Illinois Basketball: Grades from the Illini win over Michigan State

The Illinois basketball team welcomed the No. 10 ranked Michigan State Spartans to the State Farm Center Tuesday night.

The Illini came into this game shorthanded once again. That has kind of been the story of the season so far, with Andre Curbelo now missing his 12th game and Kofi Cockburn now missing his second consecutive game. They showed me so much heart on Tuesday night, though, as they battled to a 56-55 victory. Illinois improved to 14-5 overall and 7-2 in Big Ten play.

Here are some grades from the Illinois basketball win over Michigan State.

Offense: C+

The Illini offense was clicking in the first half of the game, as they were up 34-20 at the half. Illinois shot just under 50% from the field and knocked down six three-pointers.

But, in the second half, it was a totally different story. Illinois was only able to score 22 points, going 3-of-13 from three-point range and only making eight shots from the field.

What was great to see from the Illini offense is they only had seven total turnovers against Michigan State. They average almost 14 turnovers per game.

Trent Fraizer led the Illini with 16 points, 10 of which came in the first half. Alfonso Plummer added 11 points, and the big man combination of Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk and Omar Payne combined for 15 points.

Freshman wing Luke Goode played a season-high 28 minutes and was fantastic on both ends of the court. He scored nine points off the bench and shot 3-of-4 from behind the three-point arc.

Defense: A

I thought this was one of the better games, defensively, the Illini have played all season long, especially against a good team like Michigan State. The combination of Verdonk and Payne was very good on Tuesday.

Michigan State looked uncomfortable for most of this game, especially star freshman Max Christie. Christie scored two points on 1-of-8 shooting from the field. Fraizer was able to lock him up the entire night.

The Spartans outplayed the Illini in the second half, but they dug themselves too deep of a hole to climb out of after having nine first half turnovers.

Overall: B+

This was an ugly, grind-it-out, type of game that you see quite a bit in the Big Ten. This is such a huge team and program win. We won without two of our best players. Illinois only had two fast break points and were out-rebounded 41-27 but still found a way to win.

It sure seems like every time Illinois is without a star player in a huge game, Trent Fraizer steps up. He just continues to build his legacy at the University of Illinois. I think we also confirmed that Luke Goode is going to be a huge cornerstone for this program moving forward.

The Illini travel to Evanston to take on Northwestern this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. CT on the Big Ten Network. Illinois looks to stay atop the big ten and improve to 8-2 in the conference and 15-5 overall.