It’s here. Arkansas’ 2023 season comes down to one game. The Hogs face Illinois in the 8/9 game, with the winner hoping to move on to battle Kansas (most likely).
Meet the Illini
One of the nation’s elite programs in the early 2000s, the Illinois basketball program briefly fell on hard times before the hire of current coach Brad Underwood. The Illini have never won a national title, but they have five Final Fours, including one by their best team, the 2005 squad that finished as national runners-up and beat Arkansas 72-60 in Alltel Arena in North Little Rock.
Underwood, famous for leading 14-seed Stephen F. Austin to a stunning upset of 3-seed West Virginia in the 2016 first round, is in his sixth season in Champaign. Despite a 1-seed in 2021, Illinois has yet to reach a Sweet Sixteen under Underwood.
See how this brief scouting report sounds:
- Despite recent success and considerable hype, this year’s team disappointed
- The pieces of a talented but turned-over roster never quite came together
- They are led in scoring by a 6’6 transfer who averaged 17 points per game
- The offense struggled to hit jump shots and limit dumb turnovers, forcing it to rely on attacking the rim and drawing fouls
- The defense smothered the perimeter and forced turnovers but had issues defending around the rim
Sound familiar? That scouting report could work for either Illinois or Arkansas. These two teams are incredibly similar.
Arkansas ended the season with a thud, but the Illini were even thuddier, ranking 333rd in Momentum after a 1-4 finish to the year.
Model pick: Illinois 69, Arkansas 67. The model thinks that both teams will expose the other’s weaknesses, but Arkansas’ are more severe.
Scouting Report
Transfers lead both teams. For Illinois, it’s 6’6 wing Terrence Shannon, a transfer from Texas Tech who averaged 17 points per game. Shannon is the machine who makes the Illinois go at both ends. He shoots a decent percentage (51% eFG%) as a three-level scorer, gets to the line a lot, and dishes out a ton of assists. On defense, he uses his length and athleticism to help close off the perimeter. Expect Devo Davis to draw an assignment on him.
For added offense, you’ll see 6’9 Baylor transfer Matthew Mayer. Mayer plays around the perimeter and two-thirds of his shots are three-pointers. He shoots just 33% on those. Like his counterpart Jordan Walsh, his spacing is more valuable than any of his direct statistical contributions. Mayer grades as a pretty bad defender who Arkansas should target.
Joining Mayer in the frontcourt is 6’10 veteran Coleman Hawkins. Hawkins takes about half his shots from beyond the arc but is just a 27% shooter. He doesn’t draw fouls well and sports a massive 27% turnover rate, however his spacing and defense are very valuable to the Illini.
Those three will all play 30+ minutes. Illinois has a few different lineup configurations with the rest of their squad. For their “big” lineup, they try to overwhelm opponents with size by bringing in 6’9 post Dain Dainja. Dainja is the only non-jump-shooter in the rotation and will do all his work around the rim. RAPM doesn’t like Dainja, probably because he hurts the Illinois spacing. His 27% turnover rate doesn’t help either. He is a strong rebounder and shot blocker but overall grades as a non-threat.
The backcourt is led by 6’2 freshman Jayden Epps, who often comes off the bench but plays starter minutes. Epps facilities good spacing and ball movement but isn’t a great shooter. Defensively, he grades as a very good – if passive – perimeter defender.
The rest of the backcourt is messy, as 5-star freshman Skyy Clark left the team in January. His recruitment was filled with high drama, so Illinois had to know what they were getting into. Other guys getting more minutes include 6’7 wing RJ Melendez and 6’4 freshman Sencire Harris. Melendez is yet another guy who sends up a lot of 3-pointers but mostly misses, while Harris struggles to score but grades as an excellent defender because he leads the team in steal rate.
As you can probably see from this brief introduction, Underwood loves tall guys who can shoot 3s. This year’s team has had some issues because, well, the 3s aren’t falling. None of Illinois’ regular rotation players are above 35% from beyond the arc for the season.
