But these Illini are what they are – a pretty tough defensive team (though not elite) prone to long futile offensive lapses.  They have some good athletes and good role-players, but at certain positions lack enough skill or talent to put them into contention for the Big 10 and deep tourney runs.  This has been the case for the majority of Bruce Weber’s tenure.  According to Illini beat writer Paul Klee, in the years AD (After Dee) the Illini are .500 in conference play: 48-48.

That’s not good enough for Illini fans.

My brother (sometimes known as the Rube) posted a couple of long rants on the last blog entry.  They are quite entertaining and offer a good deal of insight.  The Rube was a member of the Rebounders’ Club for years until quite recently, attended practices and interacted with players and coaches more than most fans.  He opines what most of us believe:  Coach Weber works as hard as any coach in the nation, runs a clean program, cares for his players intensely, and is a good and decent man.  But his teams have not executed well enough and won enough.  After several long and heated discussions, here are our three main points:

1.  Too Stubborn - Coach Weber has stayed true to the Gene Keady philosophy of tough, hard-nosed basketball.  No problems there.  But his refusal to adapt the motion system of offense, to incorporate other defenses, to play up-tempo, to use his bench when thought to be a strength.  All of these factors indicate a Coach too set in his ways to adapt to his players’ strengths and weaknesses.  Every coach should believe in their system, but a great coach can adjust and improvise when needed.  The Illini have become so predictable that they’re the easiest team in the Big 10 to prepare for, the easiest to gameplan against.
2. Bad Offense – Unless Deron Williams is running the point with Dee and Luther on the wings, you have a consistently poor offensive team.  This goes back to the Keady system of defense, defense, defense first, and Coach Weber proudly proclaiming they spend 60-70% of their time working on defense.  Beemsville has railed against the motion offense for years – how predictable it becomes in the late stages of the season, how dependent it is on jump-shooting, how it does not foster post play and driving lanes and offensive rebounds.  The fact is, these Illini teams would like to play at somewhere between 45-60 points and grind you down.  But bad offense allows inferior teams (Penn State, St. Bonnie, Illinois State, Maryland) to stay with you and make a game of it.  Because Coach is too stubborn, he does not work enough on offense in practice, young players get confused and lose confidence, and the Illini seem to always be on the verge of clinching up with the shot clock running down.  There’s no variation, no transition game, and now Dee Brown, I mean – Demetri McCamey, I mean – Brandon Paul is taking a contested off-balance 3…
3. Recruiting – This isn’t all Bruce’s fault, going back to the whole EJ Gordon fiasco, which screwed the program for years, and we also recognize that the Chicago Hype Machine makes certain players out to be better on paper than reality.  It’s also a fact that the AAU and all-star scene churns out players who can dunk and shoot 3s, but can’t box out or pass it to the post.  But with the exceptions of Jereme Richmond and Brandon Paul, Coach Weber’s staff has missed on the top Chicago-land players year in and out – even with the help of Jerrance Howard.  We understand that you just can’t get some of these guys due to the dirt and grime, but you still have to do better.  Additionally, the Illini have seemed unable to fill key positions at key times, such as right now with the point guard position.  At this point, with Weber’s refusal to make even minor changes to his staff, offensive system, etc., major changes on the recruiting front seem unlikely.

So now we watch this slogging offense and unchanging system attempt to grind out 6-7 more wins and make it to the tourney, hoping to avoid a bad matchup and somehow make it past the first weekend.  In all actuality, this was our prediction for the team before the season even began.  These were reasonable expectations:  finish in the top half of the conference, look dangerous in March, and win some tourney games.  All of this could still happen.  But the team could just as well go the other direction.  And this is the same situation Illinois has found itself in for years.  A seeming inability to get over the hump is why many are ready for a change.

In Brief:

Pros:  For a thief, spy, and wise-guy, Drothe is a likable guy and an excellent narrator.  Hulick does a fine job describing the workings of the Kin underworld, injecting their Cant speech, and providing a descriptive background of the city, Ildrecca, without going overboard or bogging down.  The action and swordplay are also well-written.

Cons: A first-person fantasy novel will nearly always lack a level of self-awareness by the narrator.  In other words, Drothe tells the story, while withholding some key developments, and doesn’t seem that changed or affected by it.  That’s mostly OK.  I wonder if Hulick could have pulled this story off in a close third person perspective, which would have freed him up to do some chapters from other character viewpoints as well.

Review:  Admit it:  if you come to fantasy fiction from any kind of role-playing background (e.g. D&D, GURPS, etc.), you probably have a soft spot for the thief.  He’s the guy who blends into shadows, ferrets out information, picks locks, and infiltrates hard targets.  He contributes through guile, stealth, and skill rather than brawn or sorcery.  In most fantasy, the thief is a supporting character, there to pick pockets, sneak around, double cross, etc.  Not often enough do we see a novel not only devoted to this archetype, but set in the seamy underworld of the thief’s domain.

Among Thieves – A Tale of the Kin, delves into this world from the opening scene.  Drothe, is a Nose – a wiseguy collector of information and spreader of rumors – with enough clout and experience to be successful without being important.  He moves from dodge to dodge, specializing in artifact retrieval, which soon puts him on the trail of a relic – a book.    Drothe starts sniffing around, finding clues that seem to link the book to a burgeoning underworld war in a particularly seedy part of town.  Old favors get called in.  Powerful crime lords and imperial forces get interested.  Drothe quickly starts to understand that this book many involve powerful, forbidden magic, and old secrets.  He’s in over his head.

Hulick moves his protagonist through this shadowy web with skill, providing enough detail and nuance to give the reader a sense of the city, its history, and its many layers of underworld society.  He doesn’t go overboard as is so often the case in fantasy and keeps the plot and Drothe moving.  This book is a caper and a mystery at its heart, which means timing and pacing are very important.  The author and his editors deserve kudos for finding the right balance.  It’s obvious Hulick had a huge amount of background notes and material he used in building this world and story, but he was sharp enough to keep this from overwhelming the novel.

The characters are fun and vivid as well.  Sure, they’re built from well-used archetypes (a mix of crime novels and fantasy), but the important ones are distinctive enough.  Bronze Degan, a sort of mercenary with a secret code of honor, protects Drothe’s back and jabs back and forth verbally with him to good effect.  Christiana, Drothe’s sister, has moved up from the street to the nobility without revealing her true origins.  Her secret gives Drothe additional worries and headaches.  Jelem is an outlander wizard, providing occasional help for a price.  And the crimelords with whom Drothe works and runs afoul – Nicco and Kells and Shadow –  all convincing and distinct in their way.

This being a first-person novel, the heart and soul of the story resides firmly with Drothe.  He seems more motivated by loyalty to his friends and allies than turning a buck, and his curiosity, wit, and, yes, humility make him easy to like and identify with almost immediately.  Drothe’s skills and contacts help him move from one mystery and escape to the next.  He manipulates people, sure, and calls in old favors and betrays old trusts.  But he feels bad about doing it, rationalizes, and ultimately looks for the path to redemption.  It’s a strange code of honor Hulick has created for his lead thief, yet this only adds to the enjoyment.

My main problems with first-person novels in fantasy are annoying narrators, point-of-view limitations, and literary hang-ups.  Among Thieves doesn’t suffer from the first.  The point-of-view limitations are more speculative on my part:  I like a close third person story that switches between several lead characters, and Hulick’s skill with Drothe makes me wonder if he couldn’t have pulled this off with a few more leads.  As far as the literary argument:  when a first-person lead withholds key information for the sake of a plot, this annoys me.  The fact that Drothe is telling this tale lets me know he’s not going to die.  And self-awareness and epiphany are supposed to be key elements of the first-person story (at least according to our literary betters).    These are very minor nitpicks, probably my own personal hangups, and certainly shouldn’t dissuade a potential reader.

Bottom Line:     Among Thieves is well-written underworld fun.  For those looking for a book set in the urban-crime sub-genre of fantasy, this is a real treat.  I’m looking forward to Doug Hulick’s next story and eager to see where he takes us.

Joe B.

Brandon Paul’s awesome performance against the Buckeyes hid a lot of warts.  This is still a team that plays uneven defense, gives up way too many turnovers, and can look downright awful on offense.  On the other hand, they win close games, play hard, and have some of the better athletes at their positions in the country with Myers Leonard and Paul.

Bruce Weber and Co. have six more home games, which you should win but never know.  And by my count, four toss-up road games, where you at least have a chance to win.  If the Illini could somehow get ten more wins, they’d be looking at a share of the Big 10 and a high seed.  Seven or eight wins are more likely.  Six or less is a sign of implosion.

Much of the coming success or lack thereof depends continuing improvement by key players and the health of Sam Maniscalco and others.  If Sam can play again, it opens up options.  If he’s severely limited or someone else gets hurt, all bets are off.  We also know the Weber will not change the offense, and that we are stuck with the motion.  Again.  So the only hope there is they avoid the excruciatingly long droughts, somehow pass better, and shoot well against the good teams.

Let’s check in on Beemsville’s pre-season keys to the season and see where we are…

• Leonard steps up - Myers has certainly stepped up.  He’s avoided foul trouble and dominated stretches of games.  He still has lots of holes in his post skills, he’s immature, and he overcompensates his foul tendency by not playing defense at all at times, but he’s become Illinois’ best player.
• The Illini become a fearsome pressure team - This hasn’t really happened.  They play really good defense at times, but they’re not elite at this point.  Breakdowns in when to pressure and when not to have led to a frustrating number of layups and bad fouls.  The Illini need to improve defensively to make noise in March.
• Paul finds his role - The jury’s out on this one.  Brandon was great offensively his last time out, and he’s had some solid efforts.  In fact, he’s far and away the hustle-points leader (he also plays more minutes than nearly everyone).  He rebounds, steals, blocks, and draws the toughest defensive assignments.  He also leads the team in turnovers, horrible passes, and bad shot decisions.  BP3 does it all.  He just needs to do most of it a little better.
• Freshmen play well - This one is hard to rate.  Abrams is improving into a solid sixth man and option.  Egwu and Myke Henry have had their moments.  But other than Tracy, they’re not playing as much or as well as we’d like.  Weber has shortened the rotation, excluding Mike Shaw, and could do so again down the stretch.
• Winning Time – We noted how many close games the Illini lost the last few years.  This year they’ve turned that around.  The only close loss was against Missouri.  They’ve won the rest of the close ones.  This is testament to the will of the players and guys not shrinking after the final timeout.  Because of how bad the team can play at times, they need to continue to control Winning Time.

Pros:  This is another up-tempo, clever, detective/buddy cop/caper in true Guy Ritchie mode.  Downey and Law continue their great chemistry as Holmes and Watson.

Cons:  Sherlock purists may have some complaints with authenticity.  That’s about it.

Review:  With so many poorly done big budget, large-scale movies and sequels being produced, it’s good to see one actually work.  That’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, which brings collaborators Ritchie, RDJr., and Law together again.  We are pretty big fans of all three of these guys, and were looking forward to Sherlock 2 since hearing it was in production.

The movie was every bit as enjoyable as the first one, which we lauded a few years back.  Sherlock 2 picks up right where the last one left off, with Holmes on the trail of Professor Moriarty (expertly portrayed by Jared Harris) and in seeming denial about the impending marriage of Watson.  Investigating a series of bombings across Europe, Holmes quickly connects these events to unseen hands attempting to escalate European nationalists to a war-time fervor.

When Sherlock confronts Moriarty with his suspicions, the Professor makes it clear that no one close to Holmes will be safe if Sherlock continues to pursue matters – even after Holmes takes great pains to explain that Watson will no longer factor in due to his impending marriage.  And so Watson soon finds himself embroiled in the caper, and the game is truly afoot.

Holmes and Watson find themselves avoiding careful traps, tracking clues, and making the kind of daring escapes you would expect.  While doing, so Guy Ritchie is setting up his familiar visual narrative conventions (like Holmes’ ability to predict the moves of a fight), and presiding over the great timing and chemistry between RDJr. and Law.  Again, with these two it’s like a great buddy cop movie from days gone by.  Ritchie also has fun with his art design people,  painting this wonderful elaborate picture of late Victorian London (and Paris and Germany).

At the heart of matters is RDJr’s reprisal of Holmes as this great manic genius – a detective who observes all the details, then deduces with superhuman speed and skill.  But this time he’s match by Moriarty, who is every bit his equal.  It’s clever, fast-moving, and superior big-screen entertainment.  See it in the theater while you can.

Bottom Line:  We hope Ritchie, RDJr. and Law keep on making these Sherlock movies every few years.  They are a notch or three above the action-caper norm.

And so we bring you, in classic Letterman style…

TOP 10 ILLINOIS DEBT RESPONSES

10. C’mon, man, it’s not like we’re using.  We’re clean.  We’re clean…

9.  What do you mean we only get in-store credit?  It used to be called the Sears Tower!  And look – it’s Wrigley Field and Soldier Field and stuff.  That’s got to be worth something….

8.   Give us better rates or we’ll file a grievance with the union.

7.  What are you going to do?  Move to Indiana?  Wisconsin?  Missouri?  Iowa?!?

6.  We gotta plan:  casinos, casinos, casinos.  Put ‘em everywhere.  What’s the worst that can happen?

5.  How about we throw in the University of Illinois and the other regional state schools.  Can we get cash for that?  What do you mean that ties us to their pensions…

4.  Barack Obama learned everything he knows about economic policy right here.

3.  [Calls the Federal Government]  ”Hey, you guys remember that whole ‘too big to fail’ thing, right?  Listen.  This is Illinois.  The State of Illinois.   Yeah, Land of Lincoln…” [click]  ”@$%&#!  They just hang up on us!”

2)  What about, we throw in all this farmland down here.  And the interstates and riverways too.  You can just tax the crap out of it.  Yeah, we need cash though, no gift cards.

1)     我可以采取订单? [wǒ kěyǐ cǎiqǔ dìngdān?]  Chinese for,  ’Can I take your order?’

So last month, when AT&T came by with an offer to combine TV and Internet, we decided to take them up on it.  The Internet connection was the key:  we wanted to move up from DSL, and with AT&T Uverse we finally had an option that did not oblige us to either keep a land phone line or subscribe to outrageously expensive cable TV.

Upon breaking the news to DirecTV, they transferred me to their retention department, who made an attempt.  They tried to bundle some stuff, and they did reduce or eliminate a lot of the annoying fees that got  me to start comparison shopping in the first place.  They couldn’t match Uverse though, and I also noted I couldn’t quite get to the price offered to new customers signing up.

When I pointed this out to the DirecTV rep, she didn’t have much to say.  This just tells you that DirecTV would rather sign up new people than retain customers.  Their business model appears to be predicated on hooking you for cheap, then gradually increasing the fees and add-ons until you’re paying way too much.  It’s sort of similar to a dope dealer or nanny-state government programs.

Not that I expect much different from AT&T.  Of course all their promotional offers fail to mention the additional fees for HD programming (which should be automatic at this point).  Of course my rates go up after a few month.  And even the installation guys let me know that to keep the rates decent, I’d need to call and complain every once in awhile.  ”Threaten to switch,” one of them told me.

It’s too bad we as customers have to threaten and cajole to get the best rates and decent service, but that’s the game.  Don’t forget it.

Some general reactions to the two games follow, but specifically we’d like to point to the lack of offensive bite and execution by both teams.  Football has had it’s problems all year and again struggled against a UCLA team that had given up 50 or more in previous games.  Coach Beckman will need to find some playmakers fast if he wants to compete against decent teams.  Weber’s crew continues to struggle on the hardwood, looking positively clueless and inept at times.  They seem determined to make up for not getting good shots by turning it over in bad spots.  We’ve harped on the ‘Motion’ offense repeatedly and will probably continue to do so until Coach implements some changes or is no longer here.  The bottom line is, you have to score to win.  And if you’re good on offense, people generally enjoy watching you play.  If the Illini are going to move themselves up in the hierarchy in both revenue sports, they need to improve their scoring.

