The last time Illinois volleyball played Michigan and Michigan State, things were much, much different.

Entering that week, Alexis Viliunas was still a redshirt, Illinois was still ranked and still .500. A 3-0 loss to Michigan remains one of the season’s low points.

“I think in games like that especially, there was a lot of errors that none of us have ever made, like in our whole careers,” redshirt freshman Jocelynn Birks said. “So it’s just like, ‘That’s weird, why did I do that?’”

That game pre-empted a switch at setter. Later that weekend, the freshman Viliunas paced Illinois to a five-set victory. Since that weekend, Illinois has gone 2-6 and is now 11-15.

Though its record might suggest otherwise, head coach Kevin Hambly has seen his team improve in the past month.

“There was a lot of big things we were still working on the first half of the Big Ten. I think now we’re working on a lot of small things and details,” Hambly said. “So I think we’re better, but we still need to learn how to close.”

The lack of closing execution was prevalent in last Saturday’s loss to Ohio State, as Illinois lost the third set after being tied 23-23 and the fifth after leading 14-13.

The Illini worked on closing games in practice this week. Hambly said the team worked similarly to how a football team would practice a two-minute drill.

But ultimately, libero Jennifer Beltran said, it will take something else in addition to that practice to figure out how to finish games on top.

“It’s an attitude. I feel like it’s just being really focused on those last points, just making sure we’re sticking to the game plan, how we prepared for it,” she said.

There’s no room for error in figuring out how to close for the Illini, who need to win both games this weekend to remain eligible for the NCAA tournament. Hambly isn’t worrying about the pressure his team may be feeling.

“We just address it and just deal with it,” he said. “They know what’s in front of ’em. We’re not hiding them from pressure situations, they’ve gotta go out and perform, and it’s like the playoffs.”

Hambly said it’s different from the playoffs because they’re going to play the final four games no matter what. But for the purposes of making the tournament, the reality for Illinois is that it must win or its season will end early.

“A lot’s on the line now,” Beltran said. “We realize that, and we just know we have to work.”

Eliot can be reached at [email protected] and @EliotTweet.