Here are four takeaways from Illini basketball season opening 80-63 blowout win over Alabama State. You don’t learn a lot from these types of non-conference games. They’re only slightly more meaningful than the exhibitions. On the opening night of college basketball, pretty much all of the ranked teams and Big Ten teams played NSU: Nobody State University.
Versus the preseason exhibitions; which are RNSU: Really Nobody State University. However, Purdue barely escaped against their nobody. The Boilers were down in the closing seconds versus Northern Kentucky, but found a way to pull it out. So the opening night for Illini basketball went MUCH BETTER than it did for Purdue.
Aided by the help of two in-depth team season previews. My own and that of David Kmiecik, college basketball nerd and the man with the most accurate NBA Mock Draft on the planet. Let’s break down what we learned from the rout of Bama State, about the ’13-14 Illini basketball season.
1. They will score. Worry more about other end of the floor
A poet and I didn’t even know it! I didn’t mean to rhyme that time. It just happened! Illinois will get scoring from Rice, Bertrand, Abrams and Egwu. Not consistently, but enough. They won’t be the top four scorers every game, but most of the time. Illinois shot very poorly from three tonight (4-20, 20%), but they still found a way to win by a healthy margin (17 points). It seems like the Illini offense woke up shortly after the “Orange Hush” of the tenth point. It was a slow start, which didn’t hurt against the Hornets, but will hurt against better competition.
The 6th man on Alabama St is named Bobby Brown by the way. It’s his prerogative. He can do what he wants to do. He can live how he wants to live.
2. This Illini basketball team has 9 new players coming in and only four returnees.
The last time Illini basketball had 9 newcomers was the second season of Lon Kruger, the 1998-99 team (Sergio McClain, Cory Bradford, Cleotis Brown, Fess Hawkins, Damir Krupalijia, Lucas Johnson, Robert Archibald, Nate Mast. Frank Williams and Marcus Griffin transferred, but had to sit out one season) You remember how awful that team was.
Although they did lay the ground work for a very successful run of Illini basketball (Elite 8 in ’01 with the exact same nucleus) and couple of players from that era went on to play basketball professionally. So maybe the ’13-’14 team is really building something?
The first 8 minutes or so of this game were kind of rough. But the Illini basketball team closed out the second half of the first half with a vengeance and put a mediocre SWAC team away. Like a Big Ten team should.
3. The four players returning for Illini basketball are:
Nnanna Egwu, Tracy Abrams, Sort of but not really Rayvonte Rice (who is now also being referred to as Ray Rice) Joe Bertrand and Michael LaTulip (who played very very sparingly last season. Rice is going to be extremely fun to watch. Even when doesn’t finish.
Rice had to sit last year, but now the Champaign product will be able to produce in front of his hometown. He’s lost 30 pounds and supposedly worked as hard as anyone. Ray Rice has to be good in order for this Illini team to be good. Just like two years ago, the team that led to Bruce Weber being fired, Meyers Leonard had to be good in order for that Illini team to be good. Leonard was only slightly above mediocre, and hence the team was bad. Yet Leonard was drafted extremely high anyway, on account of his winning the genetic lottery.
4. Where do the newcomers (Austin Colbert, Maverick Morgan, Rice, Jaylon Tate, Malcolm Hill, Kendrick Nunn, Ahmad Starks, Darius Paul, Jon Ekey, Aaron Cosby) all fit in? (Starks, Paul, Cosby ineligible until ’14-’15
It’s such a shame that Colbert is not pronounced like Stephen Colbert, and instead pronounced like Coal-burt. Bummer!
My Illini basketball 2013-14 depth chart which I’ll now have to revise
G Abrams/Tate/LaTulip
W Hill/Nunn/Ekey
W Rice/Nunn
F Bertrand/Ekey/Colbert
C Egwu/Morgan/Colbert
Dave’s Illini basketball depth chart
F/C: Nnanna Egwu (Jr)/Maverick Morgan (Fr)
PF: Austin Colbert (Fr) or John Ekey (Sr)
G/F:Joseph Bertrand (Sr)/Malcolm Hill (Fr)
SG: Rayvonte Rice (Jr)/Kendrick Nunn (Fr)
PG: Tracy Abrams (Jr)/Jaylon Tate (Fr)
And the actual starting give that Groce went with in the season opener was: F Ekey, C Egwu, G Bertrand, G Abrams, G Rice. The three highly touted freshmen: Hill, Nunn and Tate got significant playing time in the first half as well. I’ll be back to update this post later is there’s anything quotable said by Illini basketball players and Illini basketball coaches.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the world; with regular weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS