The Illinois basketball team begins their journey in the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday in what should be a tough matchup.
Illinois is slotted as the No. 9 seed and they will be taking on the No. 8 seed Michigan Wolverines. Having this tough of a second round opponent is expected but it seems like everything is on the line for the Illini. They have to win this game and likely the next against No. 1 Purdue to potentially get into the NCAA tournament.
The game against Michigan won’t be easy, though. Michigan is a team that has some talented players that have experience in postseason play. They have been in this situation before and they want to improve their seeding in the NCAA tournament that they have pretty much locked up.
In the regular season Illinois and Michigan split the two games they played against each other. In The first matchup, the Illini got the best of the Wolverines and won 85-69. But Michigan came back for the second game and beat Illinois 66-57.
Illinois needs to win this game on Thursday and they will need to do many of the things they managed to do in the first game they played against the Wolverines this season.
In the first game, the Illini were on fire shooting the ball. They shot 64.2-percent from the field and 64.3-percent from the three-point line. Those are numbers that can beat just about any team in the nation. The second game wasn’t the same, though. Illinois only managed 45.8-percent from the field and was a measly 16.7-percent from the three-point line.
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Illinois needs to find a happy medium between both of the shooting percentages. If Illinois can get to around 40-percent from the three-point line and 50-percent from the field then I think they won’t have troubles with scoring enough points to beat this Michigan squad.
Another area that Illinois needs to focus on Thursday is rebounding. This stat really stood out to me when comparing the two games these teams played this season.
In the first game that Illinois won against Michigan, the Wolverines only had 17 rebounds. The next game that Michigan won they had a total of 30 rebounds. That is almost double the rebounds from the previous contest. Every time Michigan pulls down a rebound that is another chance for them to score, especially considering 10 of the 30 rebounds were offensive.
Fundamentals will be one of the keys in this game. The Illini need to do a better job of boxing out around the rim so Michigan stops getting second chances at scoring. This will ultimately lead to fewer points for them and more points for Illinois.
The final area I want the Illini to focus on is ball movement. In the first game that Illinois won they had 21 assists. Te’Jon Lucas accounted for 8 of those assists in the rout of the Wolverines. But in the second game, in which the Illini lost, the team only had 9 assists and Lucas only played 15 minutes while Jaylon Tate received 20 minutes for some unknown reason.
Illinois needs to have continued ball movement and develop chemistry early on. This will lead to more efficient shot attempts and more made baskets. I want to see more Illini players staying around the hoop and not running back to the other side before the play is over as well. Rebounds are a huge part of winning this game on Thursday.
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The Illini can do all of these things and win the game. I truly believe they have better talent than a No. 9 seed in the Big Ten. If Illinois plays together on Thursday then I think we see them again on Friday.