Hawkeyes exploit poor Illini effort out the gate

By Ryan Dixon

Illinois posted a less than impressive victory against lowly Iowa on Sunday. There wasn’t anything too special about it. Nobody really stood out and strapped the team on his back. The Illini played pretty awful for most of the first half, and they were lucky to pull out a win against the second-worst team in the Big Ten.

But a win is a win, right?

The last two games have left a bland taste in my mouth. Correction. Thursday’s 23-point loss at Minnesota made me want to puke. Sunday’s win was just … plain.

Maybe the Illini have come back down to earth.

The key to Illinois’ success is coming out with high-octane emotion and a ton of energy. They definitely didn’t do that against the Gophers, and they barely did it against the Hawkeyes.

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Illinois scored less than a point per minute in last week’s embarrassing loss. As a matter of fact, the Illini’s 36 points was their lowest total in 24 years. The Orange and Blue made only 15 of their 51 shot attempts (29.4 percent).

Sorry, I had to get it out of my system for good.

But the first half of Sunday’s game hit me like a recurring nightmare. Illinois went 10-of-28 (35.7 percent) from the field in the first 20 minutes. Weber’s crew also trailed Iowa by three heading into the break.

“(Iowa’s) a good team, can’t take anything away from them,” Chester Frazier said. “I think we played well, didn’t come out with a lot of energy in the first half, but I think we played well.”

Illinois’ floor general said it best. The Illini didn’t come out with a lot of energy in the first half, and the Hawkeyes exposed Illinois for it.

“One thing you can always do is play defense,” Dominique Keller said. “I think that’s what we didn’t do at Minnesota. We were missing shots but we weren’t guarding them, and you know they got a lot of second- and third-chance points.”

But one positive thing about Sunday’s win is that Illinois rebounded – mentally, as well as literally.

Illinois outrebounded Iowa by 13, which was a complete turnaround from being out-boarded by 14 in Minnesota.

It would have been easy to lie down and stay mucked in the mundane level of intensity throughout the first half.

But Weber got his team to turn it on and the Illini responded after the break.

The second half opened with an alley-oop dunk by Mike Davis from Mike Tisdale. And all of a sudden, everyone caught a glimpse of this team’s resiliency.

Illinois sustained the offensive pressure with 40 second-half points, shooting 65 percent from the floor.

But Illinois has only played one solid half of basketball in the last two games. Lucky for them, that has translated into at least one win.

Weber’s bunch will have to keep it up, especially in this league. A win at the Kohl Center against Wisconsin, who has lost six consecutive games, will be no easy task Thursday evening. And Weber knows it.

“I think they’re a wounded badger, and if you know anything about badgers, they’re very mean and dangerous,” Weber said. “I’m from Wisconsin. I’ve seen them. The big key will be early in the game, we got to be aggressive and take it to them.”

The way the Big Ten has been playing out, it’s apparent there really aren’t any gimmes, whether it’s at home or on the road.

Note: The aforementioned statement does not apply to the team based in Bloomington, Ind.

Ryan Dixon is a senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected].