With nine seconds left in the first half and the game tied at 37, Illinois women’s basketball Jaelyne Kirkpatrick subbed into the game to take out the ball.

The Illini had started the game off about as poorly as they could have, falling behind 21-10 in the first six-and-a-half minutes of the game. But Michigan lost its touch from beyond the arc, and Illinois rallied back in the second quarter to tie the game, and briefly take the lead.

So with time expiring, head coach Matt Bollant entrusted sophomore Kirkpatrick to take the ball out, despite the fact that she was recovering from a bad case of the flu. With all five Wolverines between her and the basket, Kirkpatrick took off with the ball, twisting and turning her way upcourt.

Kirkpatrick reached the three point line with two seconds to spare, and teammate Ali Andrews wide open on the wing. But with time quickly running out and a defender up in her face, Kirkpatrick passed up the chance to pass, and let it fly.

Nothing but net.

“With nine seconds left your coming up the court trying to make sure you get a good shot in,” Kirkpatrick said. “With a couple seconds left on the clock, I knew I had to put it up, I got a little lucky, but it felt great (to watch it go in)”

The State Farm Center roared to life, and there was a buzz, an air of positivity in the arena during halftime that hadn’t been there in a some time. The Illini looked much more like the team that started Big Ten play 3-2 than the one that lost four straight games by double digits.

But it didn’t last, and the Wolverines took the game 86-70.

Fully recovered from her flu, forward Kennedy Cattenhead looked like a completely different player than the player that scored 4 points in her last 3 games. Ali Andrews was finding open looks and hitting them. Kirkpatrick and Brandi Beasley moved the ball better than they have in a long time.

“(Having Cattenhead and Andrews playing well) helped me a lot,” Breasley said. “It takes the pressure off of me, being the point guard. Not having so much focus on me opens everybody else up, and when they knock down shots the offense spreads out.”

Unfortunately for the Illini, looks can be deceiving, and it didn’t take long for the Wolverines, who shot 27 percent from deep in the first half, to find their stroke on offense.

By dialing up the pressure on defense, the Wolverines forced 10 Illini turnovers. The Wolverines then turned those turnovers into easy baskets courtesy of poor transition defense by the Illini.

“The one thing we haven’t been great at, especially in man, is our defensive transition,” Bollant said. “They really run the ball well, so I thought (switching to zone) would help, but we didn’t get enough stops in the second half.”

The Illini offense never gave up fighting, but their three-point shooting, which was over 50 percent at halftime, came back down to earth in the game’s second act. Let down by their own defense, the Illini simply couldn’t match Michigan’s offensive output down the stretch.

“I think we’ve got to get better defensively,” Bollant said. “Obviously we aren’t going to be perfect but if we can play like we did in the second quarter for all four quarters I think good things will happen.”

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