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Wyoming vs Illinois State

Wyo2dal

Wyo2dal

Well-known member
So time to get this topic under way, Game is not that far off and this IMO will be our first true road test of this season.



Another team that scores a lot and shoots high FG%, While we edge them out in FT's we had a pretty bad night shooting from the charity stripe against CU and we need to get that back in control. As a defensive minded team we will spend a lot of time on the line and we have to make those freebies.

They edge us out on rebounds as well, I'm fine if we give up rebounds but against CU we were slow to get back on D and we gave up the rebounds. They also scored way to many transition baskets because of the slow defense. We need to be quicker to get back on D if we aren't crashing the glass.

Assist/Block/Steams are pretty close I can only assume are are down right now as we are lacking Grabau and it shows on the APG stat. Our RPI doesn't look too bad but out SOS is horrible while the SOS doesn't say who you can and can not beat I think our first test against CU went pretty good.

This is going to be a really tough road game for us no two ways about it.
 
This will be Wyoming's toughest non conference game and to be honest I think we lose this game. Hope I'm wrong.

Illinois St. went to the MVC tournament championship game last year against Creighton and had a good shot to beat them before losing and then went onto the post season NIT tournament and made it to the quarterfinals. They return 4 starters from that team.

They have 2 losses on the year which were in their last two games back to back. One to a 6-2 Northwestern team in the championship game of a tournament and then lost at #5 ranked Louisville yesterday 69-66 after leading the whole game.

They will be wanting a win bad after dropping 2 straight and now they will be back at home. If Wyoming wants to win this game they will need to be emotionally into it which might be tough after a big emotional win last night. Need our defense to step up here. Illinois St. should be an NCAA tournament team this year as it will be between them and Creighton to win the MVC.

Hope we win this game but it's going to be very very tough. If we do then we will have gotten ourselves a great shot at getting an at large bid into the NCAA tournament if we can go .500 in conference. If we lose all will not be lost as I think we should win the remaning non conference games with only a road game at SMU that might be iffy.

Go Pokes!
 
This game will be on Illinois States' 'all access' and for 9.95 we can get it and get it out to the poke faithful.

http://www.goredbirds.com/allaccess/?media=346682" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I can throw in a few bucks for this.
 
Win or lose, Wyoming will not be intimidated by the Illinois State team and it will be a tough, grind it out type of game.
 
seattlecowboy said:
This will be Wyoming's toughest non conference game and to be honest I think we lose this game. Hope I'm wrong.

Illinois St. went to the MVC tournament championship game last year against Creighton and had a good shot to beat them before losing and then went onto the post season NIT tournament and made it to the quarterfinals. They return 4 starters from that team.

They have 2 losses on the year which were in their last two games back to back. One to a 6-2 Northwestern team in the championship game of a tournament and then lost at #5 ranked Louisville yesterday 69-66 after leading the whole game.

They will be wanting a win bad after dropping 2 straight and now they will be back at home. If Wyoming wants to win this game they will need to be emotionally into it which might be tough after a big emotional win last night. Need our defense to step up here. Illinois St. should be an NCAA tournament team this year as it will be between them and Creighton to win the MVC.

Hope we win this game but it's going to be very very tough. If we do then we will have gotten ourselves a great shot at getting an at large bid into the NCAA tournament if we can go .500 in conference. If we lose all will not be lost as I think we should win the remaning non conference games with only a road game at SMU that might be iffy.

Go Pokes!
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Very good post and I agree with everything you said seatlecowboy this is the toughest nonconference game this year including CU. Illinois State is a very good team and IMO will definitely make the tourny. However if we win this game we have a great shot at an at large bid ourselves with a .500 conference record. I hope for a win but this game scares me. Go Pokes!
 
We have got to make sure we make Illinois State play our game. We can't go off running with them. I do believe that our team can some nights win in a shoot out, but most nights we won't win in a shoot out.

And we have to have a solid effort from Nance and Adams and Gilmore to go with Leonard and Luke.
I think we can win this game. And if we do, put us in the Top 25 and WATCH OUT.
 
