Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini win over Kansas

5. This is an extremely dangerous Coleman Hawkins

Illinois had both Terrence Shannon Jr. and Coleman Hawkins enter the 2023 NBA Draft. Thankfully, they both pulled their names out of the draft process and returned to Illinois.

Shannon did his thing on Sunday against Kansas. He is a superstar who could win the Big Ten Player of the Year. He also worked on his game this offseason. I believe Hawkins worked on his game as well. Whatever the NBA scouts told him to work on, Hawkins has clearly put in the time, effort, and energy to improve in these areas.

Hawkins has always been looked at as a bit of a unicorn in the college game. He can do everything on the court. But he has struggled when it comes to developing his three-point shot.

Over the three years he has played at Illinois, Hawkins has started to shoot more and more three-pointers. He averaged 0.5 three-pointers as a freshman. Hawkins followed that up by averaging 2.0 three-pointers in 2021-22 and 4.0 three-pointers per game last season.

The bad part about Hawkins increasing his attempts from deep is the fact he isn’t increasing his three-point shooting percentage. He has a career average of 28.1% from three-point range. I believe he was probably told that he needs to improve that number before the 2024 NBA Draft.

On Sunday night, Illinois fans might have gotten a glimpse of Hawkins’ hard work paying off from this offseason. He saw 29 minutes of action and finished with 14 points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals, and one block. He also shot 4-of-9 from three-point range, which is 44.4%.

Hawkins is always going to light up the stat sheet. He is a triple-double waiting to happen every game. But if he can shoot anywhere near 40% from three-point range in 2023-24, Hawkins is going to end up being an All-American. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of things to come.