If you collect athletes, as John Groce has been doing since he got the Illinois job, at some point simply through their sheer numbers they'll put it altogether and have a pretty good season. Groce now has a whole bunch of top flight athletes, a lead dog in Rayvonte Rice who can be the big man on campus, and caught a big break with Tracy Abrams going down for the year with a knee injury because he is terrible. Rice is a better point guard, as are two transfer combo guards coming in from Oregon State and Seton Hall. Abrams has been the point guard for four years simply because Groce has continued on with Bruce Weber's tradition of refusing to ever sign a good, true point guard. With Abrams out the Illinois should end up with a more free flowing, faster offense that fits their athletic roster to a T (tee?).
Here's who is on the Illini's roster and their rank by 247sports when they were incoming freshmen: senior center Nganna Egwu #81, sophomores Kendrick Nunn #56, Malcolm Hill #103, Austin Colbert #98, Maverick Morgan #180, and Jaylon Tate #130, and freshmen Leron Black #43. Add in guys who transferred in with Rayvonte Rice, who led Illinois in scoring last season at 15.9 per game and also led in rebounding despite being just 6-4, Aaron Cosby (Seton Hall guy, averaged 13 points and 3 assists), and Ahmad Starks (Oregon State, averaged 10 and 2.3). I mean really, that's a shitload of talent. If Weber was here I'd say big whoop he's going to screw it all up anyway, but with Groce they should be ok and get to the NCAA Tournament, assuming they end up figuring out the PG situation.
And they should, because it should be pretty simple. Rice, Cosby, and Starks can all handle the ball, as can Tate. Rice is better off the ball, I think, and the transfers give him a chance to do just that the majority of the time. The Wing spot is in good shape as well, as any of those guys can play the #2 and add in Hill and Nunn and you've got plenty of options on the perimeter. Illinois does have a history of standing around and launching way too many horrible three-pointers and they could fall into that trap again - no returnee cracked 39% last season. The good news is Starks and Cosby both hit 40% last season, so there's another need those two transfers help fill. Pretty much perfect guys to transfer in, really.
Front court is pretty good shape as well, even if Egwu is the only returnee who averaged more than 7.1 minutes per game last season (7pts/6rebs/2blks in 30 mpg). Maverick Morgan is a monster at 6-10, 250 lbs. He didn't do much last year and he strikes me as a defense and rebounding type, but that's all this team will need from him. Another highly rated recruit who hasn't gotten much run is Austin Colbert, and he'll get his shot this year, but the real jewel here (other than Egwu who I seem to be glossing over but who is really quite a good player) is freshman Leron Black, ESPN's #44 recruit in the country. He's another incredible athlete Illinois can add to their surplus, but he's already got a polished offensive game with a decent mid-range jumper. He's my pick for freshman of the year if that's an award they give.
John Groce is a good coach, and there was little doubt he'd get the Illini turned around especially with a built in recruiting base of Chicago. He's been crushing the Chicago market and has built up two great classes in a row with a third on the way, and leveraged that with a lucrative transfer market where he's had a lot of success already. Illinois, however, has always seemed to have a talented and athletic squad, but it seems it's always been an issue getting them to really meld together and have sustained success, at least since the Deron Williams/Dee Brown team. Good chance Groce is the guy to do it, which means the Illini might be on the verge of becoming a Big Ten power. Yay.
OTHER PREVIEWS
#6 MICHIGAN
#7 MICHIGAN STATE
#8 IOWA HAWKEYES
#9 MARYLAND TERRAPINS
#10 INDIANA HOOSIERS
#11 PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS
#12 NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS
#13 PURDUE BOILERMAKERS
#14 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS
Showing posts with label Kendrick Nunn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kendrick Nunn. Show all posts
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Illinois 62, Minnesota 49
Ok, whatever, I'm over it. I'm surprising myself here by actually writing about this game, but I guess I'm so numb to disappointment as a Gopher fan that like, no big whoop. So here are 10 things I liked and didn't like about the Illinois game.
1. First off, the defense was fine. There are plenty of ugly stretches you can blame on the Gophers' defense this year, but last night wasn't one of them. Kendrck Nunn torched them and the Illini hit 8 of 13 threes, and giving up 1.09 points per possession isn't ideal, but then again giving up 1.09 ppp to a team that hit 62% of it's threes isn't bad. Minnesota held Illinois to 34% on 2-pointers and created a turnover on a respectable 19% of the Illini's possessions. And, contrary to brain dead Shon Morris's contention, most of those threes were tough shots. One or two might have come from a defensive breakdown (I remember one by Mo in the corner) but in general Illinois was hitting tough shots from deep. Sucks.
