Following an ankle sprain to Jamar Smith that will keep him out four-to-six weeks, along with Brian Randle re-aggravating a groin injury that has him listed as week-to-week, the Illinois lineup took a huge hit after Monday night’s game against Austin-Peay.

Going into Wednesday night’s matchup with Jackson State, head coach Bruce Weber thought the Illini would be OK. The game on Friday against Georgia Southern was what concerned Weber more.

But Weber quickly had to rethink that strategy as Jackson State raced out to a 10-0 lead. Although Illinois (2-0) came out flat against Jackson State and never led in the first half, it wore down the Tigers’ in the second stanza, securing a 76-55 victory at the Assembly Hall. During the last 7:24 of play, the Illini went on an 18-5 run, giving them the longest non-conference home-court winning streak in the nation at 48 consecutive games.

“It’s definitely not the start that you hoped to have scripted,” Weber said. “A little bit disappointed; we didn’t have any emotion. Our weight coach said there was no energy in stretching, a lot of yawns.”

The Tigers’ first half lead surged to 14 points before Illinois started to put things together.

With 5:08 to play in the first half and the Illini down 31-19, they began to out-hustle the Tigers, reeling off 10 unanswered points. After a Chester Frazier layup evened the score at 34 going into halftime, the momentum turned in the Illini’s favor. A different Illinois team took the floor to begin the second half.

“We thought when the tip went off, it would just come,” senior forward Warren Carter said. “But it didn’t. Once we got going and saw we were down, we knew we were in for a dogfight, and we just got ready for it.”

Playing scared in the first half, the Illini knew someone needed to step up, but it was a number of players that did just that. Illinois shot 73.9 percent from the field on 17-of-23 shooting in the second half. Carter led the Illini with a career-high 16 points and 15 rebounds. Sophomore point guard Chester Frazier had 14 points, seven rebounds, nine assists and seven turnovers in 40 minutes of play.

“Chester kind of took it over at the end,” Weber said. “He almost got a quadruple-double but one of the categories is not a good category, and we’ve got to get him to settle down and then see if we can figure out how to make some free throws. Because if he can do that, he just plays so hard and does so many things for us that he’s going to be effective.”

Sophomore guards Calvin Brock and Trent Meacham both started and played 38 and 40 minutes, respectively. Brock, in his third start this season, scored a career-high 14 points (6-of-9 shooting) and added six rebounds. Guard Trey Johnson led Jackson State with 27 points and five rebounds, and was the only Tiger player to score in double figures.

The Illini out-rebounded the Tigers 41-30, after Jackson State held a 22-19 advantage in the category in the first half. Jackson State head coach Tevester Anderson thought the Illini’s big men were key in the second-half turnaround.

“In the second half we couldn’t rebound with them,” he said. “We got tired and allowed too much dribble penetration because we were fatigued. And they dished to the big guys.”

With Illinois’ five starters averaging 36.2 minutes in Wednesday night’s game, Weber said he will have no choice but to do the same thing on Friday when the Illini host Georgia Southern.

“Georgia Southern I would say is better than these guys,” Weber said of Jackson State. “If people watched them the other night they had the same type of lead on Duke at Duke, and Duke had to gut it out.”

With no choice but to gut out the rest of the home stand short-handed, Illinois can only take one game at a time.

“We played these games to grow up get experience, and some players are getting more experience than they ever dreamed of,” Weber said. “We had to make plays when it counted, and we did. At the same time we need to move forward.”