Illini hope to get back on track with win over Boilermakers
Illinois guard Aaron Jordan (23) talks to his teammates during the game against Penn State at the State Farm Center on Saturday.
February 27, 2019
Just over a week ago, the Illinois basketball team was the talk of the Big Ten, as winners of four-straight.
Now, after two close losses at Wisconsin and at home against Penn State during the 30-year celebration of the 1989 Final Four team, the Illini (10-17, 6-10 Big Ten, ninth place) head to No. 14 Purdue (20-7, 13-3 Big Ten, second place), looking to get back on track.
Illinois has not won at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Indiana, in over a decade, losing six-straight at Purdue dating back to a 71-67 overtime win on Dec. 30, 2008.
Senior guard Aaron Jordan stressed the difficulty of league play, particularly with the balanced competition this season, from top to bottom.
“It’s the Big Ten, things are up and down,” Jordan said. “We know that. Just cause we went on a streak, that doesn’t mean everything is all good now. We’ve still got more games to play. Definitely just getting back and concentrating on that, focusing on us.”
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Last season, Illinois played then-No. 9 Purdue closely in Champaign, falling 93-86 on the back of a 40-point performance from Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year Carsen Edwards.
This season, Edwards is averaging a league-leading 23.4 points per game, well ahead of Penn State’s Lamar Stevens, who averages 19.5 per game.
The Illini are fully aware of just how dangerous the senior guard is for the Boilermakers.
Head coach Brad Underwood noted sarcastically that Edwards had ‘some’ success against his team during the last encounter. He’s made it a point of emphasis to better prepare for the electric guard this time around.
“He got to the rim (last year),” Underwood said. “He’s a gifted offensive player, he’s one of the more gifted ones. He’s got such speed, he does a great job of separating. We’ve got to make his touches hard. I always say the best way to defend a really good player or really good scorer is not let him catch it.”
Jordan played just eight minutes in last year’s contest, but he remembers how Edwards hit 11-of-19 shots from the field, including four three’s and 14 free throws, almost single-handedly propelling Purdue to victory.
It wasn’t fun for him, nor for the rest of the Illini.
This time, he and his teammates have a point to prove: They are not Edwards’ punching bag.
“That’s just a pride thing, to be honest with you,” Jordan said. “He did that at our house. Just having that again, that’s something you take pride in. You say no, you put your foot down and you go out there and execute.”
Limiting Edwards’ impact starts with denying him the ball and making sure Illinois’ high-pressure defense is a disruption to Purdue and Edwards, from running their half-court sets to bringing the ball up the court.
“He’s very good at ball screens,” Underwood said. “He loves to play in that and they put him in a lot of it and open space. He’s a good player, he’s going to make some baskets. We’ve just got to make sure that we challenge everything from the catch to the shot.”
That means it’ll most likely be sophomore guard Trent Frazier on Edwards, though guards Andres Feliz and Ayo Dosunmu could fit into the picture as well.
“He’s the best guard in the league, he’s up for player of the year,” Frazier said. “We talked a lot about that. We just got to get after him and stress him. We got to make it hard for him for 40 minutes.”
The Boilermakers aren’t a one-man team though, as Edwards is joined by Dutch sophomore Matt Haarms in his productivity this year.
The seven-foot-three-inch sophomore is averaging 8.4 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, while also having a serious ability to alter shots in the paint, thanks to his massive size.
Then there’s senior guard Ryan Cline, who is shooting 42.4 percent from beyond the arc for an average of 12.2 points per game.
Purdue’s quality is the basketball challenge on Wednesday night, but there is also an environmental difficulty: Mackey Arena, arguably the Big Ten’s loudest venue.
At practice on Tuesday, the speaker system was booming in an effort to simulate the crowd noise, or at least to make it somewhat like it will be while trying to communicate on the floor at Purdue.
“They’ve been very, very good at home,” Underwood said. “We cranked the music again today, tried to create as much difficulty as we can for our guys to communicate and stress the importance of it. We’ve got to have great poise.”
Jordan, as the team’s only senior, is one of the only Illini on the roster to have actually played at the Mackey Arena.
According to him, it won’t be like anything this current team has experienced before.
“For the younger guys, just telling them, ‘Guys, it’s about to get loud out there,’” Jordan said. “We’ve got to stay with each other. They’re going to make a run, crowd’s going to go crazy.”
Frazier, for his part, emphasized getting the team’s energy level up and being mentally ready for a tough road battle.
“It’s the loudest arena in the conference,” Frazier said. “I’m looking forward to that and I’m ready to go, just got to get my guys going and be ready to play.”
