The Illinois basketball team avenged their previous loss to Northwestern by beating the Wildcats on Sunday night.
Illinois took control of this game pretty early on. They jumped out to a quick 16-4 lead. Northwestern wasn’t going down without a fight, though. The Wildcats managed to get the deficit back to eight points, but the Illini continued to extend their lead. Illinois was able to get the lead up to 13 points with 10 minutes to go in the half.
The rest of the first half didn’t change much. Northwestern would try to make a run but the Illini continued to fight them off. The biggest lead for Illinois was 15 points at one time. After a Derek Pardon free throw, the Wildcats went into the halftime locker room down 39-27.
Illinois let the lead slip away in the second half, though. Northwestern came out firing and got the deficit back to six points less than two minutes into the second half. The Wildcats managed to get the deficit to just three points, but Illinois would extend the lead again. With 10 minutes to go in the game, the Illini led 60-52.
That margin, roughly, stayed the same the rest of the way out until about a minute left. Northwestern made a little run but the Illini hit their free throws. Illinois would come away with an 81-76 victory over the Wildcats.
Here are five observations from the Illini win over Northwestern.