Game Thread: OU vs. Illinois

It wouldn’t surprise Weber if a team late in the second round of the NBA draft takes a shot on Tisdale.

Projected as a mid-second round NBA pick, Benson earned Summit League player of the year and Lou Henson mid-major player of the year by CollegeInsider.com last season while leading the Grizzlies to a 26-9 record overall and a 17-1 mark in the conference. Oakland earned its second NCAA tournament berth in five seasons.

A thumb injury kept Benson from working out with NBA scouts, so he returned to Oakland for his senior season. As a senior, Benson had 22 points and 15 rebounds against West Virginia in the season opener and 16 points, 14 rebounds against Purdue.

“He’s an offensive juggernaut,” Tisdale said. “He scores around the basket really well, and faces up with his shooting. It will be a good matchup.”

As big of a week as we have had in men's basketball, I think the team earned a "night off" so to speak. Thus, the Oakland University Grizzlies (?) will roll into Champaign, Illinois, step off the plane, realize it is only 11 degrees, and promptly concede the game entirely.(Wait, Oakland, Michigan? Never mind) Remember last week before North Carolina and Gonzaga, when we were very much worried about how the Illini would match up against wide bodied big men? And how did we handle them, well by more or less shooting the doors out of the gym. Doesn't really matter if you can't post up when your big man just walks out to the top of the key and buries threes does it? Not that I'm complaining, with Oakland on Wednesday, the Illini can move up to 9-1 and be heavily favored in three of their next four games.

Of course, all of the optimism and promise would take a severe hit if Illinois were to lose tonight to Oakland, the Rochester, Mich.-based school that is tackling a blockbuster schedule early this season.

Oakland has already played at West Virginia and at Purdue and when Weber sat his team down in the film room on Monday, he showed them the first five minutes of the Oakland-Purdue game.

"Oakland was up 14-6 and they stayed pretty close for 30 minutes before Purdue broke out down the stretch," Weber said. "Oakland is very smart with size and athleticism and they're road-tested. They will come in here without a fear factor."

Oakland is led by a talented 6-11 center, Keith Benson, who investigated the NBA draft in the off-season before withdrawing his name from consideration. He is averaging 19.1 points and 12.3 rebounds and has six double-doubles in Oakland's first eight games.

"He can score around the paint and he is averaging about four blocked shots a game," Weber said.

As well as Illinois has been shooting the 3-point shot (20 of 35 in the last two games), Weber doesn't want his group falling in love with long range sniping.

"We have shooters, but we have to get into the paint and we have to get to the free throw line," he said. "We're one of the bottom five in the country in percentage of points that come from free throws. If those (3-pointers) are not going down, can we get to the paint, can we get inside, can we get to the free throw line?