I truly believe if we win this game we will go undefeated in nonconference play and be ranked by the time conference starts up. With the first few games in conference I could see us going 17-0 which would be way better than expected. Also if CSU beats CU wednesday we could have five teams ranked with a possibility of 6 if Boise goes undefeated nonconference as well. This game is a huge test and if we lose we are still in great shape.

realtimerpi has us going 19-9 and 9-7 in conference which I think we could all be pretty happy about, and winning every home game which IMO would give us enough quality wins to get a bid into the tourny much like CSU last year. realtimerpi does have us losing this game, but only has it by 6 points when it was previously at 9 so it should be a good test for us on the road and hopefully we pull it out.
Go Pokes!
 
YankPoke said:
I truly believe if we win this game we will go undefeated in nonconference play and be ranked by the time conference starts up. With the first few games in conference I could see us going 17-0 which would be way better than expected. Also if CSU beats CU wednesday we could have five teams ranked with a possibility of 6 if Boise goes undefeated nonconference as well. This game is a huge test and if we lose we are still in great shape.

realtimerpi has us going 19-9 and 9-7 in conference which I think we could all be pretty happy about, and winning every home game which IMO would give us enough quality wins to get a bid into the tourny much like CSU last year. realtimerpi does have us losing this game, but only has it by 6 points when it was previously at 9 so it should be a good test for us on the road and hopefully we pull it out.
Go Pokes!
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Boise would be ranked except they lost to Michigan State.
Besides this game tomorrow, the SMU game is the only other non conference game that will be a challenge. They are 8-1, but have had a weak weak WEAK schedule. Even more weak than ours I believe.
But, that game is a month away
 
Like I said, defense needs to come into play big time for this game. No running and gunning. Pokes need to use thier own tempo to control the game.
 
can't stress how big this game tomorrow is! We absolutely need this one, can't have a hangover and I don't see that happening with this team because Defense is our identity and we play with a lot of energy and energy travels well
 
gopokes1399 said:
can't stress how big this game tomorrow is! We absolutely need this one, can't have a hangover and I don't see that happening with this team because Defense is our identity and we play with a lot of energy and energy travels well
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That is a great way to look at our team. We have players that can score to win us games but our shut down defense is what puts us in positions to dominate. Defense does seem to travel better than offense. I think we'll have a decent night from the field tomorrow but our defense will hold them in check and we'll head on home 9-0. GO POKES
 
The biggest advantage Wyoming has in this game tomorrow night is that we like to play a different style of basketball than they do. If they can get out and run that is what they like to do. So we need to slow it down to a snails pace and keep the game in the 50's to 60's.

In both of Illinois St.'s losses the games were played in the 60's. Northwestern who beat them in ovetime runs the Princeton offense but they will get out and run some. Wyoming slows it down even more so. This has to be the case tomorrow night if Wyoming is to escape with a victory. Wyoming needs to be feeding the low post a LOT tomorrow to Nance and Washington and work the offense through them. Carmichael will be a load down low for them but we can match up with him luckily because we have multiple bigs. Brown will be a handful for them at the guard position and I think is the biggest matchup for us in this game. If Wyoming can contain him we have a great shot to win this game. I think we might play a matchup zone or maybe even a box in 1 to slow the game down and keep someone on Brown at all times with the zone as a fall back for help and to clog up the middle. The refs aren't going to be on our side this game so we need to know that going in and just overcome it and play ball.

Illinois St. uses 12 guys and 8 of them get 20 minutes or more a game. Slowing it down is a huge key to winning this game.

The good thing is we have a great coach in Shyatt and I'm sure he will have something schemed up.

I'm nervous about this game more so than I was Colorado but that is a good thing as it has been a long time since I would get nervous for games which means we are starting to be good again!

Go Pokes!
 
going into it at 8-0 is flat out awesome, just hoping for no mental letdowns after such a rewarding win for our program
 
Illinois St. opens up as an -8.5 point favorite. Sounds about right to me with Wyoming coming off of an emotional victory and Illinois St. smarting after two straight tough losses coming back home.
 
seattlecowboy said:
Illinois St. opens up as an -8.5 point favorite. Sounds about right to me with Wyoming coming off of an emotional victory and Illinois St. smarting after two straight tough losses coming back home.
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I think if our team plays like we have seen them play, we win, if they get caught up in the moment of beating CU and lose focus I think we lose.
VERY nervous for the game.
I think Adams gets the start tomorrow. Just a hunch. I think Grabau is gonna get some rest and Adams has been proving he is capable.
 
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