• Illini fans will look back on Coach Vic’s defense wistfully.  As bad as the offense was, the defense more than made up for it.  They stuffed the Bruins run game and were consistently in the backfield on passing plays.  This from a unit that was the big question mark going into the season.  As someone who remembers just how bad the D was the year before Vic Koenning took over, it’s hard to imagine that whoever Beckman brings in can do better.  Illini fans were plenty upset at Beckman’s inability to keep Vic (though, to be fair it wasn’t all on him).  North Carolina fans should be thankful, because Coach Vic will have them dominating their conference in a year or two.
• 18-0 and 36-7 runs.  That’s how you lose and look terrible doing it.  Purdue’s runs gutted Illini confidence, but to be fair you could see it coming.  The guards were making jumpers the first 14 minutes or so to take the lead, but they weren’t driving and weren’t getting it inside to Myers.  Then, when Purdue dialed up the pressure and made some shots, Illinois folded fast.  The team looked shaky and confused.  Weber kept yelling.  The team turned it over stupidly and tightened up even more.  Weber kept yelling.  Once the game was truly out of reach, they calmed down and hit some shots, but game over.  Weber kept yelling.
• Hoping to avoid mass defections.  Whitney ‘Ming the’ Mercilus, All-American Defensive End and sack master hasn’t announced it yet, but he’s surely bound for the NFL.  Who could blame him?  Terry Hawthorne, whose pick-6 broke the game for the Orange and Blue to break the deadlock, is another guy who could go early.  Bandit linebacker Michael Buchanan has also expressed interest.  Coach Beckman and Illini fans will be watching closely on the latter two, who, if they return would be team leaders next year and crucial to continued defensive success.
• Hoops team must improve on D.  Face it – the offense is just going to suck at times.  We said before the season that Coach Weber would have to build the team into a fearsome defensive unit to be successful.  Unfortunately that hasn’t happened.  They play well at times, but give up too many dribble drives and collapse too often.  Leonard has stopped playing defense at the start of halves to avoid fouls and stay on the floor, when he should be setting the tone.  Quick guards get past us too easily.  Can the team improve here?
• The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl….   30,000 people in a baseball stadium to watch a 6-6 team beat a 6-7 team.  Is there any wonder most people think the bowl system is broken?  As an Illini fan, I’m glad the team played in and won another lower-tier bowl game.  As a college football fan, a playoff system can’t get here soon enough.  It’s true that playoffs would drain sponsorship money, which would mean the end of bowls such as the KFH Bowl.  That’s OK with me.  Even with an 8 or 16 team playoff, you’d still have 20-25 or so bowls that would likely survive and continue to earn money, and 40-50 bowl eligible teams is a lot better than the current setup.
• We are tired of losing to Purdue.  Was that the sixth straight loss to Purdue?  E’twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson are gone, right?  The Boilers have Weber’s number.  What’s ironic is they essentially run the same defensive and offensive systems, and if you go by the recruiting rankings, they do it with lesser players.  Yet they keep beating us.  Is it coaching?  Is it personnel?  You will note that Purdue’s motion seems to emphasize driving more than the Illini, but that could be a direct result of a guy like Lewis Jackson (from Decatur, you’ll remember, and the Illini did not offer him a scholarship) who always seems to get in the lane.  Robbie Hummel also drives first.  And Purdue’s hand-check and hack-attack defense is how we should do it.  Didn’t really expect these Illini to win at Mackey for their first Big 10 road trip, but I did expect them to play better.

Pros:   Beautifully written, with strong accessible characters, The Historian takes the best narrative elements of historical mystery in pop culture (think Indiana Jones, Dan Brown) without dumbing it down.  The descriptive prose and sometime heart-wrenching interactions are first-rate.

Cons:  Not many.  The book is long, sprawling, and never in a hurry.  Could be a detriment to less patient readers.  The action of the final climax is strangely brief and understated – perhaps to avoid clichés or maybe because Kostova just wasn’t sure how to treat it.

