Illinois basketball has 31 regular season games scheduled. Normally one would divide the season into non-conference and conference games, but given that we are expecting to add Alex Legion on December 20th, I thought it would make more sense to look first at the 10 games we play without him. Here they are:
11/14 vs. Eastern Washington
11/16 vs. Texas A&M - Corpus Christi
11/20 @ Vanderbilt
11/23 vs. Jackson State
11/28 vs. Kent State (South Padre)
11/29 vs. Texas A&M or Tulsa (South Padre)
12/02 vs. Clemson (ACC/Big Ten Challenge)
12/06 vs. Georgia (United Center)
12/08 vs. Hawaii
12/10 vs. Chicago State
I have no idea how we will do against this slate, but it looks like there are five cupcakes and five challenges. The five cupcakes are Eastern Washington, Tex. A&M - CC, Jackson State, Hawaii, and Chicago State -- all home games against weaker teams. The five challenges include one road game, two neutral site games in South Padre, the ACC/B10 challenge, and the United Center game.
There are also some challenges for us loyal viewers. Four games will be easy for me to watch: games against Jackson State and Hawaii are on the BTN, the Georgia game is on ESPNU, and the Clemson game is on ESPN2. The Eastern Washington and Chicago State games are on bigtennetwork.com, which is annoying but at least freely available nationwide. The remaining four are challenges - @Vandy is on FSN Midwest (I don't live in the Midwest!), Kent State is on Fox College Sports (I didn't even know that was a channel), and the broadcasts for the 11/16 and 11/29 games are not yet announced. Given that 11/16 is only six days away, I am concerned that game may not be broadcast at all. So perhaps we won't be seeing much of the Illini without Alex Legion.
Given that I may have to use my imagination a lot in the next month, let me try to imagine a good rotation for the first 10 games. Bear in mind that I have only seen about 1.3 exhibition games (and not the O&B scrimmage), so this is somewhat poorly-educated speculation. What I will do is try to dole out 200 minutes of playing time in 4 minute increments, ignoring garbage time.
Starters: (136 mpg combined)
Demetri McCamey - 32 mpg
Trent Meacham - 28 mpg
Chester Frazier - 32 mpg
Mike Davis - 24 mpg
Mike Tisdale - 20 mpg
Bench: (64 mpg combined)
Calvin Brock - 24 mpg
Richard Semrau - 16 mpg
Dominique Keller - 12 mpg
Jeff Jordan - 8 mpg
Bill Cole - 4 mpg
Not Playing:
Stan Simpson (redshirt)
Alex Legion (ineligible)
C.J. Jackson (bench)
How would this sort by position? Let's assume that McCamey and Jordan are always at the 1 and Tisdale and Semrau are always at the 5. I'm also thinking that Meacham is always a 2 and Keller and Cole are always at the 4. That leaves three hybrid players, with Frazier as a 2/3, Brock as a 3/4, and Davis as a 4/5.
PG (1): McCamey (32), Jordan (8)
SG (2): Meacham (28), Frazier (12)
SF (3): Frazier (20), Brock (20)
PF (4): Davis (20), Keller (12), Brock (4), Cole (4)
C (5): Tisdale (20), Semrau (16), Davis (4)
My hope is that Brock starting at PF was an exhibition gimmick and we don't see him there more than 4 mpg. It made sense for the exhibitions, with an open competition between the big men and more minutes available for Jeff Jordan. In real games though we don't have much guard depth so Brock will need to spend most of his time at the 3. Things could get really crazy if someone gets hurt or in very early foul trouble. I'm trying not to think about that.
I think it is safe to say that Alex Legion will have plenty of playing time available for him immediately once he becomes eligible. There are also plenty of opportunities for next year's freshmen, but that sounds like a topic for Wednesday...
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