Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini win over Wisconsin

3. This was Andre Curbelo’s worst game for the Illini

It was exciting to watch Illinois take down the No. 19 Wisconsin Badgers. The Illini players were playing clamp-down defense and were scoring at a high clip on the other end of the court.

But there was one player who missed the memo about having a good game. That one player was Andre Curbelo.

Let me preface what I am about to say with; Curbelo is a superstar in the making. This kid is a wizard with the ball and will be the leader of this Illinois program starting next season.

With that being said, Curbelo’s game against Wisconsin was really bad. He did not have his best stuff on Saturday afternoon, and it showed in an ugly way.

Curbelo was 0-of-2 from the field and failed to score a single point. While that isn’t good, it doesn’t come as a huge surprise considering he generates more points than he actually scores. But the thing that hurt the most was his assist-to-turnover ratio.

Coming into the game, Curbelo had been increasing his assist-to-turnover ratio. He was playing better basketball, and things seemed to be trending upward. But his game came crashing down against Wisconsin with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1:4.

That is right, Curbelo only had one assist on the night and coughed the ball up on four different occasions. I am not even counting his two fouls as well.

There was zero good that Curbelo brought to the court for the Illini against Wisconsin. That doesn’t mean he is a bad player. In fact, I think it shows how much Brad Underwood believes in the kid if he is out there and still not playing well. This was just one bad game in a field of many good ones.