Illinois vs #5 OH State

[jasonpeoria911]

Maybe I missed it but thought I would see a thread on this already.

Illinois comes up with the big home win against #5 OH State without main man Sammy. The new main man Paul steps in with the 3rd highest scoring game ever for an Illini with 42 points.

3 bench players played from both teams but amazingly, all the points came from the starters.....

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/boxscore?gid=201201100267

Jason

[Future Walk-On]

Paul went off. Deciding if Doug's game Sat or Paul's tonight was better...

Paul carried ILL to an upset so I gotta go with Paul

[tornado]

Paul went off. Deciding if Doug's game Sat or Paul's tonight was better...

Paul carried ILL to an upset so I gotta go with Paul

are you serious?
40 pts against the #5 ranked team compared to 40 pts against a ~300 ranked team?

[lefty]

Didn't get to see either game except for the last 22 seconds of Illinois game....nice game for Paul......it would still be nice to value the ball more but if you can score 43 then having a few too may turnovers is no big deal

[tornado]

Illinois continues to do what they need to do to win...
I know they look shaky at times - but they're 15-3 with all three losses to teams (UNLV, PURDUE, Mizzou) who have spent plenty of time in the Top 25.

Last night's game was quite enjoyable to watch as they play quite well in many phases of the game -

Sammy is still in the top 3 or 4 of at least 10 Illini statistical categories..and plans to play at Penn State a week from tomorrow.
(minutes played per game, 3-pt shooting pct, 3-pt FG's made, FT shooting pct, FT made, assists, assist to turnover ratio (43/19!), steals, total points scored, and scoring average..)

[Buesch N Chips]

I still don't know how Paul made that last 3 pointer. Unbelievable.

[tornado]

he was fouled and still made it

[Future Walk-On]

are you serious?
40 pts against the #5 ranked team compared to 40 pts against a ~300 ranked team?

lol I still feel that Paul's outside shooting was flukish

[tornado]

I'll take flukish now and then...I think it's great if we had a guy who was red hot, the rest of the team recognized it and fed him the ball, and he went for 40!

but... here are Brandon Paul's shooting percentages since the UNLV game on Dec. 17...
4-8
8-16
5-8
7-15
4-12
4-13
11-15
..and in four of those 7 games he's hit at least 38% of his 3-pt attempts..
and he's 19-42 (45.2%) since then...and when he's hot he's hot...

We do have TB - who in that exact same interval - the last 7 games -
has hit 42-79 (53.2%) and 13-21 (62%) from 3-pt range - maybe we need to feed him the ball more...

[real fan]

I'll take flukish now and then...I think it's great if we had a guy who was red hot, the rest of the team recognized it and fed him the ball, and he went for 40!

but... here are Brandon Paul's shooting percentages since the UNLV game on Dec. 17...
4-8
8-16
5-8
7-15
4-12
4-13
11-15
..and in four of those 7 games he's hit at least 38% of his 3-pt attempts..
and he's 19-42 (45.2%) since then...and when he's hot he's hot...

We do have TB - who in that exact same interval - the last 7 games -
has hit 42-79 (53.2%) and 13-21 (62%) from 3-pt range - maybe we need to feed him the ball more...

Versace would have told the team to make sure Taylor gets a touch on every possession , probably would have seen double screens or whatever else it took to get him the ball.When a player is hot you need to pass him the ball and he needs to keep shooting it as long as he gets open looks.

[Chico]

As much as I like SM and as much as the ESPN announcers kept bringing up the point that Illinois's point guard wasn't playing, IMO Illinois wouldn't have won if SM was playing last night.

[Da Coach]

I am not sure how you can conclude that. On the other hand, since Sam averages way more assists than anyone else on the Illini except Paul, maybe if Sam was playing Paul would have gotten as many or more shots than he got and Illinois wins easily. Most nights Illinois would have lost that game. It took a once-in-a-career shooting night by Brandon Paul to pull it out. Over the course of the season, they'll win more games running Weber's offense, which didn't happen much last night.
Over the course of this season, IMO, Illinois is a better team and will win more games with Sam playing than with him out of the lineup. There were some who predicted he'd be a benchwarmer and an insignificant contributor at Illinois, but already he's proven to be a valuable part of the team, averaging 10 ppg, and 3 apg with by far the best assist/turnover ratio on the team.

[Beninator]

Versace would have told the team to make sure Taylor gets a touch on every possession , probably would have seen double screens or whatever else it took to get him the ball.When a player is hot you need to pass him the ball and he needs to keep shooting it as long as he gets open looks.

oh the double screen... how I have missed seeing something that innovative from a Bradley team......

[Chico]

I am not sure how you can conclude that. On the other hand, since Sam averages way more assists than anyone else on the Illini except Paul, maybe if Sam was playing Paul would have gotten as many or more shots than he got and Illinois wins easily. Most nights Illinois would have lost that game. It took a once-in-a-career shooting night by Brandon Paul to pull it out. Over the course of the season, they'll win more games running Weber's offense, which didn't happen much last night.
Over the course of this season, IMO, Illinois is a better team and will win more games with Sam playing than with him out of the lineup. There were some who predicted he'd be a benchwarmer and an insignificant contributor at Illinois, but already he's proven to be a valuable part of the team, averaging 10 ppg, and 3 apg with by far the best assist/turnover ratio on the team.

Guess what I meant was that Sam would have been handling the ball a lot more than the other guys and last night everybody was just looking for Paul when it was obvious he had the hot hand and no one player was considered the point guard. Not a knock on Sam.

[tornado]

Illini are now all alone in 2nd place in the Big Ten just a game behind Michigan State (who play later today)..
as Michigan loses to Iowa -- pretty amazing - the Big Ten is wide open...
Just 2 games separate 2nd place from 8th place