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Illinois Basketball: 5 takeaways from the Illini loss to Penn State

By Rees Woodcock

LINCOLN, NE - JANUARY 15: Illinois head coach Brad Underwood is yelling at Illinois guard Trent Frazier (1) for a foul during the first half of a college basketball game Monday, January 15th at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nebraska defeated Illinois 64 to 63. (Photo by John Peterson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
LINCOLN, NE - JANUARY 15: Illinois head coach Brad Underwood is yelling at Illinois guard Trent Frazier (1) for a foul during the first half of a college basketball game Monday, January 15th at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nebraska defeated Illinois 64 to 63. (Photo by John Peterson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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MADISON, WI – JANUARY 19: Head coach Brad Underwood of the Illinois Fighting Illini calls out instructions in the first half against the Wisconsin Badgers at the Kohl Center on January 19, 2018 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /

5. Illinois is not good at shooting the basketball

Throughout history, there have been some great shooting Illinois basketball teams. The national title team was tremendous. I loved the late 2000’s teams who could knock down a big-time shot. Don’t even get me started on DJ Richardson. But, the currently Illini team just doesn’t have the shooters that they used to.

I’ll give the Illini credit, they still chuck up the three-point shot at a high level. They are shooting 21.8 three-pointers per game right now. That ranks No. 166 in the nation. The sad part is the ball just isn’t going into the basket at a very efficient rate.

While Illinois continues to shoot a good amount of three-pointers, they aren’t making them very often. They only average making 6.9 three-point shots per game, which ranks No. 243 in the nation. In this stat you want the made three-point ranking to be equal to or higher than the three-pointer attempted ranking. That isn’t the case, though.

Next: 5 takeaways from the Illini loss to Wisconsin part two

This trend was about the same against Penn State as well. Illinois only shot 19 three-pointers in this game and made just five of those attempts. This ended up coming out to 26.3-percent from deep. This Illini team is falling in love with the three-point shot but they just aren’t good at shooting from deep. This mindset needs to change with the current squad.

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