Illinois Basketball: 5 takeaways from the Illini win over Austin Peay

2. Same tendencies as the previous regime

Illinois goes through scoring lulls in each game. The first lull was in the first half when Illinois hit 13 points at the 14:29 mark. The next time they scored a point was at the 8:24 mark. That means the Illini failed to score for six minutes and five seconds. That is incredible against a great defense but this was Austin Peay. That is embarrassing. In the meantime, the Governors went on an 11-0 run and took the lead by four points.

Immediately after that lull, Illinois went on another one. They failed to score for the next five minutes and 14 seconds. Thankfully, Austin Peay didn’t do much in the way of scoring either. Illinois only ended up being down 20-15 before they scored another point. But, if this was a better team they were playing, this would have been the first half of the Maryland game all over again.

Illinois went on a three minute and six-second drought in the second half but once again, the Governors couldn’t stretch out the lead very far. The Illini also went on a few tiny dry spells throughout the game as well.

My point in pointing out these droughts isn’t just about Illinois not scoring during these times – which is bad – but to show there is something wrong with either the players or system. What I notice – especially against Austin Peay – is the Illinois players are playing hero ball. They are pounding the rock and not moving the ball. There needs to be more motion in the offense and more passing.

Underwood said it best after the Northwestern game, “Anytime my team has eight assists, it’s a problem.”  Well, last night, Illinois had nine assists for the game. Like I previously mentioned, Underwood is trying to teach old dogs new tricks. Some of these players have terrible habits and he needs to break them quickly.