Illinois basketball took care of business on Saturday with a 40-point win over Long Island.
The Illini looked good for most of the contest. We buried Long Island throughout the first half, and then some of the Illini players took their foot off the gas in the final 20 minutes of action.
Brad Underwood noticed this and mentioned some of the issues in the postgame press conference.
Here are five interesting Brad Underwood quotes from the Illinois basketball presser vs Long Island
- “I challenged him (Kylan Boswell). After our last buy-game, I thought he was pretty laissez-faire, to be honest. He set the tone today.”
I love to see Underwood always coaching, even when the game is out of hand. Illinois played Colgate a few games ago, and while this was a 19-point win, the upperclassmen didn’t play well.
Kylan Boswell was a part of that group, going 5-of-16 from the floor. Underwood took notice of that relaxed Boswell, and he challenged him during the Long Island game. The result: 4-of-5 from the field and a better effort on both ends of the court.
- “We came out at the start of the second half. We talked about that a lot after the Alabama game because we lost that game at the end of the first half and the start of the second with mistakes.”
This is very true. Illinois lost the Alabama game at the start of the second half with poor play and a stagnant offense.
Underwood doesn’t want that to happen again. He focused on fixing that issue against Long Island, and Illinois finished the first half on a 16-0 run. We also started the second half on an 8-0 run. This was a nice correction to see.
- “We started the second half great, and then I went to my bench, and we were in the toilet. That can’t happen.”
Illinois needs to rely on the bench a lot this season. I think this is the deepest team we have seen in Champaign in a very long time.
Even with the game being a blowout, Underwood is focusing on the future. He is looking at the macro instead of the micro, and having Illinois’ bench not lose a step when they are in is a big deal. They didn’t look great against Long Island, and Underwood sees that needs to be corrected.
- “We give up seven threes in the second on just horrific closeouts and mental breakdowns on the scouting report.”
There are plenty of good teams still left on the schedule, and lazy closeouts will get Illinois burned by many of those programs.
Against Alabama, the Crimson Tide had a few open three-point attempts, and they made us pay. Underwood pinpointed some of that bad defense in the second half against Long Island. No matter the score, he wants to keep the same defensive intensity.
- “There’s so many ways to score in the paint, whether it is post-ups, drives, whatever, I think the one thing we felt very comfortable doing in this game is being able to attack them off the bounce. We are getting a little more reminiscent of our Elite 8 team two years ago.”
This is Illinois’ specialty. Getting downhill and scoring around the bucket is something that every Illinois player can do.
The fact that Underwood mentioned the Elite 8 team from a couple of years ago gives me goosebumps. Illinois has the horse to be able to get back to that point, but I think we can get even further. This Illini squad is stacked with more talent than that Elite 8 team.