Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers

5. I expect more out of the Illinois bench

Illinois has had a couple of handfuls of lineups this season. It seems that someone is out for one reason or another in nearly every game. This type of lineup inconsistency is probably not conducive to winning.

But one silver lining to players missing games throughout the season is that our bench players get a chance to see minutes and get more experience. That has happened a lot with the Illini.

I believe Illinois has a solid bench, and when Terrence Shannon Jr. gets back healthy, we are going to be even deeper. But on Monday night, I was kind of disappointed with how the Illini bench played.

I don’t expect a ton of points from the Illinois bench, but I do expect more than what we got out of them against the Golden Gophers. The Illini bench played 46 minutes and gave the program one point on 0-of-3 shooting from the field and 1-of-2 from the free throw line.

If the bench players didn’t receive but a few minutes, I would totally understand putting up one point, but in 46 minutes of action, I need to see more than a single point.

Illinois’ bench didn’t really rack up the other stats either. For the game, they combined for one point, seven rebounds, two assists, and one block. If it wasn’t for Ty Rodgers, the bench play would have looked even worse.

There is one thing that the Illinois bench does have, and that one thing is hustle. They were everywhere on the court, and I can’t let that go unnoticed. But I need to see more out of the bench. It is going to be hard to win games with that low of production.