5 key questions for the Illinois basketball team against Nebraska

4. Can Illinois prevent Reink Mast from going off?

I touched on Reink Mast in the last slide. He is a good player for Nebraska who is super consistent scoring the basketball and can rebound well.

Illinois has the length to give Mast some issues on the defensive end of the court. If we can pull him out of the paint, the Illini should be able to score a lot around the hoop. But Mast is also good on the offensive end of the court.

Will Illinois be able to keep Mast in check on Saturday? Can we prevent Mast from going off again?

I say again because, in the first game between the two teams, Mast had one of his best games of the season. He finished that game with 22 points, six rebounds, two assists, one block, and one steal on 8-of-21 shooting from the floor and 4-of-9 from three-point range.

Illinois was playing some pretty bad defense then, and it was smart for Nebraska to take advantage of the lazy Illini perimeter defense. I believe that perimeter defense has improved since early February, though.

Mast is also coming off a game against Indiana where he struggled. He had four points on 2-of-6 shooting from the floor and 0-of-3 from three-point range. My hope is that the Illinois coaching staff will show the tape from last night to the team to see how to slow Mast down.

This will be an interesting game. Nebraska has a couple of big-time scorers who could hurt Illinois. If we can keep Mast in check, that eliminates a huge points outlet.