2. The Gopher offense was horrendous. Obvious enough to anybody watching, but Illinois played the same style defense the Gophers did, sagging in the paint to take away the drive and daring the Gophers to shoot. And boy did they fall for it. They hit a very nice 58% from 2, but took 25 freaking three pointers, hitting just four, and turned the ball over 26% of the time leading to a disastrous 0.86 points per possession which will never, ever win a game. This was one of the ugliest games I can remember watching in quite a while.
3. The whole team was embarrassingly flat last night and just totally out of it. How many balls went through hands? How many passes were off the mark? How many loose balls did the Gophers come up with? Most importantly, how the hell do you get called twice for not stepping all the way out of bounds to throw the ball in after a made Illini bucket? Twice! It rarely happens at all. The refs generally give a generous amount of leeway on that play, but the two called on the Gophers last night were so egregious the refs had no choice but to call them. I'm not even sure Eliason had one foot out of bounds on the one they called on him, let alone two. Just an embarrassing game in every respect.
4. Has Andre Hollins lost his point guard skills? I know DeAndre Mathieu is definitely the #1 point guard with Hollins the shooting guard, but wasn't the plan for Hollins to be the PG when Matheiu is on the bench? His assist numbers are drastically down, and last night he became Malik Smith, putting up 13 shots with 11 of them coming from three. Maybe it's an ankle issue, but he's looked fine the last two games, at least in that respect. The Gophers have two players who can create their own shot and create shots for others, and when one of them becomes a stand still jump shooter there are going to be problems.
5. Maybe we should do away with the autosit in the first half with two fouls. It's clear at this point that Mathieu is the team's most important player and per my previous point the offense stagnates when he's not on the floor, so maybe playing an entire 12 minutes stretch without him isn't the best thing to do. The Gophers led 14-3 when he went out with his second foul. There is nothing worse to me than sticking to dumb, rigid rules. It was clear the Gophers needed Mathieu back in before Illinois crawled all the way back, but because "the book" says to sit 'em the first half if he has two fouls he never got back off the bench. Stupid.
6. Mo Walker is becoming unstoppable. Last night 5-7 shooting for 10 points, and one of the prettiest moves I can remember seeing from any Gopher post man in quite some time. Against Maverick Morgan he was able to use his size and strength to just bull his way to the rim, and against Egwu he used great footwork, footwork I didn't know he had, to get his shots. Walker needs to become a focal point, if not the focal point, of this offense going forward, and I don't mean as the screener on pick-and-rolls. The PF picking Walker's man on one block to spring him going across the lane and establishing position on the other block needs to be a staple for this team for the next two years.
7. I started the year hating Joey King, but I seem to find myself writing positive things about him every time I write lately. His offensive game continues to blossom week-by-week as he understands more and more that the team needs him to be a power forward and not just a three point specialist. He's added a little bit of a post game, which I wrote about last time, and in this game he did a really nice job passing the ball out of the high post, even totaling what I assume is a career high 4 assists. The one thing he does that is killing me is when he pump fakes at the three point line and gets his man to leave his feet - and then does nothing or just passes it off. Freaking put the ball on the ground and move, man! Even if it's just to side step and shoot a three do something! You've gained an advantage, don't squander it.
8. King's counterpart, however, was pretty much ignored and invisible. If you watched last night the Gophers ran several pick and rolls with Oto as the screener, and none of them came close to working on any level because Illinois didn't care what Oto did. Every time he'd pop out to the wing, but Illinois's defense would just double the ball handler and force him the other way. Oto would do the right thing and cut baseline to the opposite corner, but it was such an aggressive double team I think they managed to find him exactly once for a possible shot, which ended up either a turnover or a missed shot I don't remember. Might have been nice to actually roll towards the basket and see if that opened something up elsewhere, because the way they ran this with Oto it was worthless.
