This was a great chance for Illinois basketball to cement itself as the top team in the country on Tuesday night.
Texas Tech was chomping at the bit to take the Illini down. They got some help from Illinois, as we dug a hole in the first half that was hard to get out of. Heading into the locker room, the Red Raiders had a 20-point lead.
Illinois responded in the second half. We made it a single-digit deficit for the final 10 minutes. This game could have swayed in favor of the Orange and Blue, but Texas Tech had a little too much juice at home. Illinois ended up falling to the Red Raiders, 84-78.
Here are five Illinois basketball observations from the tough comeback loss to Texas Tech
1. Quentin Coleman means so much to Illinois
Illinois needs every piece of the team to work together, but what was on display on Tuesday night was the impact of Quentin Coleman.
The freshman is the heartbeat of this team. He brought the energy early, but when Coleman went down with an ankle injury in the first half, Illinois looked completely different. We were -11 when Coleman was off the floor in that injury stretch.
Coleman was also dealing with an illness. In the second half, he was seen walking off the court and puking.
It is incredible what Coleman can do numbers-wise, but this section goes beyond numbers. Coleman has the same type of impact Keaton Wagler had on the Illini. Illinois goes as Coleman goes.
Illinois is going to drop big games with that poor free throw shooting
There were a lot of uncontrollable things that happened to Illinois this season, but one thing we can control is free throw shooting.
You don’t have anyone guarding you. It is just you, the basketball, and the hoop. Making free throws should be a near guarantee each time to the charity stripe.
For Illinois on Tuesday night, the free throw line was anything but a guarantee.
Illinois had one of the worst free throw shooting nights I can remember. We were 8-of-19, 42%, from the free throw line against Texas Tech.
It has been a long time since an Illinois team has shot this poorly from the charity stripe. You have to go back to January 19, 2023, against Indiana to find the last time we shot this badly from the free throw line. In that game, Illinois was 39.1% from the free throw line.
The worst the Illini shot from the free throw line last season was 57.1%. We have now had two sub-57.1% shooting performances in the first three games this season. That isn’t good.
3. The Ivisic brother’s inability to rebound is astonishing
It would be nice to have David Mirkovic back in the fold, as he was Illinois’ leading rebounder last season.
That isn’t going to happen for a while, though. Illinois has two 7-foot or taller players on the roster in Tomislav Ivisic and Zvonimir Ivisic. They should be able to hold down the fort, right?
Nope. For some reason the Ivisic brothers can’t rebound the basketball.
While Tomislav led the Illini with six rebounds against Texas Tech, he played 30 minutes. He should have easily been in double digits. He doesn’t rebound the basketball with two hands, and it drives me crazy.
Zvonimir played 11 minutes off the bench and could only muster one rebound. He was good defensively, but he couldn’t pull down anything off the glass.
The inability of the Ivisic brothers to rebound the basketball led to Illinois getting demolished in this department. Texas Tech outrebounded the Illini 43-32. We have to be able to rebound if we want to win games.
4. Falling behind in the first half was a good test for Illinois
I know that a loss is painful. I wanted to beat Texas Tech badly because it would have looked really good for the Illini if we could have gone on the road and taken down a ranked team shorthanded.
That didn’t happen in large part due to being down by 20 points at halftime. Coleman’s first half injury put us behind the eight ball, but it gave this program a little adversity.
Illinois had an easy road the first two games. We weren’t tested in the least bit. The Red Raiders gave us the test we needed for the rest of the season.
This team responded well to being down by 20 points. We didn’t fold up shop and call it a night. Illinois, with the freshmen leading the way, fought back and made this a game. We were within one bucket at the end, but the Illini fell just short.
I love what I saw in the final 20 minutes. Illinois is a resilient team, and they proved that on Tuesday night.
5. Brad Underwood shortened the bench, and I don’t like it
The first two games were a bit of a mirage. Illinois didn’t struggle, and Brad Underwood played so many players.
Illinois was going 10 deep, and we were missing two of our key guys. With that being said, I thought there was a decent chance that Underwood would keep rolling with 10 players rotating in and out. That didn’t end up happening, though.
Underwood shortened his bench against Texas Tech. Only eight players got meaningful minutes, and one of those eight, Zvonimir Ivisic, played just 11 minutes. So, Illinois only had seven players play at least 20 minutes.
I was disappointed that Lucas Morillo didn’t get more run against the Red Raiders. He has impressed me so far this season, and this would have been good experience.
Overall, it surprised me to see Underwood go back to a smaller rotation. Illinois needed the horses to run against Texas Tech, and we didn’t have that with fewer bodies on the floor.
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