When Illinois has the ball
Illinois plays with good pacing and is at their best when they can turn turnovers into fast breaks going the other way. They are not a particularly-strong halfcourt team.
You can see Illinois’ offense problem: despite a high number of 3-point attempts (86th in 3-point usage), the Illini rank 349th out of 363 teams in 3-point shooting for the season. They keep launching 3s, but they don’t go in.
But the Illini’s optimized shot selection means that they also get a ton of attempts at the rim (and very little midrange). That’s a major concern for the Hogs, who have had major issues keeping opponents away from the rim all season. The Razorbacks have been tough defenders on those shots around the rim (77th), but there’s more bad news, as Illinois ranks 7th in the nation in field goal percentage at the rim. You can see why the model leans Illinois despite Arkansas being ranked higher: a flood of high-percentage shots in so close to the basket is hard to stop.
Illinois also draws a ton of fouls, which just makes it all worse, as Arkansas has had issues with foul trouble all season. But the Hogs’ best hope is turnovers. Illinois has struggled with turnovers – both forced and unforced – all season long, and Arkansas can limit damage by dominating the turnover battle.
Shannon is the major scoring threat around the rim, while Dainja is fairly high-usage on the offensive end and does all of his work around the rim. Mayer mostly shoots 3-pointers, but can draw fouls on his way to basket, so keeping him in front will be top priority.
This is, almost fittingly, a game where Arkansas is going to badly miss Trevon Brazile, as without him, the Hogs will have to send a non-perimeter defender out to stay with Hawkins on the perimeter. That’s going to create open paths to the bucket for Illinois.
When Arkansas has the ball
The best time to beat Illinois is in transition. They’ve struggled to get back on live-ball changes of possession. Forcing turnovers – a key discussed above – is doubly important because those become buckets at the other end at a high rate against Illinois.
When the Illini get set, their halfcourt defense is elite.
If there’s hope for the Hogs, it’s that Illinois has some weaknesses of its own around the rim. Illinois is just 182nd in preventing shots at the rim and 112th in defending those shots. Instead, like Arkansas, Illinois emphasizes smothering the perimeter and turning 3-point jump shots into 2-point jump shots that are much less efficient.
One of Arkansas’ major offensive issues all season is the Hogs’ extreme reliance on midrange jumpers. Eric Musselman, in defiance of Nate Oats and other young analytics-focused coaches, has defended his team’s use of the midrange. We’ll do a deep-dive analysis after the season, but as of right now, Arkansas scores 0.70 points per midrange jumper, compared to 0.92 points per 3-pointer and 1.13 points per shot at the rim, and every 10% increase in midrange usage costs the Hogs 1.6 points per 100 possessions. No one is arguing for an elimination of the midrange game – a wide-open shot anywhere on the floor is a good shot – but Arkansas takes more than 30% of its shots from midrange, and many of them – possibly most – are contested, not wide open.
Anyway, the model thinks that Arkansas’ midrange game is going to cost them this one. The model says that Illinois – which is very good at forcing midrange – is going to bait the Hogs into a ton of long jumpers, and this increase over their season average is going to cost the Hogs 2.85 points… in a 2-point game. We’ll have to see if the Hogs’ ability to get to the rim can overcome that.
Keys to the Game
- Force turnovers. Turnover rate is actually the stat that is most-correlated with defensive efficiency for Arkansas. The Hogs tend to have good defensive games when they force turnovers. And good news! Illinois struggles to protect the ball. But the Hogs have been very inconsistent in the turnover-forcing department all season. If this isn’t a strong performance, the Hogs are in trouble.
- Protect the rock. The same thing goes the other way. Illinois’ second-most correlated stat to defensive efficiency is the turnover rate it forces, and Arkansas has had major issues with giveaways this year.
- Don’t settle for long jumpers. Illinois wants to dissuade opponents from driving to the rim by using big lineups, but the Illini are actually fairly weak around the rim. If the Hogs can pound the rock inside instead of settling for low-percentage jumpers, they’ve got a good chance to generate enough offense to win.
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