Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini win over Chattanooga

5. Survive and advance baby!

I am not sugarcoating what I saw against Chattanooga, and neither is Brad Underwood. Did you hear his postgame interview on the sidelines? He was pretty blunt.

Illinois should have lost this game. There was no reason the Illini should have come away with the one-point victory over the Mocs. We played uninspired basketball for nearly the entire game, and Chattanooga left it all out on the court.

But guess what? Illinois didn’t lose the game. We won it in an amazingly weird and bad fashion. This was the ugliest game I have seen the Illini play in a long time, and it doesn’t matter because we came through with the win.

At this point, it doesn’t matter if we won the way we won or if we would have won by 40 points. A win is a win, and we are moving on to the Round of 32.

The NCAA tournament is about surviving and advancing. Illinois is now advancing, and the season starts all over again. It is a new game, and it is a new one-game season for everything.

Illinois might have played one of the worst games of the season on Friday night. We didn’t look good in any aspect of the game of basketball. But, much like in golf, we grinded it out. I am so proud of this team for just going full steam ahead despite the awful play. They managed to win the game, and that is what matters this time of year. On to the next one. Let’s win the whole dang thing.