The Airing of Grievances

I am not a man of extremes. I try my best to see issues from both sides, to inject nuance when nuance is needed, and attribute the best motives to people even if they haven’t necessarily earned that. Unsurprisingly, I’m a Moderate with a capital M when it comes to most things. 

But not all things.

There are some things where I have STRONG OPINIONS. The annual Festivus tradition of the Airing of Grievances seems like a good opportunity for me to share my STRONG OPINIONS about Illini sports. (We're a few days early, but stay with me.)

1. I think most renditions of the national anthem are not good. 

I have an extremely long rant on this topic, but there are bigger problems in the world, so I’ll say just one thing to my fellow singers:

NOT EVERY NOTE NEEDS TO BE EMBELLISHED. Sweet heavens, it’s exhausting. 

2. The people in the 100 Level don’t need free t-shirts

Someone tell those cannons to set up at the EDGE of the court and send those shirts up to the cheap seats! 

3. We’re fan-ning too hard

Story time: Sometime in the mid-2010s, in the middle of the late Weber/Groce years, I was watching a basketball game in my living room and allowing my frustrations to get the better of me. My 8-year old daughter came into the room to ask me a question (bad move), and when I snapped at her for distracting me, she snapped back and said, “You’re so mean when you watch sports!”

Ouch.

I kid you not, I was a changed man after that. Now I can still get worked up watching games, of course, but poor play doesn’t ruin my weekend any more. My kids don’t avoid me after losses any more. 

Of course it helps that WE'RE LIVING IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF ILLINI SPORTS! So this is me making a plea for less anger and more joy in our Illini fandom. We deserve it after our forty years in the wilderness.  

Okay, I’ll get off my high horse now and talk about the women’s team.

Two games have been played since I’ve written last:

vs. North Texas (Illini win 81-69)

I did a double-take when I saw that North Texas had a player (Megan Nestor) that had 34 points and 31 rebounds(!!) in the preceding game. She had a mere seven and six in this disjointed game with 39 turnovers and 50 fouls. Yeah, not the most satisfying watch, though we shot the lights out behind the arc (11-17). Shauna loved the physical play that North Texas brought and said she hoped that this rough and tumble game would prep her young team for conference play.

vs. Jackson State (Illini win 86-43)

The final tune-up before Big Ten play was a laugher. The Illini went up 14-0 out of the gate and 47-10 at halftime. I try not to take these games for granted because we've had times in the past in which you couldn’t look past these teams. Nowadays we put these teams away before the first media timeout. Anyway, we had five (nearly six) players in double figures and Aaliyah Guyton looked pretty good in her return from injury. 

Conference play starts in earnest after Christmas, so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of my preseason predictions and see where we’re at about a third of the way through the season. Rotation player updates first:

(Quotes are from the season preview)

Jasmine Brown-Hagger (6.3 Pts, 1.7 Reb, 1.6 Ast)

• “(Jasmine) battled some inconsistency at times. She’ll need to be rock-steady as a junior this year in the backcourt.”

She defends well, she has shot okay (from two, at least)…but I’ll confess that I get nervous when Jas has the ball in her hands. Her turnover percentage (via Torvik) is through the roof at 27.9 percent. (Most of our other guards/wings are half that) When we play some close games in conference, I’ll be looking closely at how much Shauna trusts her to be on the court in crunch time.

Gretchen Dolan (14.6 Pts, 3.7 Reb, 3.3 Ast)

• “I suspect, assuming she’s fully healthy, that a third-year Gretchen is going to be a scoring machine this season.”

Well, when she wasn’t mired in that brutal slump, she has absolutely been great on the offensive end. When she gets on a heater, it’s a joy to watch. Keep it up, Gretch. 

Berry Wallace (17.3 Pts, 7.2 Reb, 1.7 Ast)

• “I think she’ll fill up the stat sheet this year and may wind up (quietly) being our best player.”

Yes and yes. She scored 28 points vs. North Texas and I hardly even noticed her. She’s our leading scorer, our second-leading rebounder and leads the team in minutes played. She’s been great.

