CHAMPAIGN, IL (Chambana Today) – The Illinois men’s basketball team (18-11, 10-8 Big Ten) snapped a three-game losing streak on Tuesday night in Champaign, overpowering the visiting Iowa Hawkeyes (15-13, 6-11 Big Ten) with a revised defensive and shooting efficiency to secure an 81-61 victory. The Illini continued their recent dominance over Iowa, earning their eighth win in head coach Brad Underwood’s last nine matchups against the Hawkeyes. The victory also cemented Illinois’ sixth consecutive season finishing at .500 or better in Big Ten play, the only current conference team to do so.
Illinois jumped out to a hot start in a game they never trailed, utilizing pick-and-roll offense early to establish center Tomislav Ivisic inside. Ivisic’s 22 points led a balanced Illini scoring effort that saw 4 of 5 starters in double figures, including freshman forward Will Riley. Taking the place of a struggling Ben Humrichous, who shot an efficient 2 for 2 from three-point range off the bench, Riley added 15 points and 7 rebounds in a high-effort performance to overcome lackluster efficiency. Star freshman and top-5 NBA prospect Kasparas Jakucionis added 9 points and pulled down 7 rebounds, hampered by four questionable personal fouls that kept the Lithuanian native from establishing a rhythm offensively.
Iowa’s offense, ranked the best in the Big Ten, kept pace in the first half by taking advantage of Illinois’ signature 3-point woes (21% in the first half) and out-rebounding an Illini squad that’s in its third game without freshman forward Morez Johnson Jr, whose broken left wrist featured a mesh orange cast.
Iowa trimmed an early 13-point deficit down to 2 after a dunk by forward Evan Brauns, dampening a sold-out State Farm Center. The Illini responded by showing off defensive adjustments focused on ball-screen defense, a change initiated in the early-morning hours after the record-setting loss at Duke. Headlined by Illinois guard Kylan Boswell, who described himself postgame as the best one-on-one defender in the nation, the Illini’s defense stifled a potent Iowa attack, holding them to a season-low 61 points and forcing 16 turnovers.
The Hawkeye’s high-scoring duo of Payton Sandfort and Josh Dix combined for 18 points, well short of the nearly 37 points the two averaged throughout February. The change in defensive proficiency is a welcome sight for an Underwood program that prides itself on competing nightly. “I think we can whup anybody’s [butt],” Underwood stated plainly. “… and I’m so in awe of how hard they played tonight.”
Underwood has been known to initiate radical change to spark his teams to success. Implementing “booty ball” with Marcus Domask, moving away from the hyper-aggressive defensive scheme that characterized his first year, and turning a post-centric offense designed to take advantage of All-American Kofi Cockburn into a spread offense that capitalized on the strengths of Terrance Shannon Jr. are all indicative of Underwood’s willingness to adapt. Whether this shift in defensive philosophy is the spark necessary to ignite a late-season surge in the Big Ten or NCAA Tournaments remains to be seen, but the intensity needs to remain high as the Illini head north to face #15 Michigan, a series where they’ve won 8 in a row. New head coach Dusty May looks to break that streak in a game that carries Big Ten title implications – just not for the Illini.