There’s an entire genre of movies that could be named “Bad Stuff Happening in Las Vegas.”  From Indecent Proposal to The Hangover, these films remind us that while Sin City can be a lot of fun, it can also be a lot of trouble, something that the Fighting Illini learned last fall.  Like the movie genre, Bruce Weber’s team went into Thanksgiving weekend believing they were going to be big winners.  Certainly Illinois expected better than two losses to Utah and Bradley, two teams that finished outside the RPI top 100.  It’s those two losses that likely kept Illinois out of the Dance, but even if Shawn Glover’s running bank shot doesn’t go in, this Illini team was still not very good.  In fact, it was actually worse than the 16-19 team a couple of years ago: 

 
The 07-08 team was, of course, historically unlucky, but it was also pretty mediocre.  In fact, mediocrity has been an appropriate label for Illinois since Dee Brown grabbed his diploma.  We can go further than that, and identify the cause of the mediocrity: 

 
The last 4 years have featured perfectly pedestrian offenses.  The first two of those seasons were plagued with turnovers, largely because Chester Frazier was stretched playing point guard.  The last two seasons, however, have just featured awful shot selections.  We’ve gone on at length in the past about the mid-range jumper, so we won’t re-hash all of that here.  Suffice to say, however, that it’s a poor way to design an offense.  
 
On defense, there was a lot of complaining from the head coach about the team’s lack of dedication on that side of the floor.  And sure, while it was not up to snuff as compared to previous seasons, this was still the 5th-best defense in the conference.  In other words, “better than average.”   Bruce Weber is just a very good defensive coach, and he holds his teams to very high standards.  Fair enough.
 
The good news is that the Illini lost very little in the offseason, and inject another round of elite young talent onto the roster.  In the next post, I’ll discuss what that means for 2010-11.