it's me Harold
5.3K posts


@delmontyb I’ve never heard the argument that “having to learn how to play game” is why “game bad”
English

Houston / Illinois (Houston)
The undisputed King of the S16 games with the 4th and 6th best teams in KenPom facing off in a quasi-home game for the Cougs in Houston. Also the most fascinating schematic matchup of the Thurs/Fri games
As I alluded to in a previous post, I can make a decent argument that Illinois may be the single worst matchup, especially offensively, for a Houston defense that has played exceptionally poor for their standards against top competition (3rd best defense falls to 45th vs T25 teams).
If your team possesses any of the following, you are pretty much DOA against the Cougs: Rim reliance, transition reliance, dribble-heavy shot diet, lack of perimeter shooting, poor defensive rebounding, and don't protect the ball offensively
Illinois doesn’t fall into ANY of those categories, and actually, they tend to excel in most of them. This iteration of Illinois plays much slower and is happy to entertain a half court, execution-based game. They’re 15th nationally in 3PRate, Top 10 in allowing turnovers offensively, and are even shooting 35% from the arc (which was their issue last year). They also have 3 different guys who can lead/initiate offense to alleviate some of that up-the-line pressure concerns, as well as being the biggest team in the country and an elite 2-way rebounding frontcourt.
If you can keep Houston off the offensive glass, prevent them from creating live ball turnovers, and force them to play in the half court, you have as good a chance as anybody to beat that physical juggernaut. Illinois has the best 5-out spacing in the country to stress that Houston no-middle overload, in addition to having highly skilled bigs who are above average passers playing out of the short roll, while also having 3 ball handlers
Go back and look at the way Illinois picked apart Nebraska's aggressive post doubles. While obviously a different caliber of athlete b/w Corn and the Cougs, Mirk was slowly backing down with his head swiveled like a Serbian Owl and MAX-baiting the double team in order to spray it crosscourt to an open weakside shooter. Can implement the same gameplan here with the auto Houston Monster double team on post-ups.
The Illini don’t possess as many advantages defensively as Houston is more than willing to jack a ton of the contested, midrange jumpers that Illinois’ drop coverage will inevitably funnel them into. Which means A LOT of Houston’s offense will come down to Flemings/Uzan/Sharp midrange shotmaking. The efficiency fall-off for Flemings down the stretch of the season wasn’t as stark as I was expecting (only a couple % difference in true shooting), and if you look at his KP page, you’ll actually see the usage tick up against Tier A/B competition and again vs Tier A. Which means he's probably the single most important piece of Houston's offense in this game and could have the upside to score upwards of 25+. He just has to hit his shots.
One of my issues with Illinois comes down to Underwood himself. While I certainly commend his adaptable scheme changes year-to-year, he has also not been a very good in-game manager at times, so what happens if they come out with the wrong gameplan akin to 'let's challenge Clingan early' (we saw how that went). That lack of in-game X's & O's management means Houston has the potential to jump on them early and never let up. I think Houston is also much more capable to mount a comeback with their style of play should Illinois get up early.
Illinois is also 348th in Paper Tiger and both teams are outside the T300 in results consistency per Haslam, so that makes things a bit tougher to gauge. There aren't any drastic fall-offs with Illinois' analytics against top tiers but the rebounding numbers aren't quiteee as elite. In 13 games vs T25 teams, opponents shot 34.4% from 3 compared to 31% (35th nationally)
Best guess is the venue location means Cougs take money for the majority of the next couple days, which is when I'll probably look to play back on Illinois. This won't be as hostile of an environment as Mackey or Breslin were, but Illinois did have a very soft road schedule in B10 play. Columbus was the toughest place they played at other than those 2 as well as Pinnacle Bank in Lincoln.
FWIW, Houston is also the type of team where even the greatest schematic advantages can be tossed to the wind if that defense comes out connected & locked in, so it could all be for naught. I RARELY find myself in the business of stepping in front of Kelvin Sampson, but this does feel like the single best offense left in the tourney to matchup against that vaunted Houston defensive pressure.
One last thing. Yes, Torvik's 'close games' stat can be used as a way to identify late game luck/variance for SOME teams. But when programs consistently win a high % of close games, that is something I tend to buy. Prior to this year, Houston was 21-10 S/U in games decided by 2 possessions or less. This year, what's been our worry with Houston? Amongst other nitpicky stuff is the fact that this is the youngest Cougs team under Sampson I can remember in a while. Houston this year is 3-4 in close games. While obviously a small sample, I also think there is something to Houston being slightly less bulletproof in close games this year.
Looking at betting:
>Illinois +points at better number later in week. Points will be worth a lot in this low possession game
>Mirk assists over (likely have to wait til day of)
>Flemings o17.5 points (think alts somewhat in play as well). Wish there was a littleee better scoring floor from the FT line, but Illinois just doesn't foul so you'll need him to get hot on tough shots & likely against Boswell. Not my favorite but his pull-up game is definitely Houston's best path to offense
>Tomi/Mirk over 3Pointers, probably Sharp as well
>Initially thought about an 'efficiency-based' over as both offenses can take advantage of the types of shots the other defenses allow. I'm also not really a totals guy fwiw and if there isn't good shotmaking in this one, we could be staring at a 64-62 game in the low 60's possessions so I'll probably pass on that
English

