Illinois Basketball: 4 observations from the Illini win over Michigan

4. We are winning ugly

After the game on Friday night and now the next morning, I think to myself, this was such an ugly win. It is a win and I am thankful for that, but this was not a good-looking win.

There are some games where Illinois is dropping bombs on their opponents from three-point range. In some games, Kofi Cockburn is putting up 30 points and 15 rebounds. In other games Illinois has their bench coming in with fresh legs and contributing 20 points or something like that. But against Michigan, none of this happened.

Illinois didn’t do anything spectacular except play defense. The best player in the game was probably Trent Frazier, who had a good game. Kofi also had a good game, but both of their stat lines I have come to expect.

No one was hitting their shots from three-point range consistently. We only won the rebounding battle by one rebound, 33-32, and that was without Hunter Dickinson on the court. Illinois finished with more turnovers than Michigan, 13-12.

The bench for the Illini only had three points, seven rebounds, one assist, one steal, and one block in 41 minutes of action. They usually give us more production than that, but even they weren’t clicking.

I realize that all of this sounds so negative, but it is all true. But do you know what else is true? We won the game, and we continue winning games. Despite this below-average performance, Illinois is winning. We won by 15 points and played a C- game. Can you imagine what this team is going to be able to do when we are actually playing well? That will be scary.