1. We are a bad shooting team
Honestly, I am not sure the last time I witnessed an Illinois basketball team shoot this bad. They were absolutely awful on Thursday night against Michigan State.
There were only two players that I wasn’t disappointed with. Ayo Dosunmu put up 18 points on 8-of-20 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 from the free throw line. But he was still 0-of-3 from three-point range, which was disappointing.
The player I was most impressed with, by far, was Alan Griffin. He dropped 17 points off the bench for the Illini. Griffin was able to score those points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field and 6-of-6 from the charity stripe. He was only 1-of-5 from three-point range, though.
Ayo and Griffin combined shooting 13-of-29 from the field, which is 44.8-percent. This program can win games with those numbers. But we can’t win games with the rest of the team laying an egg. The other 11 Illini players combined shooting 9-of-46 from the field, which is 19.5-percent. That is unacceptable.
There are anomalies and then there are trends. I am hoping this game is the first one of those two options. Besides for two players, this Illini team was awful shooting the ball against the Spartans. It is going to be a long season if this continues.