Illinois almost stole a victory from the jaws of defeat last night, but in the end got a fitting result, a 68-63 loss in overtime to Ohio State. The game was all effort, but no execution for the Illini, who had a miserable offensive night, allowing the Buckeyes (14-8, 6-3) to hold on at the end.
After tearing out to a 13-2 lead after seven minutes, the Illinois (10-11, 2-6) offense went cold. Though cold might be too charitable. In the final 13 minutes of the first half, Illinois would only make two more field goals. And the icy shooting would go on, as the team’s last field goal of the first half came with 7:47 and it’s next made field goal did not come until the 17:36 mark of the second half. This stretch of the game is one fans have come to know too well, as Illinois’s shooting has been prone to simply disappear at times.
It wasn’t just shooting, however, that wandered away Thursday night. Illinois’s entire offense went missing. There was little effective ball movement; Maverick Morgan was his usual self, not the competent interior player he was against Minnesota (sad when plain competency is the goal); and the stars were dimmer than ever.
When the offense is this bad some of the game plan goes out the window. The only thing that really matters is putting the basketball through the hoop, and when that’s not happening it barely matters how many screens you run to get your man open. Still, the coaching makes you wonder, too. For instance, where were Aaron Jordan and D.J. Williams? The two freshman have not been spectacular, but they’ve been rotation options all season and surely could have given the team something different. Jordan and Williams only saw 4 and 2 minutes on the floor, respectively, on Thursday.
This boggles the mind when considering how poor the men on the floor were. Aside from Kendrick Nunn (24 points), who had his first truly solid game since becoming a father, the Illini were pretty anonymous. Malcolm Hill, for example, was completely taken out of his game by Jae’Sean Tate and Mickey Mitchell. Their film study of him helped them know his every move and keep him out of rhythm the entire game. Hill had just 4 points at halftime and 12 points overall.
As poor as the offense was, however, credit goes to the Illini defense for not allowing Ohio State to run up the score. This game could have easily gotten out of hand with the Illini shooting 18/56 overall (32%) and 18/31 from the free throw line (58%), but it didn’t. And when a few shots fell toward the end of regulation, suddenly Illinois was back in it. Any optimist has to look at the effort it took to claw back in the game and feel heartened, because it was no easy task for these Illini.
A pessimist, however, would still have plenty to talk about. After Jalen Coleman-Lands hit a huge three pointer to tie the game with 1 minute to play, the defense again provided a timely stop and gave the ball back to Hill — exactly the guy you’d want to take the last shot. But, Hill was so off his game Thursday that when the offense cleared out of the lane with less than 6 seconds on the clock, exactly when you’d expect Hill to slash in for the game-winning shot, he instead stepped back and tried a three ball against Keita Bates-Diop. The same Keita Bates-Diop who had blocked Coleman-Lands’ three attempt just over a minute before. No surprise, then, that he did the same thing to Hill’s would-be game-winner.
In overtime Illinois’s shooting wandered off again and Malcolm Hill got lost on the last possession and nothing really looked good. It was a bitter, anticlimactic finish to a game that looked like it might redeem itself. Which makes it kind of a microcosm of the Illinois season as a whole. Just when you think something good might come of this (Mike Thorne Jr. coming back, beating a highly ranked Purdue team), the bottom falls out (Thorne’s injury flares up again, losing to Indiana by ungodly margins).
At least by now fans know what to expect.
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