Malcolm Hill [Mike Granse – USA Today]

Basketball season will get here sooner than you think: this is the first of 14 Big Ten team previews.

One of the Big Ten’s most historically prestigious programs has fallen on hard times as of late: Illinois has won just two NCAA Tournament games in the last ten years and haven’t had a winning record in conference play since 2010. Last season, three long-term injuries to would-be starters put the Illini in free fall – they finished with a losing record and a 12th-place finish in the Big Ten. Of their five conference wins, four came against Rutgers and Minnesota (two historically bad teams) – and two of those games were won in overtime.

John Groce, a former Thad Matta assistant, is now in his fifth season in Champaign – Illinois’s Kenpom rating has fallen every year of his tenure and they have missed three consecutive NCAA Tournaments. While last year’s spate of injuries offers an excuse – and a very good recruiting class that’s entering its senior year of high school offers hope moving forward – Groce probably needs to show marked improvement to survive at Illinois.

The return of those three injured players will help: despite Tracy Abrams’s inefficiency, he’s a decided step up from last season’s point guards; Leron Black was a touted recruit and will improve Illinois on the glass; mammoth Charlotte transfer Mike Thorne could be a double-double machine. The Illini had two main scorers after the injuries – wings Malcolm Hill and Kendrick Nunn. While Nunn was dismissed, Hill will be returning for his senior year after putting up 18.1 points per game as a junior. Black’s return will likely slide Hill (who operated mostly as a mid-range iso player a year ago) from the four to the three.

A jump into NCAA Tournament contention will require some significant changes, as Illinois was equally bad on offense and defense and finished –10 points per 100 possessions against Big Ten opponents last season. Even though any chance of success last season was effectively wiped out by those injuries, it’s debatable as to how much any of those players would have helped as the Illini lost to low-majors North Florida and Chattanooga at home even with Thorne and Black. Groce will get another go of it with a veteran-laden roster, but that roster falls towards the worse half of the Big Ten and an NCAA Tournament bid would surprise.

[More on the Illini after the JUMP]

LAST SEASON

With Abrams sidelined, Groce was forced to turn to Jaylon Tate and 5th-year transfer Khalid Lewis to run the point; since both were unable to shoot an eFG% over 40% on little usage, they weren’t enough of a threat offensively to run the offense through them. Partially because of that, Illinois gave the ball to Malcolm Hill and despite being their most frequent offensive option, he was the most efficient player on the team.

It came difficultly. Hill was leveraged into taking about half of his shots from mid-range locations (where he hit at just 39%), but he had an assist rate of 20.5 – a great playmaker for a four – drew the most fouls of anyone in Big Ten play, and got to the free throw line often, where he hit 82% of them. Kendrick Nunn provided much of his complementary scoring from behind the arc; even though the two had the same amount of field goal attempts per game, the overall usage differed because Hill produced scoring opportunities for himself and others.

There were three other notable players for the Illini: well-regarded freshman guard Jalen Coleman-Lands came in and was mostly a one-dimensional player as he took 206 three-point attempts (almost three quarters of his total shots) and made 42% of them; Maverick Morgan and Michael Finke were complementary centers offensively – Morgan’s a more traditional post scorer and Finke was a perimeter big who took over half of his attempts from three. The return of Mike Thorne will drastically cut into the available minutes at the center spot, though it would be interesting to see if Finke could play alongside him as a stretch-four.

Four Factor Z-Scores from games against Big Ten opponents

The Illini were decidedly below average at both ends of the floor, though for different reasons: defensively, they ceded a terrible shooting percentage and were unable to make up for it with above average marks in the rest of the four factors; on offense, it’s apparent that the absences of Thorne and Black factored into Illinois’s decision to effectively ignore offensive rebounds, and while that’s not necessarily a bad strategy, they weren’t effective enough on the first opportunity of a possession to have a decent offense, even though they turned the ball over rarely.

NEWCOMERS

Illinois added one freshman in the 2016 recruiting class, point guard Te’Jon Lucas, who committed to the Illini over Southern Cal and Old Dominion, but also had some interest (though no reported offer) from Wisconsin and Michigan. Lucas was a high three star prospect out of Milwaukee standing at 6’0 whose best attribute is his court vision, and there will be available playing time because even though there are two senior point guards on the roster (Tracy Abrams and Jaylon Tate), Illinois desperately needs an upgrade at the position.

The Illini also add former 2015 recruit Kipper Nichols, who transferred from Tulane after a few days of class last fall. He’s a former three star from Ohio who originally picked Illinois over Butler and Xavier and had about a half-dozen Big Ten offers – though the Illini didn’t get involved until after he transferred. Unfortunately he will have to wait until the semester break, but he could play his way into the rotation in Big Ten play because of his defense.

As mentioned earlier, the returns of Tracy Abrams, Leron Black, and Mike Thorne from injuries will be the biggest additions to last year’s roster.

