Illinois Basketball: 5 observations from the Illini win over Michigan

3. Illinois snapped back to reality

I wish the Maryland game didn’t happen. Illinois looked so bad in that game, and at one point when I was watching, I actually uttered that I thought they looked sick. There is some sickness going around, or another thought is they are college students living life and it was the weekend.

Whatever the illness was against Maryland, it was confirmed when Stephen Bardo mentioned that the Illini were dealing with a sickness during the game against the Terrapins. On Thursday, thankfully, Illinois looked good against Michigan. We looked back to normal.

It was really upsetting to see the Illini very stagnant in their last loss. We weren't moving well at all, and we just dumped the ball off to Marcus Domask, who had a good but inefficient game.

Illinois snapped back to reality against the Wolverines. We were moving all over the court, and Michigan had a hard time keeping up with us. When a ball would come off the glass, Illinois would consistently try to push the ball up the court as quickly as possible.

I was loving the slashing and attempts to get to the hoop throughout the night. Another thing that stood out to me was when an Illinois player would get caught in a double team, Illini players would move to try to get open so that player could pass out of the double team.

It was a great team effort on Thursday night. That team chemistry is what I have seen over the past few weeks. If we keep playing like this, Illinois could see a deep run in the NCAA tournament.