It was fun to watch the men’s Illinois basketball team dominate Fairleigh Dickinson.
This was a blowout from the first seconds, and the Illini never looked back. We beat the Knights by a score of 120-45. I haven’t seen anything like it.
That huge win for the Illini was great, but it did come at a cost. Illinois was dealt another bad injury to the roster. Less than 10 minutes into the game, Jake Davis came around a screen and hurt his shoulder.
Davis didn’t come back in the game. In fact, he was never seen on the bench for the rest of the night. Brad Underwood spoke about the injury in the postgame press conference.
“Yeah, it doesn’t sound great. It is a shoulder injury. I don’t know the whole diagnosis yet, but it didn’t sound great.”
This is not exactly what you want to hear from Underwood. He doesn’t look pleased, either, as if he knows this could be a season-ending injury for Davis.
Illinois has dealt with so many injury bugs, and we are only one game into the season. In the offseason, David Mirkovic broke his foot and had surgery. He then had an emergency appendectomy, and who knows when Mirkovic will be back.
Lincoln Williams went down in practice with an injury, and he was out for the game on Monday night. Illinois managed to get Andrej Stojakovic and Tomislav Ivisic back against Fairleigh Dickinson. They missed the last exhibition game.
Illinois basketball looks to rely more and more on freshmen this season
With so many bumps and bruises on the Illinois roster, it looks more and more likely that Illinois will be leaning on freshmen this season.
My expectation is that Mirkovic is out until the Big Ten season. The Davis news feels like he is out at least until then, if not longer.
That means the spotlight is going to be on Quentin Coleman. I think this opens the door for Lucas Morillo to bust through, too. These two freshmen are going to be crucial for Illinois this season.
Monday night was good for the freshman duo. Coleman had one of the most complete games you will see from a freshman. He finished with 13 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and three steals.
I was impressed with Morillo and his aggressiveness on both ends of the court. He had nine points and eight rebounds in 19 minutes of action.
Illinois is taking injury hits left and right. Underwood has the roster built to sustain these massive punches. On Monday night, we took another blow. Hopefully, losing Davis doesn’t hurt too much as we move into a big season for the program.
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