Sometimes you play teams that you expect to blow out and end up winning by 50. On Saturday, the Illini did just that.

Illinois welcomed the St. Francis (Pa) Red Flash to State Farm Center and blew them out of the water, winning by nearly 60 points, 106-48. Three Illini finished in double figures, while eleven total players on the team scored points, their highest amount all season.

The story of the day was 3-point shooting for Illinois, but star big man Kofi Cockburn was able to notch another double-double without shooting the three. He finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds on 9-for-11 shooting, upping his career double-doubles as an Illini to 34. 

Three-pointers galore

Woah, that was fun to watch. Late in the second half, freshman guard Brandin Podziemski hit a three to extend Illinois’ lead to a crisp 58 points, but more importantly, it was Illinois’ 18th made three of the game. That’s a program record.

The boys shot 52.9% from three, compared to 33.3% for the Red Flash. Alfonso Plummer knocked down a team-high five threes for the Illini, all of which were in the first half. Jacob Grandison added four, Trent Frazier, Coleman Hawkins and Luke Goode each had two, and Damonte Williams, Podziemski and RJ Melendez each had one. Wowzah. 

Sometimes Illinois lives and dies by the 3-point line, but the Illini are one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country right now. Without guard Andre Curbelo, the three ball will have to keep falling for the Illini to be successful, and the team showed out from behind the arc Saturday.

Plummer’s streak ends

The sharp-shooting guard had an impressive six-game streak of scoring 20+ points entering Saturday’s contest, and in the first half, that streak seemed to surely be extended another game. That wasn’t the case.

After 19 first-half points, the transfer guard didn’t play as much in the second half and missed a few threes, ultimately ending his streak. But it was a fun one.

Another streak is brewing for Plummer, though, as he has made 33 straight free throws for his team — he hasn’t missed since joining the program — which is now less than 10 away from breaking the program record. We’ll see if writing about this results in a jinx. 

Time for some grades.

Rebounding: D

This is the only bad grade you’ll see, so let’s get it out of the way now. St. Francis should not be grabbing 17 offensive rebounds on a team like Illinois.

The Red Flash stormed the offensive glass all night and finished with four more offensive boards than the taller, bigger Illini. Illinois did win the total rebounding battle, 44-27, but St. Francis missed 25 more shots.

Head coach Brad Underwood said right after the game in his post-game interview on Big Ten Network that he wasn’t pleased at all about the offensive rebounds given up, and I’m right there with him. Illinois will soon face bigger, stronger teams with a trip to St. Louis for Braggin’ Rights coming up and more Big Ten play on the horizon, so his team will have to improve on that to avoid losing some close games later on.

Defense: A-

Excluding the defensive rebounding and solely focusing on the half-court defense, since I put the two in separate categories, the Illini showed why they consider themselves one of the best defensive teams in the country.

They held the Red Flash to shooting 26.2% from the field, which, to keep it simple, is a really bad shooting percentage. They started the game shooting well, but Illinois adjusted after the first media timeout. 

Everyone on the team takes defense seriously. Led by Frazier, the Illini move their feet well, communicate and don’t allow easy shots. They played harder tonight, and after allowing three 3-pointers in the first couple minutes, they only allowed three more the rest of the game. 

Shoutout to Brad for making defense his top priority. I love that in a coach. 

Shooting: A+

There isn’t a lot more to be said here.

Illinois broke a program record for threes made in a game, they shot above 50% and eight different guys knocked in a triple. 

Impressive, to say the least.

Coaching: B+

Underwood and crew wanted his team to play a lot harder on Saturday after calling his team “soft” after their four-point home loss to Arizona, and the Illini did look more physical.

The rebounding lowers the grade a tad, but Illinois was all over the floor, played hard defense and won the high majority of 50/50 balls. It’s easy to play well against mediocre talent, but I think Underwood had his team take a step forward.

Now work on boxing out before you face real competition with competitive big guys.

Facilitating: A

My favorite play of the game came in the first half, when Plummer had a lead on the defense on the left side and passed the ball to Cockburn in the paint. With a defender-and-a-half on him, he kicked the ball out to Frazier in the right corner, who passed to Williams on the right wing, who went to Goode on the left wing, who found a wide open Plummer for a corner three. Knock down. 

It was beautiful. I even rewound the TV to watch it again in real time. Illinois finished the game with 21 assists, led by Frazier with five. The Red Flash had six assists all game.

Without Curbelo, passing and facilitating among the offense would seem to decline, which it has in some games. But the Illini seemed to be adjusting just fine on Saturday.

Curbelo will be out for a while, so Frazier and crew will have to be on top of their passing games and limit turnovers as well as they can to make up for their star guard’s absence. They did just that this game.

@JPietsch14

[email protected]