Illinois Basketball: Much Pain, But No Gain

The Illinois basketball team should have beat Ohio State in regulation play. Instead, they forced overtime and then lost.

Next: 5 Other Teams That Have Struggled Like the Illini

For those of us who bleed orange and blue, it has been a most painful year. Like many of you, I fell asleep late Thursday night with the OSU loss weighing heavily on my mind, and I woke up early to find the weight undiminished.

Sometimes I wish I could stop caring. Sometimes I wish being a fan didn’t hurt so damn much. For me, there is no greater sport than college basketball.

College basketball is performance art. It is theater in the round. It is a passion play that engenders huge and frequent swings of emotion. It is the best kind of improvisation. And there is no team in any sport that means as much to me as the Fighting Illini.

I have jumped up and down like a maniac in front of my TV, scaring the hell out of my wife and kids, crying tears of joy. Who can forget the dramatic win in 2013 over #1 Indiana on the Tyler Griffey buzzer beating lay-up?

I know my wife and kids remember it. I was just losing my mind with joy, and for some reason I had a Barbie Doll in my hand
(probably because those are ubiquitous in my house and always within arms reach). I threw it down in a fit of joy, and it broke.

I rolled on the floor in glee oblivious to the fact that I had just decapitated a doll. My girls still think that is one of the funniest things they ever witnessed. Not my proudest parenting moment, but a nice little memory for the kids to rag me about until the day I die.

And I have shed some tears of pain too. The 2005 National Championship comes to mind.

Frankly, its all a little embarrassing. But I’m not alone, am I? Some of you out there know precisely what I am talking about.

I didn’t cry after the loss Thursday night, but man was it a heart breaker. There are many reasons the Illini lost that game, but three loom large in my sleepless mind.

First, the disaster at the end of regulation.

Mid-way through the second half I had lost all hope. It appeared the Buckeyes were going to put the boot to Illinois’ throat. But the Illini shook it off, locking down on defense and overcoming a 13 point deficit in the last six minutes, outscoring the Buckeyes 15-2.

The game was knotted at 58. The Illini faithful were going crazy. The State Farm Center was rocking. The Buckeyes had the ball with 30 seconds and the shot clock winding down. They had nowhere to go. The Illini rebounded an errant OSU shot with about 18 seconds left.

And here is where I started loudly muttering… “call your time out… call it… CALL IT!.”

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Malcolm Hill held the ball just beyond mid court until only 5 seconds remained. Then he made his move. For some reason – probably because he was out of time – Hill launched an ill-fated three that was blocked by Keita Bates-Diop.

Hill was having a horrible night. He should not have been the one with the ball in his hand at the end of regulation. And more to the point, why the hell didn’t Groce use his time out to draw up a play that involved a drive to the basket and a kick-out if that got shut down!?

I will NEVER understand why coaches don’t use their time-out in those situations. If there is a two on one fast break, I get it. Don’t disrupt the flow. But that isn’t what was happening in this game. Big mistake.

My last two reasons the Illini lost involve the simple concept of putting the ball in the basket. I preface these with the following thoughts. I understand that the game is 40 minutes. Any given shot that turns out differently, whether it be made, missed, or rebounded in an alternate way, creates a brand new game going forward.

I call this the M Theory of basketball. Why? Because it makes me sound smart, but it is also true that the game is altered going forward by any number of occurrences.

All of this to say that I don’t think the Illini would necessarily have won had they made one more basket or one more free throw (unless you get to the very end of the game. Then the finite nature of the game limits how many different things could happen as time winds down). But had the Illini simply been a little better in either one of these two areas – and they usually are – they probably would have won in regulation.

The second reason the Illini lost was the fact that they went over ten minutes without a field goal in the first half.

That kind of drought cannot happen to this team. Other teams score too much for the Illini not to dump in buckets. Had a couple more threes fallen in the first half, or perhaps a couple more field goals, how would that have altered the game?

Most likely it would have placed the Illini in position to win the game in regulation shooting free throws down the stretch. But there is a big question of how that would have worked out.

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That brings me to my final reason. Free throws.

The Illini shot a dismal 58% from the line. They haven’t had that poor a performance from the charity stripe since game one against North Florida. In fact they had improved dramatically over the season leveling out in the low to mid 70s, with plenty of games where they did better than 80%.

Had the Illini shot 70% against the Buckeyes, again they likely would’ve won. The Illini picked a bad night to fall back to opening night numbers in that category, and it is likely the biggest reason they lost. It is more than a cliché to say that you have to hit your free throws. It is fundamental.

And how ironic that it boiled down to this again. In the first game against OSU, the Illini couldn’t get to the line, but the Buckeyes did… and they took advantage of that hitting 28 of 39 free throws. On Thursday, the Illini were a sad 18 for 31.

There are other things that one might point at to explain this loss.

For example the Illini’s rebounding was horrible. But with Mike Thorne Jr and Leron Black benched with injuries, rebounding is going to be a constant problem. There might be exceptions on occasion like against Minnesota, but don’t expect much of that.

Another thing is that maybe Groce shouldn’t have used both of his timeouts back-to-back in overtime, so he could have used one before the calamitous turnover at the end of OT.

The Illini have shown they can play decent defense, but if they cannot score consistently and frequently they are going to continue to lose.

I agree with Coach Groce that the Illini played with grit and did some things very well. Unfortunately, it was the poor decision making from the sideline at the end of regulation and the poor execution of fundamental offense on the court that determined the game’s outcome. They are going to need to correct those problems against a decent Wisconsin squad this Sunday.

Things that make you go… Mmmm… theory…