Review:  The Historian, as it’s title demands, is about the pursuit of knowledge of the past.  A search for truth, meaning, and understanding through the records and documents of our forebears.  The story focuses on this captial ‘H’ history as well as the personal history of the narrator, Julia, and her family.  Julia is about sixteen in 1972 when she discovers some strange letters in her father’s study.  Addressed to “an unfortunate successor”, they hint at a scholarly search for historical truth that somehow led to the demise of the author.  When Julia confronts her father, he confesses that the letters originated from his mentor and graduate advisor, Dr. Rossi, and begins to tell their tale.  Julia quickly realizes how unwilling her father is to tell this story.  His sorrow and concern are profound, and she begins to understand that he is telling her also about his own past, while hinting at the fate of Julia’s notably absent mother.

Kostova moves into a series of receding distant first-person narrators as the story unfolds.  Dr. Rossi, through his letters, and Julia’s father, Paul, actually tell more of the story than Julia.  The problem is, the narrators – all historians, highly intelligent, articulate, book-worms – are a little too similar.  The 1st person voices, not that distinctive, tend to blur together.  Fortunately there are ample other factors to outweigh this minor complaint.

First and foremost:  the crux of the plot.  Within the first several chapters Paul conveys the beginning of the mystery:  a strange old book he found at his study carrel those years ago, as he was finishing his dissertation.  It was a journal that opened in the center to a sinister woodcut of a dragon with one word inscribed on the page.  Drakulya.

When Paul shows the book to his mentor, Dr. Rossi, the older man seems very concerned and shows Paul his own identical copy.  He begins to convey his own journey twenty years earlier on a quest to track down details about the book and its links to the legendary Carpathian tyrant, Vlad Tepes.  Through Rossi’s and Paul’s tales, we (through Julia) learn of their multi-generational quest to delve into the myth and reality of Dracula.  In this sense the narrative has the best elements of historical mystery – the thrill and ambiance of ancient secrets finally uncovered, of sinister conspiracies and the truths beneath the veil of history.  And, of course, we (and Julia) soon realize that Dracula is more than a legend, more than particularly gruesome Turk-fighter.  He endures – as does his thirst for knowledge (among other things).

The other great pleasure of reading The Historian is the Paul’s character and how he relates to his daughter in the early chapters, followed by his interactions with Helen, Julia’s mother, as they meet, butt heads, and eventually fall in love.  Paul is every bit the noble, selfless scholar.  A man of letters, steady in his search to uncover the mysteries plaguing his loved ones.  In Helen he finds a suitable opposite – the sardonic and fiery Eastern Bloc anthropologist with her own reasons for embarking on the quest.

Finally, the detail and care with which Kostava lays out the setting, whether in Istanbul, Budapest, or the remote mountains of Bulgaria is nicely done.  The characters, scholars one and all, recognize and appreciate the cultural roots and nuance of the various places, and by extension, so do we as readers.   The story is firmly set in the Cold War, which adds further nuance to the plot and interactions.

Bottom Line:  The Historian moves at stately, sometimes plodding pace, and it’s not without its flaws, but the narrative and characters make this a must-read for those who love a good historical mystery.

The printer went into back order, so I cancelled it and bought it at Office Depot.  Cost me $10 more, but hey.  The laptop, on the other hand…  Well, it was a very good deal, and up until two days ago I still thought there was a chance.  You see, I called Best Buy’s customer service, waited on hold the required 25 minutes, only to have the drone on the other end tell me, “it looks like it’s left the warehouse and should arrive at your local store for pickup tomorrow.”  Obviously, she’d been told to provide that line (i.e., her bosses told her to lie to customers).

Two things bother me about this fail:  1) I could have bought the laptop elsewhere for a similar price had I known, say, two weeks ago there were problems with fulfillment; also, you would think that three weeks would be enough to know whether or not a piece of merchandise would be available.  2)  The customer service person telling the lie at the 11th hour.

So now we can’t deliver our gift as part of the family Christmas.  It’s for an adult, so of course they will understand.  But Best Buy better hit me with some kind of compensation when the laptop does finally arrive.  Store credit, something decent.  Something.  I realize they have it written into their terms of service that they can’t be held responsible for delays.  I realize these things happen in our just-in-time mode of retail.  But Best Buy better realize I can and will buy my consumer electronics elsewhere.

