Illinois Basketball: 4 keys for the Illini to beat the Ohio Bobcats

3. Keep utilizing the bench

Let me tell you, it has been fun watching the Illinois starters do some tremendous work this season. Everyone has contributed in some form or fashion to the victories so far.

Ayo Dosunmu has hit 20 points in back-to-back games. Adam Miller is already setting records. Kofi Cockburn is doing is double-double thing. But the starters always need to put up solid numbers. If we want to continue winning games, we are going to need the bench to be strong.

The Illinois bench has been tremendous this season. From what I can tell, Illinois goes nine players deep with four solid bench players being rotated into the game. That number will increase once Austin Hutcherson gets healthy as well.

In both of the games this season, Illinois has played their main bench players – Coleman Hawkins, Giorgi Bezhanishvili, Andre Curbelo, Jacob Grandison – for at least 10 minutes in each game. I expect this number to stay the same once we move into stiffer competition.

But we are now going to be facing a little harder of competition on Friday against Ohio. This Bobcats team is beating the same competition we have beaten the last two days, albeit by fewer points. But it is still the same competition.

I believe if our bench continues to be a big part of this team, then we should beat Ohio handily on Friday. Just this past game, Curbelo played 20 minutes off the bench and went 9-of-13 from the field for 18 points and 7 rebounds. Teams would kill for that out of a starter let alone someone on the bench.

This is a trend with the Illini and if it keeps up, we should continue winning basketball games. Illinois’ bench is one of the best I have seen in years.