5. I like the lineup against Purdue
Brad Underwood has experimented with his lineups very little this season. The usual faces have been in there for much of the year. When healthy, Leron Black, Trent Frazier, Mark Alstork and Michael Finke have all been the main starters. The other guard spot has been the big change for games, though.
For the Purdue game, Underwood made a change I don’t believe we have seen before. He ended up starting the four regular players and then put Te’Jon Lucas as the No. 1 guard for the Illini. I really liked this lineup change, and I think it could work moving forward.
In my opinions, Lucas isn’t a Big Ten caliber starter. He has a great knack for the point guard role, but he doesn’t bring enough to the table consistently on offense to warrant a permanent starting spot. But, I do love him as a backup to Frazier when Ayo Dosunmu comes into the program.
For the time being, though, I like what Underwood did on Thursday night. Lucas can handle the ball well and Frazier is more of a scoring guard anyways. He moved over to the No. 2 spot and let Lucas handle the ball more.
Frazier ended up hitting the 20-point mark and Lucas even got on the board with 12 points of his own. This combination proved to be really good. Even when Dosunmu comes in, I wouldn’t mind seeing the duo of Lucas and Frazier together on the floor sometimes as well.
Next: 5 takeaways from Illini loss to Michigan State 2.0
Illinois has nice pieces, but they need more starting caliber help. I love Lucas and Frazier together right now, though. Both of these players will be huge moving forward.