Illinois Basketball: 3 observations from the Illini win over Purdue

2. The bench is going to suffer without Griffin

The game on Tuesday night started off well for the Illinois basketball team. We jumped out to an 8-4 lead over Purdue early on. But then we all witnessed one of the dumbest moves in college basketball.

Alan Griffin is a really talented player who can spark a team to victory. His ability to shoot long range is impressive. But his stomp on Sasha Stefanovic was a dumb and dirty play. He deserved to be kicked out of the game, and he deserves to be suspended for some period of time.

With that being said, without Griffin coming off the bench, Illinois is going to be extremely thin in the second unit. We already struggled at times with our bench play, but missing by far the biggest scorer off the bench is going to hurt this team down the stretch.

I was pleased with how the Illini bench played against Purdue, though. While they only produced eight points – three for Kipper Nichols and five for Andres Feliz – the bench came through with the other things. In addition to Nichols’ three points, he also had four rebounds and two assists. Feliz chipped in with three assists of his own.

But I realize this probably isn’t sustainable without a bigger bench presence. We are going to need more bench scoring when we go up against a team that can actually score points. Illinois matches up against four ranked teams in the next six games. It might be a lot to ask of the Big 3 to contribute 77-percent of the points in every one of these games. They are going to need some help.

So let’s call it like it is; Griffin’s stomp doesn’t just affect him. Yes, he was tossed out of the game and should be suspended, but it is bigger than that. His stomp was a selfish move that is going to hurt the team. Hopefully, he realizes this and stops making boneheaded decisions.