March Madness in Illinois Part II: Illinois

With SIUE falling to Houston 78-40, there is one last hope for fans of our state: The University of Illinois, who will be taking on the Xavier Musketeers tonight.

The Fighting Illini started this year projected to be around the 6 or 7 seed line and ended up exactly there. Yet, the road the Illini took to the tourney wasn’t as clean as that.

How They Got Here:

Illinois started the year at #26 in the AP Poll, and with three cupcake opponents before playing #8 powerhouse Alabama. Though the ‘Bama game was more competitive than some were expecting, the Illini eventually fell 100-87 in a thrilling ending.

Illinois didn’t let that hinder them, finishing a strong non-conference slate with just one more loss against #1 Tennessee in a back and forth affair before starting conference play with a bang, winning three on the bounce, including their decisive 32 point blowout over #9 Oregon on the road.

Illinois’ success quickly dwindled from being Top 15 in the country to being unranked in just 3 weeks after a tough run of games riddled by injury, including embarrassing losses to USC, Rutgers, and Nebraska. By late February, many Illini fans questioned if they would even make it back to the NCAA tournament following their worst loss in program history, a 43 point throttling at the hands of Duke.

To the relief of many, the Illinois successes from earlier in the year quickly came back, with the team winning 4 on the bounce including wins over ranked Michigan and Purdue, for which the Illini were rewarded with the #6 seed in the Midwest.

Their Weaknesses:

Far too many 3’s, and they aren’t good at it: Illinois 3-point shooting early in the year was solid, but eventually they became extremely cold from beyond the arch, finishing the year with a dismal 31.1% in accuracy despite being Top 5 in the nation for most 3’s attempted per game.
Can’t force turnovers: The Illini had an abysmal 4.4 steals per game this season, ranking them inside the bottom 10 in the entirety of Division 1 teams.

Their Strengths:

Great physicality: The Illini have been an amazingly physical team, consistently in the Top 20 in the nation in 2 point shooting. They’re also 2nd in the country in rebounding with 42.5 rebounds per game.
Illinois also shot very well from the charity stripe this year being near the nation’s Top 50 free throw shooters, hitting 75.9% of them.