Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini win over UT Rio Grande Valley

2. Plummer continues to be Illinois’ best perimeter option

I mentioned in the previous slide that Kofi Cockburn was dominant against UT Rio Grande Valley, but Illinois wouldn’t have earned the win without the help from his sidekick, Alfonso Plummer.

Without Plummer, Illinois has very little outside scoring threat. For the second game in a row, Plummer has been one of the main scorers for the Illini, and he has been one of the big reasons this program has moved to 4-2.

Against UT Rio Grande Valley, Plummer dropped 30 points on 8-of-14 shooting from the field and 6-of-11 from three-point range. His 54.5% from the three-point arc is an incredible number considering the rest of the team was a combined 2-of-8, which comes out to 25%.

As previously mentioned, this is the second game in a row where Plummer has shown off his tremendous scoring ability. In a tight game against Kansas State, he put up 21 points on 7-of-9 shooting from three-point range.

After the big UT Rio Grande Valley victory, Plummer is now averaging 12.7 points while shooting 48% from the field and an incredible 47.4% from three-point range.

There have only been nine players in Illinois history who have hit 40% of their three-pointers for a season. If Plummer can maintain his great three-point percentage, the only players who would finish ahead of him are Tom Michael, who shot 49.3% in 1991-92 and Doug Altenberger who shot 47.5% in 1986-87. That is some rarified air.

The pace that Plummer is setting has rarely been seen by Illini Nation. He is putting up NBA-caliber three-point shooting statistics. If he can keep this up, we might have multiple All-Americans on our hands.