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

4. The Illini lack of scoring worries me

We had this game. It was right there for the Illini to take but they failed to capitalize on the Penn State misses. This is what worries me about this team.

There were so many chances in the second half for Illinois to get over the five-point hump. I believe we only did it once or twice. This team couldn’t come back down the court and score when Penn State would miss a shot. There were multiple reasons for this.

The main reason we failed to snag the lead was that our Big 3 wasn’t on for the day. Ayo Dosunmu did lead the Big 3 with 18 points on 7-of-15 shooting. He actually had a solid day. Giorgi Bezhanishvili was 5-of-14 for 16 points and 10 rebounds. 35-percent from the field, for being a big man, is not good. Trent Frazier had 11 points on 4-of-15 shooting from the field. That comes out to 26.7-percent from the field. So, the Big 3 combined shooting 16-of-44 from the field, which is 36-percent. That isn’t good and I am surprised we were even in striking distance shooting that bad.

Another reason I think we struggled to score is that when the Big 3 isn’t hitting, we really don’t have anyone else to go to. Aaron Jordan only shot six times. Da’Monte Williams is by no means a scoring threat. Andres Feliz isn’t an outside shooter, although he had a great day and was our second-leading scorer. With that being said, we really don’t have too many options outside of the Big 3 when it comes to scoring.

Illinois needs to find more points from somewhere. I think the next slide will help us find those points and win games like the one against Penn State.