Mike Cagley, Co-Host Sports Spectacular and Big Sports Radio

Joe Clark, IlliniGuys Cover Photo

February 17, 2025

This was a crazy week, and alarms are going off for the Illini Men’s Basketball team:

• The Illini were outscored 15 to -2 down the stretch in a 79-65 loss to Michigan State at home.
• Terrence Shannon Jr’s banner was hung upside down at the half. This turned out to be a bad omen for the second half. At least both Terrence Shannon and Josh Whitman handled a rough situation with grace.
• Illini women’s basketball keeps winning, despite having 3 players with season ending injuries. But this week will be brutal with a road trip to face USC and UCLA

Let’s take a deeper dive into a few subjects…

Heat Check #1 – Stop the Bleeping 3-Point Shots

The Illini rushed out to a 31-15 lead against the Spartans at the 8:46 mark of the first half. What looked to be a possible easy victory slipped away with MSU making defensive adjustments and the Illini deciding to counter by missing 3-point shots. The Illini were outscored 64-34 the rest of the way. This included a 15 to -2 run in the last 6:58 seconds of the game. Yes, that was a -2, as the only Illini “scoring” in that time was a correction on a bad goaltending call by the officials resulting in the Illini losing two points off the scoreboard.

This game was eerily reminiscent of the Illini being outscored 30-0 by UConn in last year’s Elite Eight game.

As per usual, the Illini loss was marked by poor 3-point shooting. The Illini shot 1-16 from the 3 in the second half and 7-33 overall. This team scores well enough that they only have one loss when shooting 28% or better from the 3-point line. The problem is the Illini don’t shoot that well often enough. For some perspective, many high school teams expect their teams to shoot at least 33% from the three-point line.

Yes, the 3-point shot can destroy opponents, but if you don’t make enough of them, your opponent gets fast breaks and easy scoring opportunities. In short, the 3-point play, executed poorly can destroy the shooting team as well. This is definition of a double-edged sword. It can cut either way.

We are seeing that definition proven in real time right in front of Illini and college basketball fans.

Heat Check #2 – The Buck Stops with the Head Coach

There’s a coaching saying that I learned from my father-in-law, who won four state basketball titles and 17 state track titles at the junior high level. He shared it with me when I was beginning to coach AAU basketball with a team of players from around the Bloomington Illinois area. He said:

There are only two things that happen on a basketball court.

1. What you coach your team to do.
2. What you allow your team to do.

If Brad Underwood doesn’t want as many 3-pointers shot, or if he wants them shot from an inside-out style offense rather than a walk-up-and-launch-it offense, he can influence players to do what he wants them to.

The powerful influencer is called the bench. If a player doesn’t do what he has coached them to do or they don’t do what he wants them to do, they get a free front row seat to the game – on the bench. At least until they decide to do what he coached them to do and/or until they do what he wants them to do.

It’s an easy answer to type, it’s harder to implement, but trust me, it works.

Another thing my father-in-law told me was that if his team was going to lose a game it was for darn sure going to be lost the way he wanted the game to be played.

Coaching food for thought.

Heat Check #3 – Terrence Shannon Jr. Jersey Fiasco

Josh Whitman has been nearly flawless in pulling off big events – the 100^th year anniversary of the Red Grange game was marvelous and went off without a hitch. Kofi Cockburn’s jersey memorial was fantastic. Unfortunately, due to simple human error, the Terrence Shannon jersey memorial turned into a huge embarrassment. The jersey when revealed was upside down. Mistakes are made at work daily across this country, but few mistakes have the visibility of one like this.

Terrence Shannon Jr handled this with incredible class and demonstrated the calm demeanor that he displayed during his final season at Illinois when he was under incredible stress due to legal issues beyond his control. There’s a point to where it is truly amazing how well this young man handles challenging situations. Mom did a great job raising her son.

For his part, Josh Whitman handled the moment with class and issued a heartfelt apology afterwards. We all realize that nothing could make this situation “right” but at least handling the aftermath with humility and respect was a legitimate attempt to make things better.

The devil is in the details, and we witnessed how important a small detail being omitted can be. We’ve all had bad days at work, be thankful when it happens to you, it doesn’t attract a nationwide audience to watch it live.

Heat Check #4 – Illini Women’s Basketball - Challenging Week Ahead

The Illini women have overachieved, especially when you look at expectations for the team when they were at full strength and what they have accomplished despite season ending injuries for at least two key players.

The Illini will go west to play against #1 UCLA on Thursday February 20^th and #6 USC on Sunday February 23^rd. I have no doubt Illinois will go into these games with every intent to win. I also have no doubt that UCLA and USC are powerful teams that will do their best to leverage their home court advantage into huge wins for their respective teams.

