Youth on the hardwood can be a blessing or a curse.
For Illinois on Wednesday night, it was both.
With Oakland in town to close out a three-game opening home stand at the State Farm Center in Champaign, the Illini stumbled often and never quite found their stride, but still managed to grind out a 66-54 victory that revealed just how much more they’ll need to grow to get to their preferred destination.
Center Tomislav Ivisic was the literal and figurative anchor for Illinois (3-0, 0-0 Big Ten), scoring 20 points as the Illini fed their big man from the perimeter and let him eat against Oakland (1-2, 0-0 Horizon League) and its shifty, amorphous zone defense.
Tucking himself inside the free-throw line and moving with the ball across the front of the key, Ivisic took entry pass after entry pass and sucker-punched the soft spot in the Golden Grizzlies’ defense. One the other end, he harassed opposing shooters and passers, getting his arms up (and out and every which way) to deny angles and snare any remotely errant offering. Ivisic had 10 points and four steals in 16 minutes by halftime.
But little else went so smoothly for Illinois. Ben Humrichous (10 points, six rebounds), Will Riley (eight points) and Tre White (seven points) all had dazzling offensive moments, but each had his share of struggles there, too. The Illini too often failed to stay in front of the ball, allowing high-percentage drives and shots around the rim. And the ball-handling – oh, the ball-handling. After averaging 9.0 turnovers in its first two games, Illinois coughed it up 18 times against Oakland, often due simply to sloppiness and silly mistakes.
Fight for every possession.#Illini | #HTTO | #EveryDayGuys pic.twitter.com/rHK0HCrbAz
— Illinois Men’s Basketball (@IlliniMBB) November 14, 2024
The end result was the closest thing to a pressure cooker the Illini have yet felt in 2024-25, as the Golden Grizzlies – down 36-29 at half – closed the gap to just 2 at 18:34 of the second half. But a pair of jumpers and a layup by Ivisic, plus a 3-pointer off a late break by Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, extended the lead to 47-38. That gave the Illini the breathing room they needed to hold off Oakland down the stretch.
“We get so much more out of these games than we do winning by 30,” coach Brad Underwood said in a Big Ten Network postgame interview.
“It’s great to play a team that you know is gonna walk it up, they’re gonna execute every time, they’ve got good players, they’re different, they muck the game up. And it’s great for our guys to have to see something different.”
In the first half, the Illini vascilated between superb and sloppy. Ivisic was at the center of everything, quite literally, as Illinois kept the ball moving and didn’t rush the offense against a difficult scheme. Gibbs-Lawhorn and guard Kylan Boswell pressured the ball effectively, and the Illini were able to scrape together some easy buckets to lighten the load on Ivisic’s shoulders.
At the same time, the puzzle presented by Oakland’s defense was such a departure from what Illinois faced in Games 1 and 2 that it seemed to flummox the Illini, especially freshman Kasparas Jakucionis. After showing uncommon poise and savvy in running a college offense immediately out of the gate last week, Jakucionis spun out in the first half against the Golden Grizzlies, committing three turnovers, going 0-for-2 and seeming lost for the first time as an Illini.
Jakucionis recovered somewhat in the second half, finishing with four points, six rebounds and three assists – and even briefly took Ivisic’s place in the middle of the zone, using a head fake, a nifty dribble move and instinctive footwork to draw a foul.
A win is a win is a win. But as Underwood mentioned, this one – if not nearly as pretty as the others – had more value. Oakland taught the Illini that, for the moment, they have at least as much to learn as they have figured out.
And if they didn’t learn it? Alabama, ranked No. 2 in the country and waiting on deck for the Illini next week, will be glad to impart the lesson.
