The year is winding down for No. 13 Illinois men’s basketball (20-7, 11-5), which has just four more regular season games in front of it. Tipping off at 8 p.m. CT, Wednesday’s late-night matchup with Minnesota (17-10, 8-8) is Illinois’ second-to-last home game of the season.
As the games begin to run out, so do Illinois’ chances of winning the Big Ten. The Illini currently have two more conference losses than the No. 2 Purdue Boilermakers (25-3, 14-3). Illinois is fortunate to still have one more meeting with Purdue where it can try to do some of the damage itself; however, that won’t cover all of its ground. To finish first, the Illini have to win out, and the Boilermakers have to drop two of their next three.
Minnesota enters Wednesday with an even slate in conference play. The Golden Gophers have never managed to string together enough wins to move forward in the standings and were especially set back by a four-game skid in mid-January. There are instances of Minnesota stealing games from teams such as Northwestern and Michigan State, but all of the team’s best play comes at home. The Golden Gophers are at an impressive 15-3 at home but a staggering 2-6 on the road.
Junior guard Elijah Hawkins is Minnesota’s offensive engine. He averages 7.3 assists per game to just 2.8 turnovers and is seemingly always capable of finding an open teammate. Much like Minnesota as a whole, however, Hawkins is considerably worse on the road. His turnovers are stagnant at 2.8, but his assists drop down to 5.4 per road game. Additionally, Hawkins has really struggled with his offense on the road, posting an average of 7.1 points while making just 33.3% of his shots.
The Illini are coming off an exciting 95-85 win over Iowa last Saturday. Seats were filled with orange-clad fans for Illinois’ Hail to the Orange Out theme, and senior forward Coleman Hawkins put on a show. It was clear from the jump that Hawkins was not messing around, as he notched 10 of Illinois’ first 15 points en route to a career-high 30 points.
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
Coleman Hawkins excelled at all levels of the offense, missing just two three-pointers while going 6-6 inside the arc and 9-11 from the free-throw line. His five assists were canceled out by five turnovers, but Hawkins made up for each of them with five steals. Graduate student guard Justin Harmon also had a very nice bounce-back against the Hawkeyes. He was perfect from the floor (3-3) and the free-throw line (6-6) for a total of 12 points, second-best on the team.
“They’re (Minnesota) good, they’re really good,” said head coach Brad Underwood. “They’re coming off a tough one. They shoot it, they’ve got a dynamic point guard – their point guard leads the country in assists. I think, as a team, they’re number one in the country in assisted baskets. They’ve proven they can beat a lot of people.”
@blountco21
