The excitement from the Illinois basketball win over Ohio State on Saturday still hasn’t worn off yet.
Illinois taking down the Buckeyes was the icing on what ended up being the best season for the program since the national title run in 2004-05. This was a great performance by the Illini as well. They looked poised the entire game and came away with a 73-68 win.
Here are four big statistics from the Illini win over Ohio State.
1. +8
Illinois has an amazing team this season, but one of the six losses they have was to Ohio State.
In the first game against the Buckeyes, the Illini fell by a score of 87-81. Ohio State looked good in that game and held Illinois relatively ineffective for most of the competition. One department that was unusually bad for the Illini was rebounding.
From the first game to the second game against Ohio State, Illinois had a +8 rebounding difference.
Kofi Cockburn led the way for the Illini in the first game with 11 rebounds. But the team just couldn’t manage to pull down a ton of boards. They finished the game with just 29 rebounds. It was a different story on Saturday, though.
Illinois managed to pull down 37 rebounds against Ohio State the second time around. The increase of eight rebounds from game-to-game made a difference. The Illini had more chances to score because of the number of rebounds they were pulling down.
The 37 rebounds that were surrendered by the Buckeyes were their second-highest total on the season. Illinois was just one rebound shy of having the most rebounds against Ohio State this year.
Crashing the glass is a huge reason Illinois is having one of their best seasons in school history. The rebounding squad came to play on Saturday.