Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini loss to Michigan State

2. Free throw woes are inexcusable

When the opposing team shoots 65-percent from the charity stripe, you should win the free throw battle. That was not the case for the Illinois basketball team on Tuesday.

Michigan State was not good from the free throw line. They only hit 13-of-20, which comes out to 65-percent. Illinois saw that bad free throw display and said, “hold my beer.”

The Illini had their worst display of free throw shooting this season against the Spartans, going 19-of-34 from the charity stripe, which is 55.9-percent. Let that sink in a little bit. Illinois missed 15 free throws, and if we could have just made nine of those 15, then we would have sent this game into overtime.

Kofi Cockburn is, once again, the biggest culprit of the bad free throw shooting. He is was only 3-of-11 from the line, which is an insanely bad 27.3-percent. This was not his worst free throw shooting performance this season, though. Kofi was 0-of-6 against Purdue back on January 2. For the season, Kofi is now down to 56.2-percent from the free throw line.

While Kofi was bad from the charity stripe, so were a couple of other Illini players. Ayo Dosunmu was only 4-of-8 and missed some crucial attempts down the stretch. Andre Curbelo was only 2-of-4 as well. They were both 50-percent at the line against the Spartans.

If Illinois wants any chance of getting deep in the NCAA tournament, they are going to have to start making their foul shots. 55.9-percent from the charity stripe is just inexcusable.