Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini loss to the Penn State Nittany Lions

2. Illinois ran into a hot-shooting Penn State team

Coming into the game on Tuesday night, Penn State had lost four games in a row. Three of those contests were on the road, and the lone home game was an overtime loss to Wisconsin.

But this is a decent Penn State team. When they get hot shooting, they can beat any team in the country. Just ask Indiana, who fell to the Nittany Lions by 19 points back on January 11.

Illinois had already played Penn State once this season as well. Back on December 10, the Nittany Lions came to town and thrashed us. We fell by 15 points, and Penn State shot lights out. They were 27-of-54 from the field and 12-of-24 from three-point range.

In the second game, I thought there was no way Penn State could keep up with that great shooting. Illinois’ defense has been much-improved lately, so I expected the Nittany Lions to come back down to earth a little bit. Boy, was I wrong.

Penn State came out firing on Tuesday, and they were hitting. The Nittany Lions would finish the game going 33-of-57 from the field and 12-of-28 from three-point range. Once again, they made five more three-pointers than Illinois, which would cover the total deficit.

There was nothing Illinois could do right on Tuesday night when it came to defense. Yes, sometimes we wouldn’t fight through screens. Yes, sometimes we would close out with our hands down. But, even when we did have good closeouts and did get around screens, Penn State would still knock down shots. They were just extremely hot once again.

Sometimes Illinois just runs into a hot-shooting team. It seems that Penn State has our number right now. Let’s just hope we don’t see them in the Big Ten Tournament.