Illinois Basketball: Florida A&M game canceled for the Illini

Illinois basketball took down Missouri last week, and that looks to be the final non-conference game before the start of the Big Ten slate.

The Illini were supposed to have a game against Florida A&M this week as their final non-conference game, but the program announced on Monday that the game has been canceled and won’t be rescheduled.

This cancelation comes due to “positive COVID-19 results”. First and foremost, I hope all of the Illinois players, coaches, trainers, cheerleaders, etc. are safe and healthy. Nothing is more important than the health of the individuals within the program.

Where does this leave the Illinois basketball team moving forward?

It would have been nice to have one more warm-up game before heading into the Big Ten slate of games. Illinois is now going to have 10 days off between the Missouri game and the upcoming Minnesota game on January 2.

As far as the sports side of this is concerned, that is a lot of time off and I am sure the team is going to be a little rusty. That scares me as we are going to be taking on a tough 10-1 Golden Gophers bunch this Sunday.

Minnesota’s only loss this season is by eight points to Michigan State. They have beaten the likes of Michigan, Mississippi State, and Pittsburgh this season already. The Golden Gophers are a good program.

With that being said, I am sure we will probably start slow against Minnesota due to so much time off. But things will start to click again. Illinois will get back in the groove and start dropping bombs from deep.

Let’s not forget, we have a monster in the paint as well. Kofi Cockburn hasn’t been stopped this season, and Minnesota doesn’t have a player who can stop him. So, that is always a nice luxury to have.

We need to get healthy so this great run of basketball can continue. Hopefully, this is the only game canceled this season.