Illinois Basketball: Grades from the Illini win against Wisconsin

The Illinois Basketball team welcomed the No. 11 ranked Wisconsin Badgers to the State Farm Center on Wednesday night during a blizzard in Champaign.

There may have been a blizzard outside but that didn’t affect how awesome the atmosphere was at the State Farm Center. It was a battle for first place in the Big Ten between the Illini and the Badgers. Illinois ended up taking care of business, 80-67, to improve to 16-5 and 9-2 in conference play.

Here are some grades from the Illinois basketball win over Wisconsin.

Offense: A-

The Illinois offense was very strong in this one. Kofi Cockburn was an absolute matchup nightmare for the multiple big men Wisconsin threw at him.

Kofi finished with 37 points, on 16-of-19 from the field, and 12 rebounds, two of which were offensive. He was able to outmuscle Wisconsin all night and get to wherever he wanted to on the floor.

The second-leading scorer for the Illini was not someone you would expect after his recent struggles, but it was Jacob Grandison, who had just seven points combined over his last two games. He finished with 14 points, going 3-of-6 from the three-point arc. It was great to see Grandison bust out of his shooting slump.

Trent Fraizer was the calming force he normally is in the offense, adding seven points and seven assists to just one turnover in 33 minutes. Andre Curbelo also returned to the lineup for the Illini giving 12 minutes off the bench, and more importantly, spelling Fraizer who had been playing a ton of minutes. Curbelo added seven points as well.

Defense: A

I have nothing bad to say about the Illini defense other than them allowing 12 offensive rebounds to the Badgers, six of them for Johnny Davis alone. Illinois is a much better rebounding team than they showed Wednesday night.

But enough with the bad. The Illini defense was awesome on Wednesday. Fraizer shut down Brad Davison and completely took him out of the game. Davison would go 3-of-12 from the field and 0-of-6 from three-point range.

Da’Monte Williams also did an awesome job guarding one of the best guards in the country Davis. Davis did score 22 points, however, 11 of those points came from the free-throw line. He was 5-of-19 from the field in this one, with Williams just glued to him all game long.

Overall: A

Just an absolutely awesome win for this Illini team over the No.11 team in the country. Wisconsin had no answer for Kofi, and they just shot so poorly as a team going  3-of-24 from the three-point arc.

Illinois is now in sole possession of the Big Ten with that win and trending up after a three-game win streak. The Illini travel to Indiana to take on Trayce Jackson-Davis and the Indiana Hoosiers Saturday at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN.