No. 8 Illinois (20-5, 11-3) dropped its second-straight game in overtime on Tuesday night, falling to Wisconsin (17-7, 9-4) 92-90. Despite freshman guard Keaton Wagler scoring 34 points, the six-man rotation that Illinois ran with did not do the little things that are needed to win on a nightly basis. The Illini shot it really well, but that was about it, and the Badgers were able to steal a ranked win on the road.
“I think missed free throws, turnovers and rebounds costed us the game,” said junior center Tomislav Ivišić. “We definitely need to be more focused in the end.”
Turnovers, rebounds, missed free throws
Illinois shot the ball extremely well, so by all metrics, they shouldn’t have lost. However, the Illini shot themselves in the foot by failing to do any of the non-scoring components of winning that they have done so well all year.
“13 turnovers,” said Illinois head coach Brad Underwood. “I think that’s the most we’ve had in league play. And then just a very poor night on the offensive glass. But very seldom do you shoot 54%, 46% from three and lose.”
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Turnovers were a clear issue on Tuesday, and Wisconsin took full advantage, especially of Illinois’ freshmen. Wagler had five and forward David Mirković had four turnovers in their respective 44 and 33 minutes of play. The Badgers scored 23 points off the Illini’s mistakes, giving them a way to easily combat the home team’s hot shooting and eventually pull ahead.
“It was kind of an uncharacteristic turnover night for Mirk,” Underwood said. “Where he was so good at Michigan State handling the ball, but again that’s the 19-years-old logging a lot of minutes, and kind of just had a little off night for him.”
Couple that with a lackluster rebounding effort, and the Illini dug themselves a hole that they could not shoot out of. Yes, Illinois won the overall rebounding battle by three, but it got killed on the offensive glass. Wisconsin grabbed 14 offensive rebounds to Illinois’ eight, allowing the visitors many more opportunities for second chance buckets. Junior forward Winter Nolan was huge for the Badgers, with 4 of his 11 rebounds coming on the offensive glass.
“I think the most disappointing thing the last two (games) has been our rebounding,” Underwood said. “For a team that’s so big … I think we were down 9 to 3 at half on the offensive glass. We haven’t done that all year, and we’ve got all of our size out there. It’s something we got to do better.”
A lack of offensive rebounding and a propensity for turning the ball over, however, did not seal Illinois’ fate. The Illini still had a chance to win the game, but Mirković missed 3 of the 4 free throws he shot in overtime. That statistic is indicative of a larger trend for Illinois on Tuesday: the team shot just 11 for 19 from the charity stripe.
That won’t fly come March, when the margins get even tighter. The Illini got a taste of what careless errors can do, and it’s not something that a team with Final Four aspirations can afford to do again.
Tomislav takes over early, but Badgers adjust
With two of Illinois usual starters absent, Ivišić took it as his moment to shine in the first half. Ivišić had 17 points on 7 for 9 from the field, and he found a way to score from everywhere on the floor.
The 3-point shooting that has set Ivišić apart and made him an NBA prospect was on full display; the 7-foot-1 Croatian knocked down 3 of his 4 attempts from deep in the first 20 minutes. Ivišić was also aggressive around the rim, posting up and imparting his will in multiple back to the basket situations.
“I had a lot of space to shoot, and in low post they didn’t come to double team and they were switching,” Ivisic said. “They had some situations where they switched and I just scored there.”
With Ivišić being such a dominant force early, Wisconsin knew it had to slow him down, and that’s exactly what happened. The Badgers limited Ivišić to just 2 points in the second half and essentially eliminated his ability to make any offensive impact late.
“So we encouraged them at halftime, we have another gear on our closeout, we can get there faster,” said Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard. “I thought we were better in terms of, for the most part, more physical on the drives (in the second half). We only used, what, three team fouls the first half? I (didn’t) think we were quite physical enough on drives (in the first half). And if you can keep the ball out of the paint, it minimizes how much you have to come off of (Ivišić). And you don’t get caught in closeouts as much. …We just kept battling him.”
Wagler’s 30-piece not enough
With Ivišić getting slowed down, Wagler picked up the slack, scoring 23 of his 34 points in the second half and overtime. He almost single handedly kept Illinois afloat as Wisconsin mounted a comeback that ultimately proved successful.
Wagler had his second highest scoring night of the year and was very efficient, shooting 12 for 23, including 5 for 10 from three. However, that didn’t seem to matter to him postgame. Wagler was still hard on himself for not doing enough to impact the game in other ways.
“I did a bad job, I didn’t have any offensive rebounds tonight,” Wagler said. “It’s just, we didn’t go hard enough to try and get them. We didn’t want it as much.”
For Underwood, Wagler is doing everything he asks for. When he’s shouldering so much of the offensive load and is the focus of the other team’s defense for an entire game, it’s hard to expect him to do everything else.
“Help: he needs help,” Underwood said. “I mean, he got picked up 94 feet and they denied him. Not that that bothers him, but it’s remarkable, quite remarkable what he’s been doing and the load he’s done. I didn’t realize he had 34. I mean, it was as quiet a 34 as there was, and he’s getting beat on.”
Stojaković sits, Underwood plays tight rotation
Junior wing Andrej Stojaković was not able to play due to him still dealing with a sprained ankle that he sustained against No. 10 Michigan State. With Stojaković and senior guard Kylan Boswell out, Underwood ran with a very tight six-man rotation for 45 minutes. Freshman guard Brandon Lee would have expanded it to seven, but he only got about a minute of action before getting pulled out of the game.
Underwood choosing not to play Lee or go to sophomore guard Mihailo Petrović is not atypical – he usually plays a tight rotation. However, six guys each playing 30-plus minutes is extremely strict, even by Underwood’s standards. After the game, he said that the rotation was structured the way it was because he felt that would give Illinois the best shot at winning.
“You’re trying to win a game, so you play the guys that you’ve gone through the battles and gone through the wars (with), and it wasn’t a knock on them,” Underwood said.
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