We’ve blogged several times with complaints about how the offense tends to get bogged down and predictable – particularly on the backend of the Big 10 schedule, when everyone has seen the tendencies and variations.  We had chocked some of that up to the limitations of the players, either the lack of a complete skillset or inability to see the game and change things up.  But based on early returns, this year, the past five years,  and only one-and-a-half seasons (see Deron, Luther, Dee, James, Roger) for which this offense actually worked, I can say that I no longer want to see Illinois running a straight motion.  Here’s my basic reasoning:

• Relies too much on jumpshots - call me old fashioned, but I prefer a classic inside-out offense.  You work it down low, force the defense to react and then kick out for jumpers.
• Does not feed the post - if you have a big guy with game, do you want him catching the ball 8 feet from the hoop or setting screens 20 feet from the basket?  For years it has appeared Illini players don’t know how to execute a simple post entry pass.  And likely they don’t, because they spend their time screening and cutting.
• Puts big guys in poor rebounding positions – again, if your big guys are screening and the guards are shooting from the wings, you find yourself in poor rebounding positions.  Illinois has not been a strong offensive rebounding team ever under Coach Weber.
• Does not emphasize driving lanes - with all the off-the-ball movement, spacing issues often close down driving lanes.  And you rarely see guys trying to drive and dish early in the shot clock.  So between the lack of driving and the jumpshots, you see an Illinois team that rarely shoots many freethrows.
• Seems too difficult for many – Again, unless you have a bunch of veteran or exceptionally savvy players, all it takes is one guy not dialed-in mentally to screw up the offense.  Coach has complained over the years about how we’re not executing.  In today’s college basketball you need a system that can be grasped by freshmen and sophomores, because you’re going to end up playing these guys.
• Becomes predictable - one of the supposed strengths of the motion is it’s inherent unpredictability.  The players are supposed to react to and exploit what the defense gives them.  But except for the time in which future NBA All Star Deron Williams was running the team, this never seems to happen.  Instead the players start to rely on the two or three little plays they’re comfortable running.  This is especially apparent in tight games or games in which the opponent is equal or superior athletically.  Case in point:  for the last three years the offense came down to the McCamey high-pick-and-fade and the McCamey dribble hand-off play at the end of games.  Teams saw this and took it away.

And all these factors combined lead us to those dreaded stretches like we saw against UNLV last Saturday.  Guys can’t get open on the wings and they can’t seem to execute a backdoor cut.  The high picks are jumped, the post players are screening on the perimeter, and you end up with Brandon Paul, DJ, or Sam taking long contested 3-pointers with shotclock running out.

Perhaps the most damning element of this year’s motion offense is it doesn’t appear to take advantage of the players’ strengths.  This year’s team is not a good bunch of jumpshooters.  The motion needs jumpshooting like plants need sunlight.  And yet, Coach appears to set in his ways to make significant changes.  The Illini have athletes in the post and on the wings.  These players need down screens, cross screens and isolation plays.  So the question becomes – why doesn’t Coach implement some of these plays?  He seems pretty good at drawing them up during timeouts…  Why not implement a dozen or so set plays while continuing to emphasize motion principles?

We don’t have the answer.  We do know that every time the team shoots under 30% or fails to break 50 is another bit of evidence in the case against the motion.  Every time Griffey flashes across and doesn’t get the ball, or Leonard is 15 feet from the goal and facing the wrong way to rebound.  Every time Brandon Paul jacks up and ill-advised three or the team gets less than ten free throw attempts.  These players are frustrated, and sometimes look confused.  And you ask yourself – is this good coaching?

Defense may win championships, but you gotta score to get there.  So the question is, will Coach Weber see this and adapt or will this ongoing trend of bad offense continue?  The competitive part of the schedule begins in earnest Thursday night against Missouri.  The Big 10 ain’t great, but it’s tougher than Coppin State and Cornell.  So perhaps the real question becomes, if Coach can’t or won’t change, how many more instances of bad offensive execution before AD Mike Thomas takes notice?