Nearly every time IU missed a shot, Illinois was there to get the rebound. And although the Hoosiers led for longer than the Illini, they couldn’t hold onto the lead when the final buzzer sounded.
IU men’s basketball dropped to 0-2 in Big Ten play Saturday in a 69-60 road loss to No. 18 Illinois.
In IU’s second conference game, the team was outrebounded 40-28. Out of those 28 rebounds, only three of them came off the offensive glass.
“I thought our guys battled hard, and I thought Illinois really in the last six to four to two minutes of the game stepped up and made the winning plays,” IU head coach Archie Miller said.
IU shot 39.7% from the field, missing 35 field goals. Since the Hoosiers were deficient in their offensive rebounding, they only scored five points off of second-chance opportunities.
Despite a new career-high 23 points from sophomore guard Armaan Franklin, the rest of the team didn’t step up to find the basket. Sophomore forward Trayce Jackson-Davis, who averages 20 points a game, only added 11 points — and he was the second-highest scorer for the Hoosiers.
Jackson-Davis was mostly shut down by 7-foot sophomore center Kofi Cockburn in the paint. Franklin said Cockburn alters a lot of shots because of his big, inside presence.
“Trayce had a tough time finishing around the basket, but he had a lot of good looks,” Miller said.
Two-point shots are the looks IU gets most often, and Miller said it was difficult for Jackson-Davis to finish at the rim with Cockburn in the paint. It was a big reason he only shot 3-13 from the field.
But Miller wasn’t disappointed with his team’s offense. He said only giving up eight turnovers was huge and he was really proud of the Hoosiers’ effort.
“Today was a positive, just in terms of taking care of the ball,” Miller said.
Instead of transition offense off of turnovers, the Illini pushed the ball when they secured defensive rebounds.
“They’re like a track team in terms of how fast the ball strikes down on the other end off of your miscues,” Miller said.
IU’s inability to finish around the rim and secure offensive boards then turned into really tough plays for them to defend on the other end of the floor.
Junior guard Ayo Dosunmu scored 30 points alone for the Illini, while Cockburn added 15. The two combined for 30 points in the second half.
And when the Hoosiers were able to stop the Illini on defense, they didn’t always turn it into offense. IU held Illinois to its lowest offensive output of the season at 29 points at halftime, but still went into the locker room down two points. Senior guard Al Durham said they need to capitalize off of defensive stops.
“I think our defense needs to translate to our offense more,” Franklin said. “I think when we do that, that’s when our scoring droughts will end.”
The game came down to scoring droughts, with IU only making one basket in its last seven possessions of the game.
“It’s a game of makes and misses,” Miller said. “They made theirs, we didn’t.”
IU will have its third conference test of the season against Penn State on Wednesday back at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
