Illinois basketball ended up in a bit of a fight on Wednesday night against Oakland.
The start of the game was solid, as the Illini got out to a nice little lead. But Oakland hung around and didn’t let us get out of arm’s reach.
In the second half, the Golden Grizzlies continued to be pesky. Illinois struggled offensively, but the defense was able to hold Oakland far enough away not to let them get too much hope.
Despite a nice fight, Oakland just didn’t have enough firepower to take down the Orange and Blue. Illinois would end up winning the game, 66-54.
Man, the first two games were so good for the Illinois basketball team. A new group that came together and gelled so quickly. The game on Wednesday night was a bit humbling and much-needed.
Things were going a little too well for the Illini. We haven’t had struggles leading up to the Oakland contest. It was strange that Illinois looked so good so quickly. But that has ended. The struggles ramped up and the Golden Grizzlies exposed our weaknesses.
Illinois getting exposed isn’t a bad thing, though. We won the game, which is the ultimate goal. But Oakland exposing our weaknesses will only help us see them and improve them for the bigger games down the road.
I think Illinois’ timing is still off. We haven’t played a lot of minutes together, so the passes that tried to be complete were a little late or early. Specifically, Kasparas Jakucionis and Tre White tried to fit some passes into spaces that required perfection, but the timing was a bit off.
Illinois was also hitting three-point attempts at a high rate entering the night. We came back down to Earth pretty hard, as the Illini shot 7-of-25 from three-point range, which is just 28%. Illinois needed to find a way to win a game without being able to knock down shots from deep.
While it was disappointing to see Illinois struggle, it was kind of nice to see how the team would react when things weren’t going their way. When the chips were down, they were able to grind out a gritty win.
