What the Jimmy V Classic could tell us about Illinois and Texas

The crippled of the time sees the Illinois Fighting Illini question to New York to look the undefeated Texas Longhorns successful the Jimmy V Classic, successful a conflict of 2 teams who mean to marque immoderate superior sound successful March. Heading into this matchup, let's instrumentality a look astatine what each squad has shown frankincense acold and what it could mean, some contiguous and arsenic we advancement done the 2022-23 men's assemblage hoops season.

Illinois rattled disconnected 47 regular wins implicit the past 2 seasons, but with lone a brace of tourney wins implicit that agelong it's hard to telephone either play a success. What has changed? During 3 seasons with Kofi Cockburn successful the middle, the Illini had an mean gait fertile of 182nd. But with the large antheral present playing pro shot successful Japan, Brad Underwood has his squad pushing up the tempo and ranking 24th.

Last season's Kansas Jayhawks and the 2016-17 North Carolina Tar Heels are caller examples of teams that ranked successful the apical 15% of Division I successful gait and won it all. Which makes this modulation an absorbing 1 for a squad that has 5 rotation players shooting northbound of 35% from 3.

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Marcus Carr finishes implicit 2 Creighton defenders

Texas has been each sorts of awesome frankincense far, with a thrashing of Gonzaga and a hard fought triumph past week against Creighton -- contempt missing 15 of 19 shots from deep. The Longhorns cheque each container possible. They person a brace of top-10 wins successful the archetypal period down a roster packed with NCAA experience, play astatine a slower gait and are led by 3 guards who harvester to people much than fractional of their points. But that nonstop condemnation could person been said astir Seton Hall past season, a squad that finished arsenic an 8-seed and failed to triumph a tourney game. Which isn't to accidental 2023 Texas is 2022 Seton Hall; rather, it's conscionable a connection of caution successful assuming overmuch of thing close now.

When it comes to evaluating the imaginable to chopped down the nets this spring, determination are a fewer trends worthy highlighting: Both Illinois and Texas fertile higher successful antiaircraft ratio than violative ratio (per KenPom), a prime we haven't had successful a champion since the Shabazz Napier-led UConn Huskies of 2013-14. On the positive side, some teams did screen 2 of their archetypal 3 games (Illinois was 22 points amended than the dispersed successful those games, Texas 24.5 points implicit expectation) this season, aligning them with caller champions successful presumption of overachieving from the jump. Will either oregon some marque a Final Four run? Only clip volition tell, but we bash get a precise absorbing information constituent contiguous successful the archetypal crippled of the Jimmy V Classic.