The Illinois women’s basketball team has plenty of promising new pieces, and it’s time for them to come together Friday afternoon at the State Farm Center when Illinois hosts IPFW in the season opener. 

Illinois is coming off an impressive 70-point blowout over Millikin in the Illini’s only exhibition game. The team’s new additions played well, as freshman Chatrice White posted a double-double in just 16 minutes, and junior transfer Kyley Simmons led all scorers with 17 points.

However, the Illini will be facing much tougher competition in the Mastodons, a team that knocked off Michigan State and almost upset Indiana last season.

One returning player in particular, senior point guard Haley Seibert, was the first person head coach Matt Bollant mentioned when asked about playing IPFW.

“When teams have good point guards, they’re always dangerous,” Bollant said. “A lot of times with us, we can usually speed teams up, and if they have a good point guard, it makes it a lot harder for us. We’ll throw some different people at her and whoever’s guarding her better knows where she’s at because she doesn’t need much room to knock down threes.”

Seibert shot .452 from three-point range and made the All-Summit League First Team last season, so the Illini focused heavily on defensive rotations on the wing in practice this week.

Bollant has been pleased with the offensive execution thus far, but admitted the defense still has a lot to work on.

“We really feel like we have a long way to go defensively,” Bollant said. “Just talking and getting better on the ball and away from the ball as well. I feel like we’re ahead offensively, but that’s to be expected because we spent the whole summer and fall on the offense.”

With the coaches preaching communication on defense, Illinois had a very loud practice at the Ubben Basketball Complex on Wednesday, and sophomore forward Jacqui Grant is already seeing improvements.

“Of course there’s always things that you can get better at, but we’re slowly getting where we need to be, and we’re taking those steps,” Grant said. “We’re talking a lot more, so hopefully we can keep that rolling.”

The Mastodons don’t feature any players over 6’1” in their regular rotation, so the Illini will have an advantage in the paint with Grant and White. Bollant said he expects Illinois to have the size advantage on any given night this season.

“Certainly Chatrice and Jacqui are really capable,” Bollant said. “They’re both really good offensively, and that’s going to be a change from what we had last year. Their length makes the difference.”

Illinois will rely on a few different freshman to be successful this year, so Bollant said he noticed there were some nerves in the exhibition against Milikin and expects the same in the season opener.

Along with its defense, Illinois’ confidence should improve as the season progresses. Building that confidence starts on Friday.

Joey can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter

@joeyfigueroa3.