PROJECTED ROTATION

• STARTER (POINT GUARD) – Tracy Abrams (6th-Sr, 6’2, 185): Starter in ‘13 and ‘14, injured in ‘15 and ‘16, most recently posted awful 36 / 27 / 77 shooting splits (2P% / 3P% / FT%), good assist and steal rates, should shore up perimeter D.
• STARTER (GUARD) – Jalen Coleman-Lands (So, 6’3, 190): Former Top 50 recruit was mostly Just A Shooter as a freshman, but scored just over ten points per game and hit a high volume of threes at 42% (may not be ready by season opener because of injury).
• STARTER (POINT FORWARD) – Malcolm Hill (Sr, 6’6, 225): 18.1 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.2 spg was good enough for 2nd-team All-B1G as a junior, nice all-around player but does most of his damage by drawing fouls and scoring from the FT line.
• STARTER (TRADITIONAL FOUR) – Leron Black (R-So, 6’7, 220): Former Top 50 recruit had a season-ending knee injury last season, not a generally efficient player but very impactful on defense and as a rebounder.
• STARTER (POST) – Mike Thorne (6th-Sr, 6’11, 280): Charlotte transfer had an astounding 33.9 usage rate in eight games for the Illini last season, posted absurd rebounding rates, plays around the basket, was good but not that great at Charlotte.
• BENCH (POINT GUARD) – Te’Jon Lucas (Fr, 6’0, 170): Likely to get playing time (though he spent the last several months recovering from a broken foot from high school) because of his court vision, will probably struggle from inside the arc.
• BENCH (POINT GUARD) – Jaylon Tate (Sr, 6’3, 170): Nondescript senior had < 50 FGA as backup point guard last season, posted a good assist rate (24.6) but a very bad turnover rate (25.8).
• BENCH (WING) – Kipper Nichols (R-Fr, 6’6, 225): Reputed to be a strong perimeter defender capable of guarding multiple positions, probably a better bet to play than other wings on the roster.
• BENCH (STRETCH BIG) – Michael Finke (R-So, 6’10, 230): Despite being forced to play out of position at the five, still took over half his FGA from three (37%), his lack of defense would be mitigated at the four.
• BENCH (POST) – Maverick Morgan (Sr, 6’10, 245): Will back up Thorne at the five, efficient post scorer with a nice array of moves, not a good defender or rebounder for a center.

PLAYER COMPARISON

A few years ago, I came up with a system that would compare the statistical profiles of Big Ten players to their historical counterparts by taking the sum of the differences between a given player’s profile and each of the thousand player-seasons from 2008-present in twenty different statistical categories.

# value is the Z-Score of the player’s statistic (or statistics averaged over multiple seasons) relative to the entire sample

Shavon Shields feels like an excellent comparison point for Malcolm Hill: while Hill was more of a distributor and better at getting to the free throw line, they both fit the mold of the undersized, playmaking four who attacks the basket from the mid-range. Shields was generally a high usage player for the three seasons listed above, though he was the second option in Husker offense behind Terran Petteway for two of them. Interestingly, Shields became more efficient when his playing time decreased as a senior, even though his usage rate increased to the highest in the conference (Hill was fourth).

While many of the names listed above are of high-usage, ball-dominant wings, only some played the four – Shields is one, but Nigel Hayes is another and he’s perhaps the most interesting comparison point for Hill. Despite his ghastly shooting splits (40 / 29 / 74), Hayes was often the focal point of Wisconsin’s offense, scored by getting to the free throw line, and posted 15.7 ppg, 5.8 rpg, and 3.0 apg for a notoriously low-tempo team. He was named first-team All-Big Ten and his team was far more successful than Illinois was, but – based on the numbers comparing Hill and Hayes’s junior seasons above – Hill was the better player statistically.

Players like Manny Harris, Evan Turner, Terran Petteway, Rayvonte Rice and DJ Newbill are perhaps not a proper stylistic or positional fit for Hill, but the impact that those players made with the ball in their hands is similar. Harris was a particularly interesting comparison – Manny was more of a passer than Hill was (even though Hill compares well as a passer to the sample of players similar to him), which led to a much higher total usage rate. Newbill was a less complete wing than Hill or Harris, but his role on a bad team is instructive in looking at how Hill performed in what was pretty much a lost season: Newbill and Hill had very similar usage and efficiency profiles.

OUTLOOK

By Year Five, a coach’s fate with a school looks pretty well set and the trendline for Groce does not bode well for his chances of staying on as the Illini coach long term. Even with some outstanding recruiting success this past summer (Illinois is ranked 3rd nationally in the composite for the 2017 class and earned the commitment of a 5* center) providing hope for the future, there needs to be a significant turnaround for Illinois to get back on track on the hardwood.

Few teams will match the veteran leadership that Illinois has – two sixth-year seniors on one team is pretty much unheard of – but there are some huge questions on both sides of the floor. Outside of Hill, can anyone create their own shot? How good can a team with Hill as its best player be in the first place? Will Thorne and Black provide some rebounding, but more importantly, some interior defense? Is there any chance of decent point guard play from someone on the roster?

While there are some nice pieces on the roster (Hill would be an asset to any team despite being an iffy outside shooter, Coleman-Lands has obvious potential after playing decently in a big role as a freshman, and Thorne could possibly be a difference-maker at the Big Ten level), the roster as a whole is lacking – and Groce has yet to show the requisite strategic chops to squeeze more wins out of a team than he’d get normally. If the Illini have below-average players and coaching, not a #hot #take by any means, getting back to NCAA Tournament relevance will be difficult. Perhaps the recruiting class will save Groce if things go south this season but there’s little doubt that he’s on the ropes.