9. Daquein McNeil is going to be really good. If nothing else he's going to be a heady, smart guard and a plus defender. I don't think he's ever going to be a really dynamic scorer or distributor, but he should develop into the kind of off guard who can knock down the open shot, drive if it's there, and limit his mistakes. Take that along with his tremendous defense already, which should just get better, and he's got real potential. We've seen him play good defense in spurts, and he did a great job against Drew Crawford in the Northwestern game, but now he's getting more consistent with it. I noticed last night that he does a thing Aaron Craft is really good at in that he can sneak between his man and a ball screen, reducing the need for any kind of hedge while at the same time avoiding going under the screen and giving up a possible open jumper. It's a valuable skill, and McNeil already seems to have it.
10. Now we can relax. There certainly isn't a bright side to this loss, but if you stretch far enough to can at least talk yourself into thinking you'll enjoy the games more now that you can watch the rest of the games stress free. There's now zero reason to expect the Gophers to make the NCAA Tournament this year, and the really sad thing is it's not their performance against the top tier teams that's keeping them out, but a combined 2-4 against Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, and Illinois. With a very difficult schedule the rest of the way just sit back and enjoy the ride, and enjoy speculating on what teams we might get to see at the Barn in the NIT/CBI/CIT.
It's going to be nice for me to not worry too much about it the next couple of weeks because I'm going to be on a bit of a whirlwind. Next week I will be in New Mexico for the entire week (hopefully I'll get up to some drunk posting like old times), then I'm back for half a week and off to Florida for vacation for a week and a half. So it'll be nice to not be obsessing over the Gophers. Expect posts from New Mexico for sure, and probably one or two at least from Florida, just don't expect them to be 100% Gopher stuff. Kind of liberating.
1. First off, the defense was fine. There are plenty of ugly stretches you can blame on the Gophers' defense this year, but last night wasn't one of them. Kendrck Nunn torched them and the Illini hit 8 of 13 threes, and giving up 1.09 points per possession isn't ideal, but then again giving up 1.09 ppp to a team that hit 62% of it's threes isn't bad. Minnesota held Illinois to 34% on 2-pointers and created a turnover on a respectable 19% of the Illini's possessions. And, contrary to brain dead Shon Morris's contention, most of those threes were tough shots. One or two might have come from a defensive breakdown (I remember one by Mo in the corner) but in general Illinois was hitting tough shots from deep. Sucks.
2. The Gopher offense was horrendous. Obvious enough to anybody watching, but Illinois played the same style defense the Gophers did, sagging in the paint to take away the drive and daring the Gophers to shoot. And boy did they fall for it. They hit a very nice 58% from 2, but took 25 freaking three pointers, hitting just four, and turned the ball over 26% of the time leading to a disastrous 0.86 points per possession which will never, ever win a game. This was one of the ugliest games I can remember watching in quite a while.
3. The whole team was embarrassingly flat last night and just totally out of it. How many balls went through hands? How many passes were off the mark? How many loose balls did the Gophers come up with? Most importantly, how the hell do you get called twice for not stepping all the way out of bounds to throw the ball in after a made Illini bucket? Twice! It rarely happens at all. The refs generally give a generous amount of leeway on that play, but the two called on the Gophers last night were so egregious the refs had no choice but to call them. I'm not even sure Eliason had one foot out of bounds on the one they called on him, let alone two. Just an embarrassing game in every respect.
4. Has Andre Hollins lost his point guard skills? I know DeAndre Mathieu is definitely the #1 point guard with Hollins the shooting guard, but wasn't the plan for Hollins to be the PG when Matheiu is on the bench? His assist numbers are drastically down, and last night he became Malik Smith, putting up 13 shots with 11 of them coming from three. Maybe it's an ankle issue, but he's looked fine the last two games, at least in that respect. The Gophers have two players who can create their own shot and create shots for others, and when one of them becomes a stand still jump shooter there are going to be problems.
5. Maybe we should do away with the autosit in the first half with two fouls. It's clear at this point that Mathieu is the team's most important player and per my previous point the offense stagnates when he's not on the floor, so maybe playing an entire 12 minutes stretch without him isn't the best thing to do. The Gophers led 14-3 when he went out with his second foul. There is nothing worse to me than sticking to dumb, rigid rules. It was clear the Gophers needed Mathieu back in before Illinois crawled all the way back, but because "the book" says to sit 'em the first half if he has two fouls he never got back off the bench. Stupid.
