Illini’s Second Half Rally Falls Short in Columbus

January 23, 2008
John Brumbaugh

weber_ohio_state.jpgColumbus, OH has not been kind to Bruce Weber since he took over the head coaching job in Champaign. After Tuesday night’s defeat, the Illini are 1-3 in Columbus under Bruce Weber with the only win coming in the 2003-2004 season’s final game when the Illini clinched their first outright Big Ten Championship since 1952 on a Deron Williams free throw.

There were ominous signs from the start of Tuesday’s game that it was going to be another bad night for the Illini in the Value City Arena as right before tip off it was announced that Shaun Pruitt would not play due to disciplinary reasons. The Illini, a team that struggles to score already, would be playing without their leading scorer and rebounder. The discipline was stated to have nothing to do with the law or grades, so through some deductive reasoning, one should assume that it had to do with the player rumored to gave gone off in the locker room on his teammates after the Purdue game.

Without Shaun Pruitt, freshman Mike Tisdale received the first start of his Illini career, and he had one of Illinois; only three baskets in the first ten minutes of play with a slam dunk on a beautifully run secondary break after an Ohio State three-pointer. As expected, the Buckeyes came out in a 2-3 zone and forced the Illini to beat them from the outside, and the Illini couldn’t do it, especially in the first ten minutes of the game. For those ten minutes the only Illini offense was two three pointers from Trent Meacham and Tisdale’s dunk. The Illini were three-for-ten to start the game, but luckily the Buckeyes couldn’t score either and after ten minutes the Illini were just down 13-8, well within striking distance.

Over the final ten minutes of the first half it looked like the Buckeyes were trying to pull away, but Rodney Alexander would not let them. Alexander scored ten of his team and game high in the final ten minutes of the half, single handedly keeping the Illini’s half time deficit to just ten. The most disappointing play of the first half was with thirty-one seconds left in the half the Illini executed a perfect offensive set and had Brian Randle cutting straight to the basket wide open for a dunk only it hit the back of the rim. The play capped off what would be one of the worst halves of basketball the Illini played all season, and definitely in Big Ten Conference play.

With Bruce Weber trying to find a lineup that would put some points on the board, he started the second half with Rodney Alexander and Chester Frazier instead of starters Calvin Brock and Demetri McCamey, respectively. But the adjustment to the lineup didn’t work as planned, and the Illini looked like they were headed to a repeat of the game between these two teams in Champaign in the Big Ten opener. The Buckeyes built up a 50-35 lead with just over ten minutes remaining in the game, and the announcing crew of Dave Revsine, Gene Keady, and Jim Jackson were begging viewers to stay tuned because the game wasn’t quite over yet.

Well, they were right. Instead of watching the Buckeyes turn a seven point lead with four-minutes left in the game to a sixteen point win like they did less than a month ago in Champaign, the Illini were the team that went on the run. Over the last 10:04 in the game, the Illini outscored the Buckeyes 23-14. With just thirty seconds left on the clock, the Illini were down three and they had just fouled freshman Kosta Kuofos to put him on the free throw line. Kuofos missed both free throws, but David Lighty got around Calvin Brock for the offensive rebound. Lighty knocked down both free throws to give Ohio State a 63-58 lead. Koufos would add on one more free throw to end the game’s scoring, and give Ohio State a 64-58 win, snapping their three game losing streak.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

  • After being Illinois’ most consistent player since the trip to Maui, Calvin Brock has played his two worst games of the season in Illinois’ losses to Purdue and Ohio State. Not only did he not box out David Lighty on what was the key play in the end of game situation, but he also had his second straight game of five turnovers and was just generally not good on the court for the Illini.
  • Brian Randle has been a double double machine. Tuesday night was the third straight double double for Randle as he scored 13 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Brian probably wants to forget his first half in which he went 1-for-11 from the floor, and capped it off with a missed dunk. But in the second half he just missed one shot from the floor, and provided some defensive energy not seen from the Illini in Big Ten play bodying up Kuofos on the perimeter.
  • It was good to see Bill Cole in the game on Tuesday night. Bruce Weber was looking for some offense in the second half, and when he looked down the bench he saw good ole’ number 30 sitting there. He inserted Bill Cole and he made a three pointer cutting the Ohio State lead to 55-46 with 4:31 left in the game.
  • The Illini came into the game with a game plan of stopping Jamar Butler, and it succeeded. After dropping 32 points on the Illini in Champaign, Butler scored just seven points. The Illini were not going to let Butler beat them himself, and the defense was geared towards stopping him, and that is what it did.

OFFENSE / DEFENSE SUBSTITUTION QUESTIONS …
There was definitely some interesting offensive / defensive substitutions by the Illini in the final two minutes of the game. Weber was using Jeff Jordan and Calvin Brock for defensive purposes and Trent Meacham and Rodney Alexander for offensive purposes. Jordan was inserted in the game right after Brian Randle converted on a traditional three-point play to cut the Ohio State lead to five, and he quickly fouled David Lighty without any time getting off the clock (so he could not be pulled from the game under rules since he didn’t get :01 of playing time). Lighty missed the following free throw, and Weber decided to go with his defensive lineup on offense in the ensuing possession which led to Brian Randle’s only missed shot of the second half.

After the Illini quickly fouled Othello Hunter who rebounded Randle’s miss, Alexander and Meacham were re-inserted into the game. Alexander hit a three pointer with 1:52 left on the clock and the Illini quickly took their fourth timeout of the game, leaving them with one timeout. The question I have here is why did Weber not use this timeout to set up an offensive play and get in his scorers, instead of using it to make defensive substitutions after a made basket? That was one missed possession with the offensive players in the game.

The next question substitution at the end of the game was a difficult one to handle. Brian Randle made a layup to cut the Buckeye lead to three with :32 left on the clock, and Weber called his final timeout to set up the defense for the Illini, and substitute in Calvin Brock and Jeff Jordan. After the Buckeye’s inbounded the ball to Kuofos, he was quickly fouled by Calvin Brock. Unlike the possession described above where Jeff Jordan fouled Lighty without a second coming off the clock, two seconds came off the clock, so Weber could have removed both Jordan and Brock from the game to get his offensive scorers in the game. He didn’t, and we know what happened next.

Yes, Calvin Brock should have boxed out David Lighty and pulled down the rebound giving the Illini thirty seconds to get a shot off for the tie (or a quick two and then hoping Ohio State wouldn’t hit both of their free throws). But the team the Illini would have had on the floor for that final offensive possession would not have been the “offensive team” in the offense / defense substitutions, it would have been the “defensive team”. Why?

Let me ask this again … why would Rodney Alexander have been on the bench in this situation when you have zero timeouts (you used your last one to set up the defense right before the missed rebound chance) and he has been your best player on the night? If the rebound was pulled down, you didn’t have a timeout to get him in the game … so you would have been without him for that possession. Honestly, it makes no sense.