This week will be a massive challenge for the Illini, but as of now, they’re playing with house money. No one expects them to come out 1-1 on this trip. If they do win a game (or 2), everyone will be surprised – except for the team and their coaches. If they lose both, fans need to be more focused on the effort as opposed to results only. We know Shauna Green isn't planning on losing, but it's a Herculean task to be successful on this road trip.

If nothing else, this trip will allow fans to see how much further the Illini must go to compete with the best teams in the country. Illini fans will discover how big the gap is with the knowledge the Illini have a recruiting class with the talent to help close that gap.

Things are good on the other side of Ubben.

Hail Mary #1 – Super Bowl Thoughts

Watching the game last weekend, it struck me that no matter how good modern offenses become, no matter how great modern QBs are at throwing the ball and looking at the league engineering the rules for offenses to score, if you can pressure QBs with a four-man rush, you can beat anyone. We saw that when the Eagles defensive line dominated the line of scrimmage. I found myself thinking of the Steel Curtain, the Dallas Doomsday defense, the 85 Bears, Ray Lewis Ravens and the Sapp Buccaneers defenses.

When you get the right four guys together on the defensive line, with four defenders occupying 6 guys (the offensive line and quarterback) this means you have 7 defenders covering 5 receivers. Those are odds that challenge even the best of quarterbacks.

Kudos to the Eagles for drafting, developing and deploying their talent in such impressive fashion. This team looks primed to be a perennial Super Bowl contender the way the Chiefs and Patriots have been in the past.

Hail Mary #2 – NFL GOAT Thoughts

I’ve never understood the rush to put current players into the greatest of all time (GOAT) discussions. Mahomes versus Brady talk is premature. Mahomes still has years to catch Tom Brady. He also has years to not catch Tom Brady. Why not just wait until later in Mahomes’ career or even until his career is done to make that comparison?

I’m going to go one step further. I don’t put much value in GOAT discussions in the NFL.

NFL football is the most team-oriented sport of any sport. For a QB to maximize his skills and be great, he needs to have an offensive line to protect him, a running game to prevent a defense from loading up against the passing game alone, a strong defense to get stops, a head coach to lead the team, a front office to draft talent to improve the team and many other smaller details.

Tom Brady is certainly one of the best QBs of all time. No one can argue that. But so were so many different QBs who played under different circumstances but were successful. Montana went 4-0 in Super Bowls. In his era the beast was the NFC. The Giants won 2 Super Bowls in Montana’s era, the Redskins won 3, the Niners won 4 and the 85 Bears may have been the best single season team of all time.

Brady was successful in the salary cap era, going 7-3 in Super Bowls. Dealing with the cap limitations and playing into his 40s made his accomplishments so spectacular.

Both men had incredible coaches, great front offices drafting the right players, excellent defenses, etc.

I look at guys like Dan Marino, who really had a great offensive line, smallish receivers, no defense, barely any running game and wonder what he would’ve done had he been drafted by a different team. Same for Archie Manning who had incredible talent but ended up on a historically horrid New Orleans team instead of a Pittsburgh Steelers team ascending to dynasty status.

John Elway took 3 weak Bronco teams to the Super Bowl and then had to face teams that were powerhouses in the 86 Giants and 89 Forty Niners. The Broncos probably shouldn’t have been in any of his first three Super Bowl appearances. Later in his career, he won 2 Super Bowls as a more well-rounded Broncos team in the late 90s as more of a game manager style QB. While his record in Super Bowls is only 2-3, it’s hard to ignore the fact that he carried three teams on his shoulders to the Super Bowl. I also wonder how good those later Bronco teams would've been with a young John Elway.

I could list other quarterbacks who would be in my discussion for the top tier QBs. To me the key thing is for almost any great QB, there is a great head coach there to help him along the way. Having a great supporting cast is necessary as well, on both sides of the ball.

I tend to put my quarterbacks in groups. Clearly Brady is in that top group. We will see where Mahomes will rate, but he’s had a marvelous start to his career.

I don’t really have a GOAT. That means I am in a small minority. I can live with that. The team aspect of the NFL and football that makes it such a great sport to watch. It also makes it hard to objectively define a GOAT in my eyes.

One thing is undeniably true. All the quarterbacks I mentioned should be thankful they didn’t get drafted by Jerry Jones after Jimmy Johnson left the scene. That would’ve “un-GOAT’ed” even the best of them!

Video

https://illiniguys.com/illini-mens-hoops-stop-the-3s-and-where-does-the-buck-stop-illini-womens-hoops-big-week-ahead-super-bowl-and-nfl-goat-thoughts-youtube-edition/

Audio

https://illiniguys.com/illini-mens-hoops-stop-the-3s-where-does-the-buck-stop-illini-womens-hoops-big-week-ahead-super-bowl-and-nfl-goat-thoughts/