Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini win over Drexel

2. Team rounding effort

I mentioned in the first slide that Illinois went on a drought against Drexel. This drought was nothing much to worry about, but one of the keys to getting out of the drought was solid rebounding.

Illinois has been a great rebounding team all season long. They were averaging 40.4 rebounds per game coming into Friday afternoon, which ranked No. 9 in the nation. With amazing precision and consistency, the Illini managed to hit that number on the nose.

The Illini finished the Drexel game with exactly 40 rebounds. With a big rebounding number like that, most would expect 7-foot Kofi Cockburn to have pulled down somewhere around 12-15 rebound. That wasn’t the case at all.

By halftime of the game, Illinois had six players with at least two rebounds apiece. That list of six players didn’t include Kofi, who had just one rebound at halftime. That is how much of a team effort it was on the glass for the Orange and Blue.

Illinois’ leading rebounder ended up being Ayo Dousnmu, who pulled down 11 rebounds en route to a near triple-double. Kofi and Jacob Grandison each had five rebounds for the game. Adam Miller and Da’Monte Williams each checked in with four rebounds. And Giorgi Bezhanishvili and Andre Curbelo each had three rebounds.

If the Illini guards didn’t crash the class, then we wouldn’t be nearly as good as we are today. The team rebounding effort is what helps set us apart from every other program. Let’s continue rebounding like this for the next five games.