Illinois Basketball: Grades from the Illini win over Iowa

The Illinois basketball team traveled to Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City to take on the Iowa Hawkeyes in their second conference game of the season.

Brad Underwood and company were still without point guard Andre Curbelo as he deals with his injury. The Illini were able to battle through the adversity, and some sloppy play, to take care of business, 87-83, and to improve to 7-2 overall and 2-0 in conference play.

You love to see this win in Iowa City as it’s the first win in the careers of Da’Monte Williams, Trent Fraizer, and Kofi Cockburn.

Here are the grades from the Illinois basketball win over Iowa

Offense Grade: B-

At first glance, you might think I am being a little tough on the Illini after scoring 87 points on the road. However, Illinois once again had 18 turnovers. Iowa’s full-court press really gave the Illini fits all game long.

Iowa forced multiple 10-second violations that kept them in the game. Missing Curbelo really hurts the Illini when teams do that to them. Just having another ball-handler on the court helps so much.

But enough with the negatives, let’s talk about some of the positives we saw last night.  The offense was led by Alfonso Plummer and Jacob Grandison who both scored 21 points and combined 8-of-17 from the three-point line.

Trent Fraizer added 18 points and eight rebounds. Kofi Cockburn was a monster, per usual, scoring 17 points and having a whopping 18 rebounds, five of which were on the offensive end. The Illini had 19 offensive rebounds as a team. This was just outstanding work from them on the glass.

Defense Grade: B+

I struggled with what grade to give the Illini defense. It wasn’t great Monday night, obviously, as they let Iowa score 83 points and shoot 45% from the field.

But with the offense having 18 turnovers, it led to easy baskets over and over again, so you can’t really put that on the defense.

Illinois’ defense only forced four turnovers, which just isn’t enough from a team that can be very good defensively. But on another positive note, the Illini dominated Iowa on the defensive glass 33-14. All in all, it wasn’t a bad night from the defense.

Overall Grade: B

I feel like this grade might be a little tough on the Illini after they went into Iowa City and got a win, but there are definitely some things that need to be cleaned up.

Illinois has to find a way to be more efficient against the full-court press and stop having such silly turnovers, like the 10-second violations.

To end on a few positive notes, the Illini shot 24-of-28 from the free throw line, with Kofi going 5-of-6 from, which is huge if that can continue. Illinois also dominated on the glass 52-23 and knocked down 11 three-pointers as a team. Those are the three biggest reasons they were able to pull this game out even with having 18 turnovers.

The Illini have their biggest test on Saturday as they welcome the No. 11 Arizona Wildcats at 4 p.m. CT on FOX.