Game Day Essentials: Game #17 vs Illinois

[hhcmatt]

Nebraska Cornhuskers (9-7) vs Illinois Fighting Illini (10-5)

 

Date: January 10th, 2023
Time: 8:00 pm
Arena: PBA

Broadcast:  BTN

Illinois Info

Head Coach: Brad Underwood

Location: Champaign, IL 
Conference: B1G
Nickname: Fightin Illini

Mascot: Chief Illiniwek They got rid of Chief Illiniwek in 2007

Line: Illinois by 3.5
Typical Rotation Depth: 8+

KenPom rank: 35

A couple of Famous Alumni: Nick Anderson, Steven Bardo

Other:  

• 5 star PG Skyy Clark left the team last week. Was avg 7.0ppg in 24.4 min

 

KenPom Analysis: With Clark leaving Illinois made some adjustments on offense to try and eliminate turnovers. The tricky part with the Illini offense is that when they miss 3pt shots they've been very good at grabbing offensive rebounds

 

 

Player to watch: F Coleman Hawkins

It's not surprising that the mobile post player leads the team in rebounds; it's somewhat surprising that he leads the team in assists. While he can hurt you inside, it's his streaky 3pt shooting you worry about. Hawkins is shooting 33.9% for the year after hitting 6-9 vs Wisconsin

 

Player to watch: F Terrence Shannon

The Texas Tech transfer is a 3 level scorer, leading the Illini in scoring. Shannon draws all sorts of contact going to the rim and is likely to be the catalyst for Illinois trying to suck in the defense to find 3pt shooters

 

Player to watch: C Dain Dainja

Elite shot blocker and a bucket. Likely he's an auto-double when he touches the ball. Foul prone, will be a game of cat-and-mouse between Walker and Dainja about who sits first due to foul problems. Bad FT shooter

 

KenPom most used lineup

	PG	SG	SF	PF	C	Pct
1	0 Terrence Shannon 6-6  225  Sr	1 Sencire Harris 6-4  160  Fr	24 Matthew Mayer 6-9  225  Sr	33 Coleman Hawkins 6-10  225  Jr	42 Dain Dainja 6-9  270  So	10.8
2	3 Jayden Epps 6-2  190  Fr	15 RJ Melendez 6-7  205  So	0 Terrence Shannon 6-6  225  Sr	24 Matthew Mayer 6-9  225  Sr	33 Coleman Hawkins 6-10  225  Jr	7.3

 

Others to watch

• Matthew Mayer transferred in from Baylor and is capable of playing anywhere from SF to C
• Fresham Guard Harris is a nice defender

 

UNL Game Notes

 

Probable starters for Nebraska
5    Sam Griesel    G    6-7
25  Emmanuel Bandoumel    G    6-4

0   C.J. Wilcher    G    6-5

4   Juwan Gary  F  6-6

13  Derrick Walker    F    6-9

 

Bench

15   Blaise Keita C   6-11

30  Keisei Tominaga    G    6-2

32  Wilhelm Breidenbach    F    6-10

10  Jamarques Lawrence - G  6-3

12  Denim Dawson - F  6-6

33  Oleg Kojenets    F    7-0
12   Sam Hoiberg    G    6-0

31  Cale Jacobsen  G  6-4

35  Henry Burt  F  6-6

24  Jeffrey Grace III  G  6-3

 

Injured

3   Quaran McPherson   G   6-3 - Out for the Year

 

 

The Skinny: 

Illinois is a talent team filled with a bunch of new players and freshman and thus is the type of team that has impressive wins over Texas and UCLA but has yet to record a win in a true away game. Look for the Illini to lean on their upperclassmen tonight.

 

Brad Underwood knows Nebraska takes away the paint and will be content to shop around for 3pt shots most of the night. While Illinois will find success there, 2nd chance points likely determines the success of the Illini tonight. Nebraska will need to crash the boards all night vs this lengthy team.

 

Illinois tends to run people off the 3pt line which is just fine with what Nebraska wants to do. 

 

The team with composure and focus likely wins this one.  Leaning towards Illinois road woes continuing.

 

Prediction: Nebraska 70 - Illinois 67

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[AuroranHusker]

Looks like the Illini earned their 1st true road win of the season, only one game after Nebraska's 1st B1G road win (of course NU also won at CU in the non-con).