Despite averaging 16.0 PPG over two seasons in Champaign, Rayvonte Rice’s Illinois career has had several bumps along the way. There is no argument about his offensive ability but his leadership could be called into question because the Illini — depending on the next seven days — have not made an NCAA Tournament on his watch. He struggled during Big Ten competition last season as the Illini lost eight straight at one point, and although the team has been better during his senior season, he hasn’t been able to close out some games because he was too predictable. If the Illini get back to the NCAAs next week, all may be forgiven; but assuming they do not after a tough loss to Purdue yesterday, let’s examine the three primary reasons why Rice’s game didn’t translate to more wins at Illinois.

Rayvonte Rice Has Had an Up and Down Illinois Career (USA Today Images)

1. Over-reliance on the long-range shot and predictable moves. Rice’s athleticism is too much to handle during the non-conference season because most of those teams don’t have defenders with enough strength to prevent him from getting to the rim. Big Ten defenders, however, are just as strong as him, and the coaches are too smart to allow him to get to the basket off of screens. Double-teams are common when he comes off screens to his right as opposing defenders force him to shoot from beyond the arc. His junior season was plagued with horrible shot selection, attempting 156 threes and only making 30 percent of them. Frustrations mounted during his slumps as he continued to force shots instead of sharing the ball with his younger teammates. The insertions of Malcolm Hill and Kendrick Nunn into the starting lineup last season helped to ease the burden somewhat, but it came a bit too late. Rice should have let the game come to him and relied more on his teammates.
2. Rice didn’t have an effective teammate to complement his game. Rice’s teammates also haven’t been stylistically different from him, which has hurt his overall production. Two seasons ago, Brandon Paul was the slasher and D.J.Richardson was the long-range gunner. Hill’s game this season is very similar: He prefers to go to his left off screens and use his strength to put up floaters or use the glass. Rice basically does the exact same thing except that he prefers to go to the right from the top of the key. Nunn has a good three-point game to complement Rice but it isn’t consistent. To make matters worse, point guards Tracy Abrams and Ahmad Starks weren’t great shooters either. Rice’s production could have been better if he didn’t have to carry so much of the offensive load both inside and outside the arc.
3. Lack of a true point guard didn’t create easy opportunities for Rice. Illinois’ struggles with the point guard position have been well-documented. Starks shot a dismal 33 percent from long-range this season. Abrams’ shooting was even worse, at 27 percent from beyond the arc. Neither point guard was great at creating shots for Rice. Abrams didn’t have the quickness to get past his defender and Starks wasn’t strong enough to drive the lane to create open shots. Jaylon Tate is as close to the idea of a true point guard during Rice’s career, but defenders played off him because he can’t shoot. Without a point guard  in the rotation who could carry his weight offensively, Rice has had to create shots for himself, not only tiring himself out but also putting him into an offensive funk for long periods of time.

Deepak Jayanti (270 Posts)

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2015 at 9:31 am by Deepak Jayanti and is filed under big ten, microsites. Tagged: illinois, john groce, Malcolm Hill, rayvonte rice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.