Lety Vasconcelos (4.2 Pts, 3.8 Reb, 0.8 Ast)

• “...it might take the redshirt-sophomore a little bit of time to be the big we need her to be.”

Lety has been fine. She toggles between being an excellent finisher around the rim and absolutely hurling the ball at the backboard with very little finesse. We haven’t needed much from her thus far, but we’ll start seeing some bigger bigs very soon. 

Maddie Webber (11.4 Pts, 2.5 Reb, 1.9 Ast)

• “(She) brings some veteran leadership in the backcourt that will be sorely needed.”

Well, she absolutely has been a leader with her fabulous play on the court…but I didn’t expect it would happen with her coming off the bench. She’ll be on the court for closing time in big games and I suspect she’ll be the favorite for 6th (wo)man of the year in the conference.

Aaliyah Guyton (7.9 Pts, 2.3 Reb, 2.0 Ast)

• “We're hoping for a sophomore leap in her new and improved colors.”

After missing much of the preseason due to injury and now a chunk of the early part of the schedule, it’s hard to believe we’ll see the best version of her this year unless she can stay healthy from here on out. When she’s played, she’s been a fine back-up to Destiny. Shauna has even experimented with both point guards on the floor at times. Fingers crossed that we have her the rest of the way.

Destiny Jackson (7.8 Pts, 4.2 Reb, 5.2 Ast)

• “She may have the keys from day one.”

This was actually an understatement. I suspect she had the keys from the moment she stepped on campus. I’ve gushed about Destiny in every post I’ve written and I’m running out of plaudits for her. We’re still waiting for her to look for her shot more, but otherwise, she’s playing at a B1G all-freshman team level.

Cearah Parchment (10.8 Pts, 7.9 Reb, 1.2 Ast)

• (I said this after the first game) “She rebounded, she dribbled well in the open court, and her shooting form is LOVELY.”

What do you need from her? Points? She’s averaging double figures. Rebounds? She leads the team. Steals? She had TEN in a single game. Outside shooting? 43 percent beyond the arc. It feels like she’s just scratching the surface of what she can be. Stay tuned. 

Other updates:

• "Considering how much we’re losing from last year, I was a little surprised to see the three votes we got for the preseason AP poll (which puts us at #35)."

We’re THISCLOSE to getting ranked (tied for 31st technically). We've bounced back from the one loss and voters are starting to pay attention again.

• "My season prediction (thus far): 10-2"

The Illini are 11-1, one game better than I thought we’d be. They took two of three of the Power Four road games and probably should have won all three. (That Oregon State game is one they wish they could play again.)

• "I think we'll be a better defensive team than expected. I knew we would have the athleticism and now I think we also have the desire to guard. Good combo."

Yup. Great effort, good length, fundamentally sound, AND we force turnovers. Our defense will keep us in games against even the best Big Ten teams. If…

• “... but I'm concerned about our rebounding. Kendall isn't walking through that door and Parchment might be our only player with a nose for the ball.”

Okay, so the numbers aren’t bad (we’re getting about 75 percent of the caroms on the defensive end, which is 17th in the nation via Torvik)...but we really haven’t played much size yet. I still think this is the big X-factor for the rest of the year. I think two games will swing one way or the other due to rebounding.

• “(regarding three-pointers) I think we'll shoot a good percentage, but I suspect it will be with a low volume.”

We’re shooting about 17 threes a game (297th in the country) and hitting about 33 percent (pretty average). It hasn’t been a huge part of the offense so far, though Shauna has hinted recently that she’d like to see some more go up. 

• (this is from an effusive Slack post of mine after the second game) “Gretchen and Berry are gonna be FUN this year. Add in Webber and those three will have plenty of nights where they score 60+ combined.”

Well, “plenty” was definitely an overstatement…but it did happen against North Texas! Those three combined for 63 points. Yes, they are definitely FUN.

• "In short: can Shauna keep the good times rolling after losing all of her veterans?"

It’s hard to argue with the first third of the season. Bring on the Big Ten!

Oh, one more Grievance:

4. Covers of classic Christmas songs are emotionally exhausting

I swear, if I hear one more overwrought version of Silver Bells while I'm just trying to buy some milk…