Call Illinois basketball butter because they are on a roll.
You like that joke? I am here all night, folks. The Illini have rattled off six straight wins, which include four victories to start the meat of the Big Ten season.
Altogether, Illinois is 5-1 in the Big Ten, as there were two random conference games in the middle of the non-conference. Four out of the six Big Ten games the Illini have played have been on the road, and they were all wins, which is crazy.
Illinois is finally back home, and the Minnesota Golden Gophers are in town. There are a few questions I will need answered throughout the game.
Here are three key questions for the Illinois basketball team vs Minnesota
1. Can Illinois wear Minnesota down?
To begin the season, I thought Illinois was a pretty deep team. We could legitimately go nine or 10 deep, but that didn’t end up being the case as the season progressed.
Illinois’ bench has been shortened, but we have still kept some key players in the rotation. As of right now, Brad Underwood goes a solid eight deep. Illinois’ three bench players aren’t just subs; they are solid players who can play more than the starters at times.
I want to see if this quality depth of the Illini can wear down Minnesota. The Golden Gophers have some bench, but they clearly lean on the starters.
Each of the Golden Gophers’ starters this season has played in every game, and they are getting all of the minutes. All five starters average at least 27 minutes per game, and four out of the five starters are logging over 30 minutes each night.
Minnesota did have the depth, but they have dealt with the injury bug. Both Chansey Willis Jr. and Robert Vaihola are out for the season, or they would have been big contributors this season.
Illinois is going to have to exploit Minnesota’s lack of depth, though. Let’s run all game long and see if we can wear this team down.
2. Will the Illini keep the Golden Gophers on the perimeter?
For the most part, I am always harping on Illinois playing better perimeter defense and trying to keep a team off the three-point arc. That isn’t the case with Minnesota.
Every once in a while, you run into a team that isn’t very good at shooting from three-point range. This is one of those occasions. The Golden Gophers are a bad three-point shooting team.
So, I want to see if Illinois can keep Minnesota on the perimeter? Can we get them to avoid driving to the bucket and have them chuck up over their average attempts for the season?
Right now, Minnesota is averaging 23.0 three-point attempts per game, which ranks No. 185 in the country. They are only hitting those attempts at a clip of 33.0%, which ranks No. 221 in the nation. If the second ranking is worse than the first, that is not a good thing.
Minnesota’s best three-point shooter is Cade Tyson. He has taken the second-most attempts on the team and has a three-point shooting percentage of 39.3%, which is really good.
The rest of the team struggles, though. Isaac Asuma attempts over five three-pointers per game and hits them at a clip of 31.1%. There is only one player, other than Tyson, who shoots over 33.5% from three-point range on the team.
I want to see Illinois keep playing tough perimeter defense, but if you need to sag off a man to help double cover someone in the paint, don’t hesitate to leave a Minnesota player on the three-point arc. I would take that chance, as they are not good from deep.
3. How will size affect Illinois’ frontcourt and backcourt?
This is one of those things that I look at every game. Illinois’ unique situation with size is something that fascinates me because you can’t find an area on the court where we don’t have tremendous height.
It is rare to find a team that can match the height of the Illini. Minnesota isn’t necessarily that team, but they do have some interesting height matchups.
I am going to continue watching the size matchups all game long. Will the Golden Gophers be able to hold certain players to unusually bad games?
So, in the backcourt, I am curious how Minnesota is going to match up against Keaton Wagler. He is a 6-foot-6 guard. You usually find guards who are 6-foot-4 or shorter at his traditional position.
What makes Illinois so difficult is that Minnesota doesn’t have height answers for Wagler. Tyson is 6-foot-7 as a starting guard, but if you pull him off the No. 3 spot and put him on Wagler, that leaves a 6-foot-4 player guarding Andrej Stojakovic, who is 6-foot-7.
Counting the wing as the backcourt, Illinois boasts a 6-foot-2 guard in Kylan Boswell, a 6-foot-6 guard in Wagler, and a 6-foot-7 wing in Stojakovic. There is going to be a mismatch somewhere.
Illinois’ frontcourt puts out a 6-foot-9 forward and a 7-foot-1 big man. Most teams can’t match up against that with the same firepower, and Minnesota falls in line. Jaylen Crocker-Johnson is the Golden Gophers’ big man, and he is only 6-foot-9. Their No. 4 is just 6-foot-7.
My guess is that Illinois crushes Minnesota on Saturday. We are going up against a bad shooting team that is massively undersized. This should be easy work, but the Big Ten is never easy.