Illinois Basketball: 3 observations from the Illini victory over Northwestern

The Illinois basketball team had to avoid a pothole in the road on Thursday night as they took on the lowly Northwestern Wildcats in Evanston.

The start of the game was a little worrisome. The Wildcats hung tough with the Illini and even had an 8-6 lead over five minutes into the game. But knowing how bad this Northwestern program is and how good the Illini are, I knew this game wasn’t going to be too stressful for the fans.

By the 10-minute mark in the first half, Illinois had managed to take the lead back at 16-13. That lead would increase to double-digits by the 7:06 mark. The Wildcats were able to cut the deficit down to six points with under a minute to go, but Trent Frazier increased the Illinois lead to eight by halftime.

Northwestern did hang around for a while in the second half. On a few occasions, the Wildcats would get the deficit back down to six points. But Illinois continued to keep an arm’s length from the pesky Purple People Eaters.

The Illini forged ahead and ended up extending their lead to 16 points at one time. We all but kneeled on the ball from that point forward. Northwestern would get the score back into single-digits a couple of times including the final score, which read the Illini winning the game 74-66.

Here are three observations from the Illini victory over Northwestern.