3. Illinois might be leaning too much of Kasparas Jakucionis
There are so many times throughout a game where Kasparas Jakucionis impressed me. He is a great player who can do just about everything on the basketball court.
Jakucionis’ ability on the court is fun to watch, but there is a point where he is trying to do too much. He goes from being a great option to being the only option for the Illini. I think Brad Underwood is leaning too much on the young kid.
When you look at Jakucionis’ stats, he had a good game. He put up 22 points, so how could that be bad? Well, it was massively inefficient. He was 5-of-15 from the field and 2-of-7 from three-point range. To go along with those poor shooting numbers, Jakucionis also had seven turnovers to just two assists.
A big reason for these inefficient numbers is that he is being asked to do too much. Jakucionis has gone from being a creator who can help generate offense and communicate defense to someone who always has the ball in their hands.
Illinois needs to use Jakucionis as an important piece and not the piece. He is a great player, but if we keep leaning on him constantly, he is going to struggle. Defenses will continue to pounce on him, which will keep the Illini from winning consistently.
This slide goes hand in hand with the first slide. Let’s start moving the ball around the floor more and get everyone involved. Getting involvement from the entire team will only help put up more points and take the pressure off of Jakucionis moving forward.