5 disappointing observations from the Illinois basketball loss to Northwestern

5. I was impressed with Illinois’ perimeter defense

There was a lot of bad to take away from the loss to Northwestern. Illinois took bad shots, and we couldn’t stop a few players in the paint.

The paint defense was definitely an issue. It is one of the reasons I think Morez Johnson Jr. should have played more, but I digress.

While the paint defense wasn’t great, I did think Illinois was nasty on the perimeter. We weren’t allowing the Wildcats to get going, and the game plan was put together well.

Illinois slacked off Jalen Leach when he was out on the perimeter. He went 0-of-3. There was a defensive gameplan to lay off him more often and focus on help defense, and that gameplan kind of worked.

I thought Kylan Boswell did a great job defensively. He reminds me so much of Russell Westbrook with his mentality. He has that bulldog in him, and he will lock you down as soon as you get across the timeline.

There was only one Northwestern player who shot better than 20% from three-point range, and that was Nick Martinelli. The kid is a walking bucket. But as a team, Northwestern was just 4-of-21, 19%, from three-point range. This Illinois perimeter defense was able to shut the Wildcats down, and it is something to keep an eye on moving forward.