6. Mo Walker is becoming unstoppable. Last night 5-7 shooting for 10 points, and one of the prettiest moves I can remember seeing from any Gopher post man in quite some time. Against Maverick Morgan he was able to use his size and strength to just bull his way to the rim, and against Egwu he used great footwork, footwork I didn't know he had, to get his shots. Walker needs to become a focal point, if not the focal point, of this offense going forward, and I don't mean as the screener on pick-and-rolls. The PF picking Walker's man on one block to spring him going across the lane and establishing position on the other block needs to be a staple for this team for the next two years.
7. I started the year hating Joey King, but I seem to find myself writing positive things about him every time I write lately. His offensive game continues to blossom week-by-week as he understands more and more that the team needs him to be a power forward and not just a three point specialist. He's added a little bit of a post game, which I wrote about last time, and in this game he did a really nice job passing the ball out of the high post, even totaling what I assume is a career high 4 assists. The one thing he does that is killing me is when he pump fakes at the three point line and gets his man to leave his feet - and then does nothing or just passes it off. Freaking put the ball on the ground and move, man! Even if it's just to side step and shoot a three do something! You've gained an advantage, don't squander it.
8. King's counterpart, however, was pretty much ignored and invisible. If you watched last night the Gophers ran several pick and rolls with Oto as the screener, and none of them came close to working on any level because Illinois didn't care what Oto did. Every time he'd pop out to the wing, but Illinois's defense would just double the ball handler and force him the other way. Oto would do the right thing and cut baseline to the opposite corner, but it was such an aggressive double team I think they managed to find him exactly once for a possible shot, which ended up either a turnover or a missed shot I don't remember. Might have been nice to actually roll towards the basket and see if that opened something up elsewhere, because the way they ran this with Oto it was worthless.
9. Daquein McNeil is going to be really good. If nothing else he's going to be a heady, smart guard and a plus defender. I don't think he's ever going to be a really dynamic scorer or distributor, but he should develop into the kind of off guard who can knock down the open shot, drive if it's there, and limit his mistakes. Take that along with his tremendous defense already, which should just get better, and he's got real potential. We've seen him play good defense in spurts, and he did a great job against Drew Crawford in the Northwestern game, but now he's getting more consistent with it. I noticed last night that he does a thing Aaron Craft is really good at in that he can sneak between his man and a ball screen, reducing the need for any kind of hedge while at the same time avoiding going under the screen and giving up a possible open jumper. It's a valuable skill, and McNeil already seems to have it.
10. Now we can relax. There certainly isn't a bright side to this loss, but if you stretch far enough to can at least talk yourself into thinking you'll enjoy the games more now that you can watch the rest of the games stress free. There's now zero reason to expect the Gophers to make the NCAA Tournament this year, and the really sad thing is it's not their performance against the top tier teams that's keeping them out, but a combined 2-4 against Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue, and Illinois. With a very difficult schedule the rest of the way just sit back and enjoy the ride, and enjoy speculating on what teams we might get to see at the Barn in the NIT/CBI/CIT.
It's going to be nice for me to not worry too much about it the next couple of weeks because I'm going to be on a bit of a whirlwind. Next week I will be in New Mexico for the entire week (hopefully I'll get up to some drunk posting like old times), then I'm back for half a week and off to Florida for vacation for a week and a half. So it'll be nice to not be obsessing over the Gophers. Expect posts from New Mexico for sure, and probably one or two at least from Florida, just don't expect them to be 100% Gopher stuff. Kind of liberating.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Game Preview: Gophers vs. Illinois
Huge sigh of relief. I've been terrified of that Northwestern game ever since it morphed into a must win thanks to that three game losing streak. I know I usually like to do the 10 things post after the game and get all nerdy and stuff, but there was a little bit of a Sunday Fun Day going on and with the game not being until five I didn't really super pay attention. I know Jershon Cobb hit everything, Drew Crawford hit nothing, the Gophers and their turnovers are going to be the death of me, and DeAndre Mathieu is maybe the greatest Gopher of all time.
Up next is Illinois, another must win game. The good news is that Illinois is terrible. They've gone 3-10 in the Big Ten, and they started out 2-0 which, if my math is right, means they're 1-10 in the last eleven games. They did beat UNLV and Missouri in non-conference play and were even ranked in the Top 25 at one point, but a once promising season has gone completely off the rails and I really see no need for the Gophers to do anything to allow any life to seep back into the Illini. Kill them and kill them now.
