No. 7 Illinois is preparing for its first game in the Big Dance. The Illini are set to take on the No. 10 Colorado Buffaloes Saturday night in Music City, also known as Nashville, Tennessee.
“So we’re preparing for Colorado just like we prepare for everyone in the Big Ten, non-conference,” Illinois head coach Shauna Green said. “We had a week to prepare. That’s longer than normal. Feel like we’ve gotten a ton accomplished this week. Feel ready to go.
The Illini are coming off an almost two-week break after making it to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten tournament early in March. Illinois faced its hardest challenge yet in the conference tournament with three games in three days. Now, Illinois is set to play in the first round against a powerful Colorado defense Saturday night. With the stakes higher than ever, here are three key areas to watch for.
Illinois’ youth
“You know, the good thing about youth is sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know,” Green said. “They just come and they play. I’m really proud of us.”
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The Illini are the youngest team in this year’s NCAA tournament, and as Green said, people may not have expected the youngest team to come out and earn a No. 7 seed.
“A lot (of) people might not have thought we would get here with such a young roster,” Green said. “They continue to be resilient and step up and they’ll be ready to go.”
Part of Illinois’ young core is made up of five-star freshman guard Destiny Jackson, freshman forward Cearah Parchment, the team’s leading rebounder and sophomore Berry Wallace, its leading scorer. Those three have been able to put up astonishing numbers all season long. The trio has totaled 1,337 points, 597 rebounds and 273 assists this season. There’s no doubt that Jackson, Parchment and Wallace will be a leading force on the court for the Illini in their March Madness journey.
One special thing about Wallace is that even though she is an underclassman, she is one of the returners from last season who got to experience what March Madness is all about. She and junior guard Jasmine Brown-Hagger are leading the Illinois rookies in the next step of this season.
“I know for me, both (Wallace) and I have been in this position before, and we just know what it takes to win the first game, and even what it takes to win the second game, just having been in this position,” Brown-Hagger said. “So for us, I think right now it’s just leading by example and using our voices.”
Brown-Hagger was a powerful presence during Illinois’ quarterfinal performance, and she is a vocal leader on the court. Another junior who brings in seasoned talent is guard Maddie Webber. Despite this being her first season at Illinois, Webber played two years at Villanova, where she gained postseason experience in the WBIT.
Webber, alongside Wallace and Brown-Hagger, is a guiding light for some of Illinois’ true freshmen this season. Despite being a young team, the Illini are hungry. Time and time again this season, they have proved that they are a force to be reckoned with, and no one can count them out from the big leagues.
“They’re little sponges and listen to everything,” Green said. “You see them get better in real time. You could see some of your guys really improve even in games possession by possession.”
Navigating the Buffaloes’ defense
The Illini need to be taking extra care of their possessions against the Buffaloes and their defense. Colorado has nearly 100 more steals this season than Illinois. That, combined with the Buffaloes’ extra height against the Illini, leaves no room for error when it comes to handling the ball.
“They are an elite team of trying to force turnovers and score off them,” Green said. “We’ve got to really take care of the possessions. The great thing about the Big Ten is we’ve seen a lot of different styles and have seen teams that pressure and get up and the length.”
For Illinois, Jackson will be its primary ball handler as she has been all season long. While Jackson had some breakthrough games offensively in the Big Ten tournament, she also leads the Illini with the most turnovers all season long.
On top of that, Illinois has been committing more turnovers than usual. In their last seven games, the Illini have managed to record 10 or more turnovers. There’s no doubt that Colorado will be looking for gaps in Illinois’ performance to try and force as many turnovers as possible and score off of them. In good news for the Illini, as much as the Buffaloes like to try and force turnovers, they also are prone to being on the receiving end of one as well. Right now, the Buffaloes are averaging over 16 turnovers per game, with 544 turnovers this season.
Scoring from 3 levels
One of the Illini’s biggest assets is their ability to score efficiently from all three levels. Not only that, but Illinois has better shooting percentages than Colorado across the board. The Illini and the Buffaloes have a pretty similar field goal percentage at 45.7% and 42.5%, respectively.
From beyond the arc is where Illinois sees its biggest advantage against Colorado. The Buffaloes have struggled when it comes to 3-point shooting with a 27.6% average from beyond the arc all season. The Illini, on the other hand, are sitting at 36.1% from shooting from deep.
“We don’t take contested threes,” Brown-Hagger said. “We take what the defense is giving to us. I think that we just have to play solid and take what the defense is giving.”
According to Brown-Hagger, the Illini are calculated when it comes to making and taking the right 3-point shots and following the defense. Shot selection will be key to Illinois tomorrow for it to outsmart Colorado’s defense and not waste any offensive possessions.
One area that Colorado needs to be aware of is having a clean defense to not send Illinois to the free-throw line. The Illini ended the regular season at the top of the NCAA chart for the highest free-throw percentage. Wallace, Jackson and sophomore guard Aaliyah Guyton are three of Illinois’ starters who all shoot 81% or more from the stripe. The Buffaloes sending the Illini to the charity stripe is a fast and easy way for the Illini to grab easy points that can be a make-or-break factor at the end of games.
Tipoff is set for 8:30 p.m. CDT for Illinois to take on Colorado in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The game is at Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville and is available to stream on ESPN2. If the Illini can move past the Buffaloes, they will either face the No. 2 Vanderbilt Commodores or the No. 15 High Point Panthers on Monday.
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