Thursday night was one of the best games I have seen Illinois basketball play all season long.
That is a tough thing to say. The Illini had 25 wins this season, and we buried a ton of teams throughout the 2025-26 campaign. But what we saw against Penn takes the cake.
Illinois didn’t just have one player go off against the Quakers either. While David Mirkovic broke records and we wouldn’t have won by that wide a margin without him, no one on the team had a bad game.
I have been waiting for this type of performance from the Illini for a long time. We always had the horses to be able to put teams away as we did against Penn, but it had been quite a while since they displayed that effort.
Thankfully, Illinois has impeccable timing. The team is putting on a show and coming together at exactly the right time, as the NCAA tournament is now in full swing.
If you look up and down the roster, you are going to mostly see good games on Thursday night. Sure, Jake Davis didn’t score and was 0-of-2 from the field, but he didn’t stand out as having a bad game.
In fact, I remember Davis having a good game. He wasn’t the offensive threat that he is most nights, but his defense against Penn was on point. He was hustling all over the court.
Up and down the roster, everyone was playing well. The starters shot a combined 10-of-23, 43.5%, from three-point range. Three players had at least seven rebounds. The most fouls on an Illinois player were just two fouls.
Illinois’ bench was brilliant as well. We got 27 points from the reserves, and even they shot 38.5% from three-point range.
No matter where Penn looked, an Illinois player was coming at them. The clicking by Illinois is happening at an incredible time. This type of cohesion has a chance to take us pretty far in the NCAA tournament.
While Illinois is clicking at the right time, the upsets around us in the NCAA tournament also have great timing
It is great timing that Illinois is playing well at this point in the season. Putting up 105 points in an NCAA tournament game is special.
The thrashing of Penn was fun to watch, but so was seeing North Carolina lose. Illinois was supposed to have the Tar Heels in the second round of the NCAA tournament, but No. 11 seed VCU decided to crash the party.
This is a pretty big upset, as North Carolina was a bit of a trendy pick by some people. Now, Illinois’ route to a Sweet 16 bid is a No. 14 seed and a No. 11 seed. That timing doesn’t get any better.
Everything seems to be coming together for the Orange and Blue. We are doing our part; now, let’s see if the rest of the bracket crumbles.