Illinois basketball is going to take a dive in the AP Top 25 poll on Monday after a tough loss to Maryland over the weekend.
The Illini were a heavy favorite entering the game, and the Terrapins were missing one of their best players in Eric Ayala. This seemed to be set up for a big win for Illinois. That wasn’t the case at all. The game was close with about 13 minutes remaining.
At this point, Illinois usually hits a different gear, but they just couldn’t get going. Free throw shooting and a few bad shots down the stretch ended up killing the Orange and Blue. The Illini fell to Maryland, 66-63.
Here are four observations from the Illini loss to Maryland.
1. This is just one loss
Illini Nation I feel your pain. I am awake on a Monday super sad about losing at home to a .500, unranked, Maryland program.
This loss hurt because of the things mentioned above. Illinois is the No. 12 team in the nation for a few more hours, so falling to a team that shouldn’t even be in our talent level considering they were missing one of their best players is extremely depressing.
While it is an extremely painful morning, let’s all take a step back and realize this is just one loss.
Illinois ran off four-straight wins before their loss to the Terrapins on Sunday night. They currently sit with an overall record of 9-4 and a Big Ten record of 5-2. While it would have been nice to have a better record than that, it is still an okay start to the season.
The road ahead will enable the Illini to make up some ground that was lost on Sunday night too. Six out of the next 13 games are against ranked opponents and that doesn’t count two games against Ohio State. So, there is room to skyrocket up the national rankings.
So, while this is a bad loss right now, it does show the weaknesses in our program. We took a loss right now in hopes of fixing our mistakes for the stretch run. At the end of the day, this loss should make us a better team.