Flaws? Good luck finding them.
Learning lessons? Sorry, school’s out.
If Illinois isn’t ready for the steeper slate ahead after Monday’s 92-34 obliteration of Little Rock at the State Farm Center in Champaign, the Illini sure had a funny way of showing it.
A survey of the damage:
Freshman guard Kasparas Jakucionis led the Illini (5-1) with a career-high 21 points (plus six rebounds and five assists), while junior guard Tre White (16 points and eight rebounds) broke loose and sophomore center Tomislav Ivisic (16 points and 11 rebounds) kept on trucking.
Kasparas Jakucionis is making it look easy tonight 😌 @IlliniMBB #B1GMBBball on BTN 📺 pic.twitter.com/hjKBo0Oqhg
— Big Ten Men’s Basketball (@B1GMBBall) November 26, 2024
The Illini continued their season-long assault on the glass, hauling in more than two rebounds for every one the Trojans grabbed (56 to 26).
The 34 points Illinois held Little Rock to tied for the fewest scored for an opponent in the history of the building, which spans more than 60 years. The total also assured the Illini of back-to-back games in which they held an opponent to 40 or fewer – the first time that has happened since 1947.
It all added up to win No. 148 for coach Brad Underwood, who tied J. Craig Ruby to become the fifth-winningest coach in program history. With five more wins, Underwood will surpass Douglas R. Mills to take over sole possession of third place on the school’s all-time wins list.
Was the outcome ever in question? Maybe the Trojans felt a twinge of confidence after Mwani Wilkinson opened the scoring with a 3, but it was almost all downhill for Little Rock from there. After Jordan Jefferson sank another 3 roughly midway through the first half to close Illinois’ lead to 20-13, the Illini went on a scorched-earth 23-0 run capped by White’s layup with 4:05 left in the first half.
Leading 51-19 at halftime, the Illini could have let off the gas or suffered a drop-off as Underwood dipped deeper into his rotation, but the team continued to move the ball effectively, prioritize smart shots and muck things up for the Trojans on the other end of the floor.
Little Rock, which set a clear mandate for its big men not to shoot from the perimeter, found the lane constantly clogged and its shooters easily covered as a result. The Trojans shot just 13-for-55 from the floor (23.6 percent), and the Illini disrupted their offense at every turn, holding them to five assists and creating 14 turnovers.
