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

4. Brad Underwood needed to change things defensively

A couple of slides ago, I touched on Illinois running into a hot-shooting Penn State offense. The Illini defense didn’t have any answers for what the Nittany Lions were throwing at us.

There were a couple of things that I would have liked Brad Underwood to change throughout the game, though. One change I would have liked to see is Illinois go with a more athletic and smaller lineup.

I like Coleman Hawkins, but he struggled to keep up with their guards. This enabled Penn State to get open on screens and drive to the basket. Hawkins would play 35 minutes, but I think if Underwood played a smaller lineup that featured Harris more, then Illinois’ defense might have performed better.

Illinois put out a lineup that featured three 6-foot-9 or taller players. Penn State has four guards starting. Those guards ran circles around Illinois’ big men.

The other thing I would have liked to have seen more is Illinois pressing Penn State. When the Nittany Lions came down the court, they were able to get into their offense and run plays. This would tear Illinois apart because we couldn’t keep up.

If the Illini actually put some pressure on the inbounding pass and the guards in the backcourt, then maybe we could have thrown the Nittany Lions off their game more often.

Underwood didn’t change a thing until a few minutes to go in the game. We kept steering the ship directly into the iceberg hoping for a different result.