Illinois Basketball: 3 observations from the Illini win over Nebraska

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UNIVERSITY PARK, PA – FEBRUARY 18: Ayo Dosunmu #11 of the Illinois Fighting Illini celebrates a win after a college basketball game against the Penn State Nittany Lions at the Bryce Jordan Center on February 18, 2020 in University Park, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) /

The Illinois basketball team managed to knock off the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Champaign on Monday night.

Illinois needed this win. This makes two wins in a row, and we now sit with an 18-9 record overall and a 10-6 Big Ten record. That conference record is tied with the second-best mark in the Big Ten, but we are still on the outside looking in for the double-bye. Beating Nebraska helped tremendously, though.

The Orange and Blue started the game off hot. We were up 11-4 five minutes into the game. The first double-digit lead for the Illini came at the 9:04 mark in the first half when Ayo Dosunmu made a shot to go up 22-11. Nebraska managed to fight back, though. They tied the game at 31-31 with less than two minutes remaining. Thanks to Trent Frazier’s late heroics, the Illini charged back with two three-point shots to go into halftime up 37-31.

Nebraska came out fighting in the second half. They hit shots and would eventually tie the game back up at 46-46. That is when Illinois woke up and took the game back over. We managed to get the lead back to double digits with under 10 minutes remaining in the game. That double-digit lead rose to 14 points at one time, and Illinois finished the game winning, 71-59.

Here are three observations from the Illini win over Nebraska.

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