Anyone think NU can defeat Illinois?
- Thread starter stpaulcat
- Start date
Even without Shannon, Illinois is a terrible matchup for the Cats. Their perimeter quickness will be a nightmare for the Cats’ defense. Throw in the home court advantage, and I think it would be close to a miracle for the Cats to cover, though I hope I am wrong. For the Cats to compete, both Berry and Langborg need to have great shooting nights, which seems very unlikely considering how tough that is on the road and with Illinois’ defense, which will be amped up. Purdue’s reliance on Edey made them more one dimensional and gave NU a chance, and so I don’t think the home win against them is much of a comparable. Unfortunately, I think the Illini win by double digits (Ugh).
While Shannon was on the court, Illinois was +167 in 363 minutes.
In the 77 minutes that Shannon sat on the bench, Illinois was only +7.
The Illini blew out Fairleigh Dickinson after Shannon's arrest, but it remains to be seen how badly they will miss him against a better team. My guess is that they will probably miss him a lot.
In the Illini win against FDU, their starters went 6'10", 6'8", 6'6", 6'6", 6'7"
the 3 other rotation guys were 6'9", 6'4" and a 6'1" freshman who had fallen out of the rotation.
Buie should be able to out-quick those taller defenders.
My guess is that Martinelli will play significant minutes to counter the Illinois height.
Both of those things work in NU's favor.
In the 77 minutes that Shannon sat on the bench, Illinois was only +7.
The Illini blew out Fairleigh Dickinson after Shannon's arrest, but it remains to be seen how badly they will miss him against a better team. My guess is that they will probably miss him a lot.
In the Illini win against FDU, their starters went 6'10", 6'8", 6'6", 6'6", 6'7"
the 3 other rotation guys were 6'9", 6'4" and a 6'1" freshman who had fallen out of the rotation.
Buie should be able to out-quick those taller defenders.
My guess is that Martinelli will play significant minutes to counter the Illinois height.
Both of those things work in NU's favor.
It’s so hard to predict one game, given shooting success variations. That being said, this is a very negative outlook. Are the Illini notably better than prior years, especially with TSJ out? We lost by 4 in C-U last year and we are generally as good a team as last year. Go Cats!
The future is uncertain. The people who set these lines at great risk and with great success for great sums of money have made a determination on the median point of possible futures. The computer analytics have also done so. All these points generally agree: Illinois is favored, but not overwhelmingly. NU is perhaps 2-1 dogs. Great opportunity to get a mild underdog win that would be a great #2 jewel to stick on the crown next to the Purdue game.
Money is made on the margin across many, many games. They get many wrong but more right. It’s not a one game prediction, which is much more uncertain.
Vegas isn't attempting to predict the outcome of any specific game, they are identifying the median point of the broad distribution of all possible outcomes. Just like people who are idiotically angry when the weatherman says there is a 60% chance of rain and it's sunny, predicting individual outcomes every time is impossible and besides the point. In their case, all they have to be do is right on average, or at least as right as the betting public on average, and they make their 4.5%.
Nope - that’s is the common misunderstanding. There isn’t a ton of money on every game so that Vegas can live in the middle. They play a longer game looking at the whole day. Which is why a game occasionally knocks them on their collective arses. Remember Tyson knocked out by Buster Nobody - that was my personal favorite. Nobody was betting Tyson with the huge odds. But a few guys took a flyer on somebody finally knocking Mike on his butt.
Variance (of a single game vs. all games in a day / year / lifetime) is the key concept - I’ll let you determine if that resonates or not.
The Undie fans for the most part think they’ll clobber us. We’ll see. They will be back to let us know if they do.