Illinois's biggest problem is on offense, where they rank 11th in the Big Ten and 201st in the country in offensive efficiency. Their problem, and this seems like an Illinois tradition at this point, is that they do nothing but shoot jumpers. They take only 28% of their field goal attempts at the rim, a full 10% lower than the national average. And they don't even replace these attempts with valuable 3-point attempts, but with 2-point jumpers (10% more than the national average here too). This is a poor strategy no matter what, but it's even worse when you can't shoot. They rank dead last in the conference in 3-point shooting (28%) and 2-point shooting (41%) and being that bad at both is pretty impressive. Since they never drive to the paint they also rarely get to the line (335th in the country) so sometimes it gets awfully difficult for the Illini to find points.
If they're going to score, it's most likely going to come from 6-4 senior guard Rayvonte Rice, their leading scorer (16.6 per game) and one of a few players who might occasionally drive to the rim. He's probably their best three point shooter (33% on 5 attempts per game) but he's also very tough inside (5.9 rpg) and can use his strength and driving to get to the line (four games with 10+ FTAs this season, including 2 of the last 4), and is a big reason the Illini can play four guards as often as they do. He can score in bunches and has eclipsed twenty points four times in Big Ten play including 3 of the last 6 games. Most of his damage comes against teams who struggle to contain guard penetration, so it's imperative the Gophers keep him contained out to the perimeter.
Running the offense will be "point guard" Tracy Abrams who is continuing the Illini tradition of never having a good point guard (the curse of Chester Frazier) averaging just 3 assists per game (his assist percentage is ok, in fairness) and he's just a terrible shooter at 35% on twos and 27% on threes. He's actually their second leading scorer at 11.2 per game, but did most of his damage outside conference play and has hit double figures in just 7 Big Ten games, and one of the last four.
The other two guards will likely be a couple of highly regarded freshmen in 6-2 shooting guard Kendrick Nunn and 6-6 wing Malcolm Hill, both of whom were ranking in the 60s as incoming freshmen by ESPN. Neither has put up monster stats this year, but Nunn is started to get more involved having played 30+ minutes in each of the last three games and scoring 19 against Penn State. Nunn had a rep as a shooter coming in, and although he's only hitting 33% this year you just never know with these highly ranked freshmen - they could nothing all year and then just explode, but hopefully he got that out of his system against Penn State. Hill starts, but generally gives up most of his minutes to senior sixth man Joseph Bertrand.
The super athletic Bertrand kind of scares me because if the Gophers do that thing where they let guards drive into the paint over and over again he could have a monster game. He's usually much better in a free flowing game, so hopefully the Gophers can play that lock down defense they break out from time to time. I expect them to play zone given the Illini's difficulty throwing the ball into the basket, so expect Bertrand to try to exploit the gaps. If the Gophers lose, Bertrand will have a big part in it.
In the front court Illinois goes with 6-11 league leader in Ns in his name Nnanna Egwu as their lone foward quite often. Egwu is the super athletic jump around guy who blocks a lot of shots (2.2 per game) and can grab some rebounds (5.9 per game) but is pretty limited on offense (6.7 ppg on 41% shooting which is horrendous for someone 6-11). Their two back up bigs are 6-7 senior Jon Ekey and 6-10 freshman Maverick Morgan. Ekey is your float around the perimeter three point shooter guy (35% on 5 attempts per game), but for a three point specialist he's in the middle of a horrendous slump (5-21 last 6 games). If Bertrand and Rice can find the gaps in the zone he's the one they'll be looking for spotting up behind the arc. Morgan averages only about 8 minutes per game, but he'll likely see the floor a bit considering the Gophers will generally always have either Mo Walker or Elliot Eliason in the game, Egwu can't play all 40 minutes, and there is no way in hell Ekey can guard either of them.
Despite their record and everything I've written so far Illinois really isn't a pushover. They're a terrible shooting team, yes, and they didn't break 40 points in their last game and have only scored over 70 points once in their last 11, but they also play good defense. Not great, but good. I expect the Gophers to keep Illinois to around 60 points, despite all the holes in the Gopher defense I don't think Illini can exploit them to score much more than that. So the question is, can the Gophers score more than that? I think yes.
Minnesota 74, Illinois 60.
Up next is Illinois, another must win game. The good news is that Illinois is terrible. They've gone 3-10 in the Big Ten, and they started out 2-0 which, if my math is right, means they're 1-10 in the last eleven games. They did beat UNLV and Missouri in non-conference play and were even ranked in the Top 25 at one point, but a once promising season has gone completely off the rails and I really see no need for the Gophers to do anything to allow any life to seep back into the Illini. Kill them and kill them now.
