is sending a signal. i hope lighty sees and responds to that signal. we need him on both ends of the court. however, i don't at all disagree with the playing time allocation today. each player got the minutes that he was fit to play.

again, i thought the overall play was good, but it should be noted that ohio state faced a team that shot extremely poorly tonight. while ohio state's resulting percentage wasn't great, (.350, .310, and .600), the percentages (except for free throws) decreased drastically during playground ball. i will be very impressed if ohio state beats wisky. oden must keep himself out of foul trouble, and the help/penetration defense must be strong.
 
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