The Illinois basketball team continues to truck through the 2023-24 season with a double-digit win over Southern on Sunday night.
Once again, the Illini kept the Jaguars in the game early on. This was a contest for much of the first half. Illinois would then flip a switch and go on a big run. An 18-point halftime lead turned into a 28-point thumping. Illinois would come out victorious, 88-60.
Here are five observations from the Illinois basketball win over Southern
1. Another slow start for the Illini
It has not been an easy start for the Illinois basketball team in games this season. We are winning most games, but from the jump, Brad Underwood’s squad puts ourselves behind the eight ball.
Illinois beat Eastern Illinois 80-52, but we started slowly in the game. The Panthers actually beat us to 10 points, as they were up 11-4 at one time. In the win over Oakland, we were down 10-2. Illinois fell to Marquette, and the Golden Eagles had an 11-7 lead early on. Valparaiso also had a 10-4 lead over the Illini.
For the first time this season, Illinois has actually beaten a team to 10 points. On Sunday night, the Illini narrowly squeaked by Southern in the first five minutes of the game, taking a 10-6 lead. While this was the first time we beat an opponent to 10 points, it was still a really slow start for the Illini.
That 10-6 lead turned into a 19-17 lead, which then turned into a 28-24 lead with under five minutes to go in the first half. Illinois would go on a 17-3 run to end the first half, but why do we continuously start games slowly?
Honestly, it is the defense. For some reason, Illinois comes out of the gates and is extremely lazy on the defensive end of the court. We don’t close out well, we don’t get back in transition, and the overall effort just doesn’t seem to be there.
That defensive switch eventually gets flipped. I mean, Illinois is only giving up 60.0 points per game this season, which ranks No. 24 in the country. But it just takes roughly 10 minutes for this program to wake up. That is going to bite us multiple times this season.