5 crucial questions for the Illinois basketball team against Iowa State

5. Will the Illini keep up with the great ball movement?

Throughout much of the beginning of the 2023-24 season, I was screaming for Illinois to move the ball more. Swing the ball around and find the open man. That is how you win games and score points.

But somewhere in the middle of the season, I gave up. I resigned myself to the fact that Illinois wasn’t a team that moved the ball and tried to find the open man. We were more of an NBA-style team that played iso ball and bulldogged teams to death.

That changed a bit in the postseason, though. Illinois has moved the ball well. Will the Illini keep up with that great ball movement against Iowa State?

Illinois is approaching the middle of the pack this season when it comes to assists. We averaged 13.4 assists per game, which ranked No. 133 in the country. That is actually better than I thought we averaged, but it is still not where I wanted it to begin the year.

This postseason has been a different story. Illinois changed a bit and now we are moving the ball and racking up the assists.

In the three games prior to the postseason starting, Illinois had nine assists in each game. It was consistent, but it also showed a lack of ball movement. But I was fine with it because we were scoring anyway, so it worked out.

Since the postseason started, Illinois has been a different team. We haven’t had fewer than 12 assists in a game, and Illinois is currently averaging 17 assists per game in the five postseason contests. This includes a 24-assist outing against Morehead State in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

If this type of ball movement continues, Illinois is going to be nearly unbeatable. This was the type of basketball I was hoping for all season long, and now we are finally getting it.