Illinois Basketball With Epic Meltdown In Happy Valley

Life never stays easy in the Big Ten. After a best-case scenario week last week, the Illinois Basketball team started off this week with a horrible late collapse on the road. The Illini held the Nittany Lions at arm’s length all second half before giving up an 8-0 run in the last 35 seconds. Justin Harmon missed at the buzzer to give Penn State a 90-89 win.

1. Closing Time

Illinois basketball has struggled to close down games late recently. Whether that be not getting enough stops, or not scoring enough, it’s been a myriad of issues. Tonight was the worst of all by far, giving away a game to a truly mediocre Penn State team. Terrence Shannon Jr. turned the ball over for a layup. Harmon basically blew two consecutive timeouts trying to inbound the ball. Coleman Hawkins missed two free throws and fouled a three-point shooter up two. Hawkins will get most of the blame considering his boisterous personality and loud mistakes late, but everyone, including the coaches on the bench deserve blame for this one.

2. First 38

The ending overshadowed what was a very very strong first 38ish minutes of the game. While at times they struggled with some turnovers, for the most part Illinois basketball steamrolled the Nittany Lions defense. They gobbled up 18 offensive rebounds and had 15 assists. They shot a solid 9-24 from three, with most of those being open looks. Terrence Shannon Jr. was incredible, with 35 points and 11 rebounds. Marcus Domask was his steady self, although he did have four turnovers. It’s a shame the game ended the way it did, but there were still lots of positives.

3. Big Picture

There’s no sugarcoating, this was a really bad loss. The road element makes it a little softer, but Illinois basketball shouldn’t be losing to Penn State, and especially not after largely dominating the majority of the proceedings. However, this loss can only be as bad as the performance in the next game. The Illini still have everything to play for, despite letting their destiny once again slip out of their hands in the conference title race. Whatever miniscule margin of error they had if any is now gone completely.

From an even more zoomed out look, Illinois’ defense has been very poor for some time now. It seems like the Illini defense goes as Quincy Guerrier goes, and he struggled again tonight. When Illinois can play four of Hawkins, Guerrier, Shannon Jr., Rodgers and Harmon around Domask they can get stops. However since the Indiana game, Guerrier has gone from 34 minutes per game to just 20. This usually means more Luke Goode, who is a good player in his own right, however in the Illini’s switch heavy scheme, he can be exposed. The offense looks truly unstoppable when Shannon Jr. plays like this, but to be truly great the defense has to catch up.

Illinois falls to 19-7, 10-5 in conference play. The Illini welcome Iowa to Champaign on the weekend.

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