Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini victory over Ohio State

2. Everyone was involved in the game

I have repeated this many times during the 2020-21 campaign. Illinois is at their best when everyone gets involved in the game. That held true on Sunday against the Buckeyes.

Illinois was able to put up 91 points against a tough Ohio State program. In the process of putting up the 91 points, the highest scorer for the Orange and Blue contributed 16 points. Usually, when a team puts up a big number, like Ohio State who had 88 points, they have a high scorer. The Buckeyes Duane Washington went for 32 points.

The Illini are a different breed, though. They had six different players score in the double-digits. Kofi Cockburn, Ayo Dosunmu and Andre Curbelo all had 16 points. Da’Monte Williams finished the game with 13 points. Giorgi Bezhanishvili ended the title run with 12 points. Trent Frazier was the final out of the six players, and he had 10 points.

I was extremely impressed with the distribution of shots for the Illini. Ayo led the way with 17 shots followed by Curbelo who had 14 shots. All but one Illinois player, Jacob Grandison, had at least four shots on the day as well.

Getting everyone involved in the game is how Illinois is going to win a national title. We can’t have one player dominating the ball. Every Illini player knows this fact, and that is why we are the Big Ten Tournament winners.