This isn’t a feeling I thought I would be having after the Illinois basketball team took on UCLA.
I was expecting to be charting the meaning of the game if the Illini beat No. 1 Michigan. Instead, I am now trying to figure out how far we are going to drop after falling to an average UCLA program.
Illinois played the final of two West Coast games on Saturday night. UCLA was punched early on, but they stormed back, and Illinois didn’t have an answer. The Bruins played with more energy and toughness, and the result was a 95-94 win over the Illini in overtime.
Here are five painful observations from the Illinois basketball loss to UCLA
1. Where did the Illinois defense go
You can’t blame the Illinois offense for anything in the game against UCLA. This all falls on the shoulders of the defense.
How can you give up 86 points in regulation to a team that was averaging 77.2 points per game? I can tell you. We got lazy. The Illinois defense thought they had this game in the bag, as did I, and they put this thing in cruise control.
Illinois didn’t close out well on the perimeter. The Bruins got back in the game with three-point shooting. They finished the night going 11-of-28, 39%, from three-point range. The Illini are now 2-3 against teams that shoot 39% or better from three-point range in a game.
It wasn’t just the perimeter, though. Illinois couldn’t stop anything inside either. We were getting torched from every level. If this defense doesn’t get adjusted when the NCAA tournament rolls around, we could be ousted quickly. You can’t let a team like UCLA go off.
2. It was a bad time for David Mirkovic to lay an egg
When you rely on freshmen to lead the team, sometimes you can get bit in the butt. That is what happened to Illinois on Saturday night.
Some would argue that Illinois’ two best players are freshmen Keaton Wagler and David Mirkovic. Wagler showed up for the Orange and Blue against UCLA, but it was Mirkovic who completely disappeared when in the game.
The talented forward logged 25 minutes due to foul trouble, and he finished the game with three points, five rebounds, and four assists while going 1-of-7 from the floor and 0-of-4 from three-point range.
Illinois needed him for his scrappy play and defense. At the beginning of the game, he was getting under UCLA’s skin. He was someone who could have helped us down the stretch keep the Bruins in check.
Mirkovic only got eight minutes in the second half. He didn’t score, had one rebound, and he logged three fouls. That was it in the final 20 minutes of action.
I actually believe Brad Underwood might have forgotten that Mirkovic was still eligible to come back into the game. He subbed out with 4:28 to go in regulation and never saw another second after that.
What a bad night for Mirkovic. My hope is that this is a learning moment, and that he will take this bad game and build on his issues.
3. This might have been Andrej Stojakovic’s worst game at Illinois
Sometimes freshmen just have bad games. It happens when you are a young kid still learning the game. But when you are in year three, like Andrej Stojakovic, the bad games hurt more.
Stojakovic had one of, if not the, worst game of his Illinois career. He came off the bench for the Illini and finished the night with eight points, three rebounds, two turnovers, and one assist on 1-of-5 shooting from the floor and 0-of-3 from three-point range.
I will start with the offensive end of the court. Stojakovic is not his father. Stop taking three-pointers. Be more of a post-up player. Going 0-of-3 from deep hurt Illinois. Moreover, Stojakovic is now 2-of-15, 13.3%, from three-point range in his last seven games.
It wasn’t the offense that frustrates me the most about Stojakovic, though. It is his putrid defense.
The kid can’t keep up defensively. He has concrete for feet, and defenders can just drive by him whenever he is guarding the ball. Stojakovic is a liability on the defensive end of the court, and his offense doesn’t make up for the bad defensive play.
It all culminated in the final play of the game. UCLA got going downhill, and Stojakovic just let the man go by him with little to no defensive effort. It was brutal to watch.
4. Keaton Wagler had a great moment taken away
This is Illinois’ third overtime loss in the last five games. We could have easily come away with the win on Saturday night, and Wagler would have had a special moment.
Down by a point and with the ball, Illinois came down, and Ben Humrichous had an open three-pointer to win the game. The ball went off the rim and backboard, and with four seconds left, Wagler was able to sky for the rebound and put the ball back in to take the lead 94-93.
This was going to be one of those all-time moments for Wagler. He might not be here too long, so these moments are few and far between. This would have been a big-time play, and Illinois fans would have been talking about it for a while.
That moment was taken away, though. The awful defense at the end of the game was the final blow, and Wagler was robbed of what would have been a special moment for the program.
There is a ripple effect to that poor defense on the final play. It isn’t just a bucket to win the game for UCLA. It hurts Illinois’ NCAA tournament standing, Big Ten standing, and it takes away from a great play by Wagler, as he builds his Illinois legendary resume.
5. UCLA gained confidence when Keaton Wagler went out
In games, there are always points when you can look at and say that turned the game for good or bad. There was one of those huge points in the game against UCLA.
Illinois was cruising along against the Bruins in the first half. We were up 33-10, and it looked ike the Illini were just going to crush UCLA. That is when Wagler went down hard on his shoulder and had to go back to the locker room for a bit.
Wagler went out of the game with 8:22 left in the first half. Illinois was up 34-14. He would eventually come back to the bench, and Wagler checked into the game at the 3:33 mark in the first half.
So, Wagler was gone from the game for four minutes and 49 seconds. In just under five minutes, UCLA gained a ton of confidence with him off the floor. The Bruins proceeded to go on a 19-10 run in that time, to narrow the deficit down to just 10 points. Illinois couldn’t keep the ship afloat without him.
This was a big moment in the game. Illinois has to be able to survive if Wagler goes out for a few minutes. We couldn’t against UCLA.