Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini win over Texas

3 of 5

Dec 6, 2022; New York, New York, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Brad Underwood coaches his team during a time out against the Texas Longhorns during the second half at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports /

3. Illinois has to be more controlled

This was one of the sloppiest games I have ever seen the Illinois basketball team play in the history of the program. When you have that many turnovers and don’t distribute the ball, that tends to be a recipe for disaster.

Illinois is a different animal, though. This isn’t a normal team that has a bad game, and we get blown out. This program can play horrific basketball and still be competitive. I’ve never seen anything like it.

At the end of the first half, Illinois had three assists to 11 turnovers. That is a .272 assist-to-turnover ratio. If you compare that to every team in the country, the Illini would rank dead last out of 363 DI basketball teams. We still had the lead 37-34 at halftime.

The Illini would play a little better in the second half, but we still ended regulation with nine assists to 17 turnovers. That comes out to a .529 assist-to-turnover ratio. This would land us at No. 359 out of 363 DI teams in the country. We still took the No. 2 team in the country to overtime.

With eight minutes to go in the game, Illinois managed to get themselves in a 10-point hole, down 56-46. At this point, we had four assists to 17 turnovers. That is a .235 assist-to-turnover ratio, which that alone should force the Illini to lose the game. I am talking, we should be down by 20+ points with that type of assist-to-turnover ratio.

In the final eight minutes of regulation, Illinois would have four assists and zero turnovers. This is a 4.0 assist-to-turnover ratio, which is insanely efficient. We would make a comeback and take the game into overtime.

In the overtime period, Illinois would have two assists to zero turnovers, which is a 2.0 assist-to-turnover ratio. We would take control of the game and beat No. 2 Texas, 85-78.

So, for the first 32 minutes of the game, Illinois had four assists to 17 turnovers and were losing by 10 points. In the final 13 minutes of the game, we had six assists and zero turnovers and outscored Texas by 17 points. If we could find a happy medium somewhere in the middle, the Illini would be unstoppable.

Home/Illinois Basketball