Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini win over Bethune-Cookman

4. Illinois needs to role with this starting lineup

For much of the season, Brad Underwood has gone with the same starting lineup. He didn’t stray away from that lineup until the past couple of games when there were some injuries or the team needed a spark.

For 11 games this season, Illinois has started Terrence Shannon Jr., RJ Melendez, Skyy Clark, Matthew Mayer, and Coleman Hawkins. The team is 7-4 when those five start together.

But I feel like the chemistry is off when that group starts. The last two times they started together, the Illini dropped games to Penn State and Missouri both by double-digit margins.

Underwood did go with a different starting lineup against Alabama A&M a couple of weeks ago. That lineup consisted of Shannon, Clark, Mayer, Hawkins, and Jayden Epps. While we ended up winning the game, the chemistry still felt off.

On Thursday night against Bethune-Cookman, Illinois went with their third different lineup this season. This was needed due to injury, but I think we found a spark with the starting lineup of Shannon, Mayer, Hawkins, Sencire Harris, and Dain Dainja.

Illinois gave the true freshman and the newcomer big man a run in the starting lineup, and it worked for the program. I haven’t seen the Illini look this connected since the season’s first few games.

With the way Harris and Dainja played in the starting lineup, I think these are the five players we go with over the next couple of weeks. Even when Clark gets healthy, let’s bring him off the bench. Let’s do this for a couple of weeks and see what the outcome is. I think Illinois will win a lot of games moving forward with this starting lineup.