Illinois Basketball Bigs Must Improve Quickly

Illinois Basketball Big Must Improve Quickly

Illinois Basketball dropped a big game in College Park on Wednesday vs a struggling Penn State team at Rec Hall. Terrence Shannon Jr played the best game of his career, going off for 35 points and 11 rebounds on the evening. Illinois also destroyed the Nittany Lions on the boards (+24).  However, the defense for Illinois was atrocious, and could not stop this Penn State team from making a late run. In a crucial game, a lackadaisical effort landed the Illini a tough loss in the Big Ten. Remaining a projected 3 seed in the NCAA tournament is going to be extremely difficult as well as a result of this loss.

Are all of Illinois’ goals still possible? Sure. However, a really bad loss like this just made the road much more difficult for Illinois. The horrid defensive play was a team effort, however, it was exposed heavily at the rim vs Illinois big men.

Coleman Hawkins

Let’s get this out of the way first. Coleman Hawkins is a really… really good basketball player. A future NBA draft pick as well if he can string together a good run to the end of the season. As well as a master-class social media troll, nevertheless.

However, you cannot go out vs a bad Penn State team, and let Zack Hicks and Qudus Wahab have the games that they did vs Coleman. Hicks went 2-4 from three-point range and 4-7 from the field for 13 vs the Illini forwards. Hicks also nailed the 3 free throws given on a late foul, that gave the Nittany Lions the go-ahead. Wahab was able to score 13 himself vs Hawkins and company, shooting 60% from the field. Both players also had great defensive performances, holding Coleman to only 9 on the night, shooting 3-11 from the field. Is it the end of the world for Coleman? Absolutely not, but a very light production performance in a huge game for Illinois, is not what you want to see from one of your vocal leaders.

Quincy Guerrier

Quincy was a double-double machine in January, and playing tough defense for Illinois. He was on a fantastic upward trajectory to end the season, and now his production has started to  drop off. The Montreal native had completed his 6th double-double since transferring to Illinois vs Northwestern on January 24th. Since that point, Guerrier has an average of 6.5 PPG and really only produced well on the boards vs Nebraska and Michigan. Both games with 7 rebounds a piece. Certainly much more is left to be desired from Quincy until the end of this 2024 season, and inconsistency is a killer.

Thoughts

If Illinois hopes to make any kind of run in the Big Ten or NCAA tournament, there is quite a bit to clean up, and time is not your friend. With only 5  games until the BTT, and a couple of short weeks away from NCAA March Madness, the time for correction is now. This struggling defense is target issue #1. The Illinois forward’s depth and consistency have been an exposed issue in recent games, and the Illini defense has continued to slide as a result. Coleman is really good but he is human. Slower games are bound to happen, but Hawkins really struggled at Rec Hall tonight. To that same point, Quincy and Dain must be able to step in and give Illinois production, especially on defense, when Coleman needs help. This has not happened in recent weeks and creates a larger concern for Illinois Basketball as they approach March.