Illinois Basketball On a Rough Rollercoaster

Illinois Basketball on a Rough Rollercoaster

Illinois Basketball is undoubtedly on a rough rollercoaster ride, as they hit the midway point of February. Just weeks away from the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments. Undeniably bad timing to start losing games with out-of-character play. Illinois marched into the Breslin Center in East Lansing, and twice let go of an 8-point lead with the ball, late in each half. Ultimately, the Illini finished the game with over a 7-minute scoring drought and allowed Tom Izzo’s Spartans to take them to the cleaners to finish out the loss. 22 points were allowed by the Illini defense in under 7 minutes of gameplay, in the most critical minutes of the season to date.

Certainly, not the result Illinois is looking to have as they enter the strongest and most critical part of this 2024 schedule. Turnovers, bad fouls, and missed open looks at the rim are a problem, and Coach Underwood and company are certainly scrambling to clean things up before March.

Underwood’s Comments

Certainly, taking one step forward another back is not a welcome trend for Illinois Basketball or Brad Underwood. Underwood was quoted saying “Give them all the credit, they were obviously the aggressor’s tonight. You’re a passive and soft team when you are fouling, and we did that a lot today, so obviously we were pretty passive.” said Underwood. Certainly, a possible dig at some of the extremely questionable calls that were made throughout game. However, Underwood was adamant that the Illini just flat out got beat. “It’s gonna be that way when you give up 23 points in transition off turnovers.” Says Brad. “Its gonna be that way when we probably blew 3-4 switches as well. Really, the defensive mistakes we’ve gotta clean up.” Says Underwood.

Illini Drop in AP Top-25

Consequently, as the up and down game play continues to be a factor for the Illinois Basketball, so does pendulum swing on the AP Top-25. Illinois swings once again right back down to the #14 spot. Down 4 from being ranked 10th a week ago. Familiar? That’s because this has been the trend for the last SIX AP-top 25 ranking drops. Illinois has bounced back and fourth from #10 to #14 every week since the January 8th rankings.

The return of Terrance Shannon Jr is huge for Illinois, but the rest of this team seems to be struggling to cleanly mesh on the court. On Shannon’s side, he missed 6 games in the most important stretch to get him ready for late season.  As expected, it took time to get him back at his top game. The star scored 28 vs the Spartans despite going 2-9 from deep, and led the Illini in overall production. Terrance is heating up, and the rest of the Illini need to follow in he and Marcus Domask’s strides. Time is of the essence on this 2024 regular season. Early Big Ten play was still good to the Illini. They found gritty ways to win under pressure without their star, and keep the rhythm going. However, Illinois has struggled to find that rhythm again with sloppy turnovers and inconsistent shooting.