Insider on another Gator site calling for White’s firing

Illinois in an O/T dogfight with #7 Purdue. Omar Payne's stat sheet filled with zeroes and ones. Also - Reeves is getting meaningful mins + starting.

 

Reeves didn’t start until game 14 and didn’t play meaningful minutes before that. If you think that’s good coaching, then good for you. I don’t. As for Payne, he is in the rotation and getting meaningful minutes. He came in after 3 minutes in the game today after Cockburn struggled and immediately helped out with some solid defense and a good offensive rebound, screen and pass that led to a 3-point basket for the Illini. I don’t see enough in Payne to expect him to start for Illinois next season, but he has become a valuable member of a really good basketball team. As an aside, that game today was of national title level quality with Purdue winning in double overtime.

 

I think you're right about Reeves not getting meaningful minutes, but I was responding to your comment that we should be [sic] investing more in Reeves. I think starting the past two games is heading that direction.
Funny how your interpretation of today's Illinois/Purdue game differs from another poster, who wrote . . .

I just thought this disparity was funny .

But back to KR - you saw him play early in the season. Even against lesser competition, he was not necessarily meriting more meaningful time. He was out of sorts and the shot wasn't falling. Obviously he started getting it going in practice, because the start kind of came out of nowhere. Another factor is that the guards haven't exactly been all-stars so far. Reeves is becoming the better option.

 

We aint making it!

 

Doubtful CMW survives this season NO MATTER how much Strickland likes him

 

Who?

 

The bottom line is , yes, you earn minutes by what you do at practice. But, if depth is a problem with your team, then you need to force experience. College basketball is different than the mindset of a football coach. Mike has more than 12 football games , which are all like playoff games, to find his lineup and get his team going. He has time to develop players in the game. He needs to force it to some degree. At the rate this team is going, they will have no legs by the end of the season, or, they will stop playing D. Either way, they can't shoot and fatigue won't make that any better.

 

Practice?? WTF ?? Practice??? dis is Philly man............

 

I'm generally sympathetic to @tampajack1 and his point. But he has a variation of it which says: you must be given minutes. There's no earning. Not in any fashion: games (which we see), practice (which we don't), effort, classes, or conduct. Those unearned minutes are taken from another's earned minutes.

I also wonder how much CMW is or isn't an outlier amongst say SEC coaches. So I compared UF vs. the 3 losses we had to ranked teams (presumably, better coaches) and threw in the comfortable-ish win at USC.

• Bama. We played 5 bench players, they played 4. Our total bench minutes were +11.
• Auburn. They played 6 bench players, we played 4. They were +36 on bench minutes. Yowzers.
• LSU. They played 4 bench players, us 5. We were +24.
• USC. They played 6 bench players, us 5. They were +11.

Diving in further, lots of nits to pick in both directions. All in all, I don't think CMW is an SEC outlier, but I might be looking at it wrong.

 

Perhaps because the discussion is “development” you could redo the analysis using “freshmen” instead of bench?

 

I watched the entire game. I think you cherry picked the one good play Payne made.

And if he was so good, whe did he only play 7 minutes of a double OT game with the starting center needing to sit a lot and fouled out? The third string guy played 20 minutes instead. He's not as athletic as Payne, but he played solid and physical D.

While it was a good game and as an Illinois alumni (MS and PhD) I don't see either team making the Final Four without some serious luck including a lucky path. Joking aside Illinois is thin in the frontcourt with the exception of Cockburn, but he is a foul machine. Purdue has two great post players and a great 3 for shooting the3, but their guards lack blow by speed. And guard play is often key to advancing in The Dance.

As for Reeves his play on the defensive end has shown great improvement. That is why he is now playing more. I think he was always fine on the offensive end.

We will always disagree and I am fine with that.