You’ve heard of a “team win,” yeah? This was a team loss.
No. 18 Illinois had lately been pinballing between excellence and inconsistency when it rolled into Lincoln on Thursday to take on a bottom-three Big Ten dweller in Nebraska, and the Cornhuskers were meant to provide the boost that elevated the Illini back toward the elite.
Who knew mediocrity was right around the corner?
In what should have been a get-well game for the Illini, they absorbed the mother of all gut checks – and not particularly well – as the Cornhuskers unequivocally dominated the first half and then held on through overtime to upend Illinois 80-74, removing whatever faint mystique might have remained around an Illini team that only two weeks ago had legitimate Final Four aspirations.
NEBRASKA TAKES DOWN NO. 18 ILLINOIS AT HOME 🔥 pic.twitter.com/inWdPIBlPJ
— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) January 31, 2025
No single performance could be pointed to as the deciding factor. The Illini (14-7, 6-5 Big Ten) took turns plopping on the whoopee cushion, whether it was Kasparas Jakucionis’ seven turnovers, Ben Humrichous’ 0-for-8 night from the field, Morez Johnson Jr. coming apart on defense or coach Brad Underwood and staff finding zero answers in half-court crunch-time situations.
Almost on cue, the cold-and-hot Illini managed to bail themselves out of a disastrous first half – 9-for-32 field-goal shooting (28.1 percent ) and 3-for-18 (16.7 percent) shooting from three – with Will Riley’s 13-point binge over a six-minute stretch and swashbuckling threes from Jakucionis and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn in the final 1:33 of regulation. Riley, stuck in the corner off Illinois’ final-seconds inbounds, nearly won it with a fadeaway three, but the attempt rattled out to send the game to an extra period.
Whatever favors the Illini had called into the basketball gods by then had been exhausted, and the Cornhuskers – let’s not downplay their strong defensive performance – forced the visitors to settle on ill-advised or nowhere-else-to-go attempts when simple, uninspired actions failed to create the openings Illinois is more accustomed to seeing.
And give props, too, to Nebraska guard Brice Williams, who had enough left toward the end of a 27-point, 41-minute performance to score eight of the Cornhuskers’ 10 points in overtime – including a baseline dagger to push the lead to six with under a minute left and, moments later, a couple free throws to cinch it.
Jakucionis finished with a huge stat line – a team-high 18 points, 13 rebounds and four assists – but got as good as he gave. Some of his turnovers were baffling and wholly avoidable, and his shooting (6-for-15 overall and 3-for-10 on threes) too often came at an unnecessarily high degree of difficulty.
He was far from alone. The Cornhuskers (13-8, 3-7), who bested Illinois for the first time since 2018, put up a strong fight in their own building. But it was the Illini – as has become too frequent for them, with or without Tomislav Ivisic (currently out with mono) – who routinely turned the amazing trick of pulling the rug out from under themselves.
Riley dropped 16 points, but couldn’t sustain his hot streak and got brutally beaten on a key backdoor cut for a Huskers bucket late. Gibbs-Lawhorn was Illinois’ steadiest offensive threat (15 points) but jumped hard at a fake from Williams before he calmly sank the decisive overtime jumper.
Illinois’ maximum-pace, high-volume-three-point-shooting, defend-and-rebound-like-your-life-depends-on-it approach is great on paper. But that same page also showed 17 turnovers and a 35.6 percent field-goal shooting percentage (26-for-73) against Nebraska, which makes any game strategy obsolete.
Illinois misses Ivisic. But for all the ways he matters, he is also a convenient excuse. Even after he gets healthy, it remains to be seen whether the Illini can get there, too.
The Athletic Calls Illinois Basketball a March Madness ‘Wild Card’
Is Andy Katz’s Illinois Basketball NCAA Tournament Prediction Fair?
Former Illini Ayo Dosunmu Shines in Return to Chicago Bulls’ Starting Lineup
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