Seeing this graphic made me realize how stupid it was for all four of us to join this conference…
West Coast College Sports Guy@WCCSG_
If you had to pick 1 school to cheer for in the B1G who would you pick?
English
it's me Harold retweetledi

One tournament win in the last four years
Same number as HPU btw
Badger Barstool@badgerbarstool
@HighPointHoops @BarstoolHPU 280 followers in 12 years Hang it up bro
English

@kdemoff Bro you’re the Rams team president tweeting like this??? 😂😂 what an idiot
English

Withdrawn but not forgotten in today’s NFL you can pick up a ball after a play is whistled incomplete, turn around with it and walk back towards midfield and four minutes later have it count for two points 🤔🤷♂️
MarkMaske@MarkMaske
The Rams withdrew their rule-change proposal about the crazy two-point conversion that the Seahawks scored against them last season, sources say.
English

@_CobyBryant_ And this coulda be a fake page ??? Is this even you bro ???
English

You too Hollywood to follow me back now huh. Smh it be yo own lil brotha
Nick Emmanwori@Eman7Nick
Cause they don't know nun they jus be chatting
English

@CrusaderTwitch As a console player I don’t think push to talk is even an option in the game
English

@PorkPoncho Actually @MarathonDevTeam @Ziegler_Dev please don’t listen to this dude upset that people are playing conservatively in an extraction shooter, duos is a great addition to the game please keep it in.
English

My Marathon hot take is that I was wrong about Duos and should've never asked for it.
Played around 10 rounds and its just people hiding in corners, buildings or skulking around the edge of the map.
That hits different in solos because in solos it feels inherent to that experience and plays out like a stealth game. But in duos that doesn't feel right and its not very engaging at least to me anyway, to be honest its mostly boring.
Its easy loot though because most of the people in the mode are clearly scared to properly push engagements and would rather hide behind walls and rocks, so play a destroyer and go for maximum aggression to guarantee kills.
But yeah @MarathonDevTeam and @Ziegler_Dev I don't think Duos is it. The pacing of PvP feels really off as a duo and overall I don't think it will benefit the game in general. Solos and Trios feels like a good set. Happy to be proven wrong in the long term though.
I'm fully ready to be crucified int he comments though by people who don't like the idea of making friends in the game.
English

@harrysack_ @AllAubarn Also we don’t live in an imaginary world bud. We aren’t in preschool. What a joke
English

Imagine if it was illegal to have like 500 beers, like “yeah usually you can have these but thats just too many beers”
Kyle@AllAubarn
Possessing 1 pound of weed is illegal in exactly 50 states
English

@harrysack_ @AllAubarn Harold, Kyle got you with this one just give up on your take for now. Come back later when your mind clears.
English

@auburn_burner @AllAubarn Iranians deserve the right to drink as many beers as they want as do us all
English

@AllAubarn @harrysack_ The better analogy would be getting arrested for possessing alcohol in Iran, but arguing there should be no punishment under local law because alcohol is legal in Alabama
English

@AllAubarn Kyle my quote tweet has nothing to do with you okay I’m simply discussing a bleak parallel universe where too many beers are illegal, similar to how too much weed is illegal in this universe, thats all thats happening here
English

@harrysack_ We can imagine a lot of things, doesn’t mean it makes any damn sense
English

@AllAubarn I said imagine Kyle, not a world I’d wanna live in let me tell ya
English

@WestCoastCFB Luke falk actually should have been 1 on this list
English

Luke Falk over Patrick Mahomes is crazy in hindsight
Football’s Greatest Moments@FBGreatMoments
"Draft Experts"
English

#WATCH Muckleshoot Casino Resort debuts Washington’s first Heinz REMIX sauce machine allowing guests to create 2,000+ custom sauces. 🔥👀

English