Illinois's biggest problem is on offense, where they rank 11th in the Big Ten and 201st in the country in offensive efficiency. Their problem, and this seems like an Illinois tradition at this point, is that they do nothing but shoot jumpers. They take only 28% of their field goal attempts at the rim, a full 10% lower than the national average. And they don't even replace these attempts with valuable 3-point attempts, but with 2-point jumpers (10% more than the national average here too). This is a poor strategy no matter what, but it's even worse when you can't shoot. They rank dead last in the conference in 3-point shooting (28%) and 2-point shooting (41%) and being that bad at both is pretty impressive. Since they never drive to the paint they also rarely get to the line (335th in the country) so sometimes it gets awfully difficult for the Illini to find points.
If they're going to score, it's most likely going to come from 6-4 senior guard Rayvonte Rice, their leading scorer (16.6 per game) and one of a few players who might occasionally drive to the rim. He's probably their best three point shooter (33% on 5 attempts per game) but he's also very tough inside (5.9 rpg) and can use his strength and driving to get to the line (four games with 10+ FTAs this season, including 2 of the last 4), and is a big reason the Illini can play four guards as often as they do. He can score in bunches and has eclipsed twenty points four times in Big Ten play including 3 of the last 6 games. Most of his damage comes against teams who struggle to contain guard penetration, so it's imperative the Gophers keep him contained out to the perimeter.
Running the offense will be "point guard" Tracy Abrams who is continuing the Illini tradition of never having a good point guard (the curse of Chester Frazier) averaging just 3 assists per game (his assist percentage is ok, in fairness) and he's just a terrible shooter at 35% on twos and 27% on threes. He's actually their second leading scorer at 11.2 per game, but did most of his damage outside conference play and has hit double figures in just 7 Big Ten games, and one of the last four.
The other two guards will likely be a couple of highly regarded freshmen in 6-2 shooting guard Kendrick Nunn and 6-6 wing Malcolm Hill, both of whom were ranking in the 60s as incoming freshmen by ESPN. Neither has put up monster stats this year, but Nunn is started to get more involved having played 30+ minutes in each of the last three games and scoring 19 against Penn State. Nunn had a rep as a shooter coming in, and although he's only hitting 33% this year you just never know with these highly ranked freshmen - they could nothing all year and then just explode, but hopefully he got that out of his system against Penn State. Hill starts, but generally gives up most of his minutes to senior sixth man Joseph Bertrand.
The super athletic Bertrand kind of scares me because if the Gophers do that thing where they let guards drive into the paint over and over again he could have a monster game. He's usually much better in a free flowing game, so hopefully the Gophers can play that lock down defense they break out from time to time. I expect them to play zone given the Illini's difficulty throwing the ball into the basket, so expect Bertrand to try to exploit the gaps. If the Gophers lose, Bertrand will have a big part in it.
In the front court Illinois goes with 6-11 league leader in Ns in his name Nnanna Egwu as their lone foward quite often. Egwu is the super athletic jump around guy who blocks a lot of shots (2.2 per game) and can grab some rebounds (5.9 per game) but is pretty limited on offense (6.7 ppg on 41% shooting which is horrendous for someone 6-11). Their two back up bigs are 6-7 senior Jon Ekey and 6-10 freshman Maverick Morgan. Ekey is your float around the perimeter three point shooter guy (35% on 5 attempts per game), but for a three point specialist he's in the middle of a horrendous slump (5-21 last 6 games). If Bertrand and Rice can find the gaps in the zone he's the one they'll be looking for spotting up behind the arc. Morgan averages only about 8 minutes per game, but he'll likely see the floor a bit considering the Gophers will generally always have either Mo Walker or Elliot Eliason in the game, Egwu can't play all 40 minutes, and there is no way in hell Ekey can guard either of them.
Despite their record and everything I've written so far Illinois really isn't a pushover. They're a terrible shooting team, yes, and they didn't break 40 points in their last game and have only scored over 70 points once in their last 11, but they also play good defense. Not great, but good. I expect the Gophers to keep Illinois to around 60 points, despite all the holes in the Gopher defense I don't think Illini can exploit them to score much more than that. So the question is, can the Gophers score more than that? I think yes.
Minnesota 74, Illinois 60.
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