November 28 is pretty much ancient history in the college basketball season. That’s when No. 5 UConn beat No. 13 Illinois 74-61 at Madison Square Garden. It was so long ago that Keaton Wagler had three points in just 14 minutes, and Mikhailo Petrovic played 18 minutes off the bench for the Illini.
Still, even though it came in a loss, Brad Underwood might be able to dust off his defensive game plan and run it back for the rematch against the Huskies. Dan Hurley is too good a coach to give UConn the exact same look in the Final Four, but with UConn’s recent shooting struggles, the core principles should stay the same.
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UConn is ice cold, shooting the exact shot Brad Underwood is comfortable giving up
Illinois is a much-improved defensive team from earlier in the season, and much of that improvement comes from its ability to deter shots at the rim. Illinois is one of the tallest teams in the country, which will make it difficult for a UConn team attempting fewer than 30 percent of its shots at the rim to establish a significant interior presence.
Tarris Reed Jr. is a handful in the post, but the Huskies don’t have a downhill attacker who puts pressure on the rim off the dribble. Instead, Hurley’s team relies on its fantastic off-ball movement to get open shots, running shooters through a maze of screens.
That’s not easy for Illinois to defend with its taller bodies constantly chasing. But if they stay attached, they have the length to contest most of those shots. When the Illini were able to trail in that November matchup, they forced UConn to attack off curls and funneled them to the paint, where the Huskies shot 4-12 and the rim, where they shot 8-17 (per CBBanalytics.com).
The problem was that when they went under screens or collapsed in the paint, UConn was able to torch them over the top. Nearly 40 percent of the Huskies' field goal attempts were above-the-break threes, and they shot 41 percent (10-24), which accounted for 30 of their 71 points.
That’s a trend with Illinois this year. With their size, the Illini force over a third of their opponents' field goals to be above-the-break threes, and over the last five games, those shots have accounted for 41 percent of Illinois’s opponents’ attempts. That’s a defensive preference and one that Underwood paid for against UConn last time, but with how the Huskies are shooting the ball right now, it’s the perfect way to slow them down.
Over UConn’s last five games, which include four NCAA Tournament wins and a Big East title game bludgeoning at the hands of St. John’s, the Huskies are shooting 22.8 percent on above-the-break threes. Braylon Mullins’ game-winner was legendary, and the Huskies finished 4-5 from beyond the arc in that one, but two of those makes, and three of UConn’s five threes came from the corner, where Illinois surrenders considerably fewer attempts.
The Huskies could catch fire at any point, but it’s hard not to feel good about Illinois defensively if the shot that Underwood wants to force is also the shot UConn is struggling with the most.