Low Five: Wisconsin - BTT

Prior to this game, I threw out this little thought exercise on TwitterX…

I arrived at the 3.5 number while watching the Thursday evening Big Ten Tournament games with IlliniBoard/Slack channel subscriber/craft beer aficionado Ken. My original thought was “3” but Ken smartly suggested to add the hook to ensure that three wins would be in play instead of a push. The unfortunate part is that both of us were assuming a win was coming against Wisconsin the next day. The key question in our minds was “Do you think this Illini team can reach the Elite 8 in order to cash the over?” Oh, what naivety overconfidence breeds. Now, after Friday’s loss to Wisconsin, Illinois would have to reach the Final Four to get to four wins, and after this most recent late game collapse, such talk seems kind of silly.

Two separate 15 point leads - one in each half - and yet, somehow, another maddening overtime loss. Afterwards, Brad Underwood lamented his team’s inability to grab a crucial rebound or make a single free throw down the stretch - citing similar examples against Michigan State, UCLA, and the earlier game vs Wisconsin in Champaign.

He’s right, of course, but what I would like to talk about in this space today are the 10 minutes leading up to the final minute and overtime. Those crucial possessions and key factors - on both ends of floor which invited an overtime which never should have happened. So let’s get to the clips in this “HOW DID WE DO THIS AGAIN??!!” edition of low five:

1 - (60-45 Illinois - 10:51 left 2H):

Officiating. I‘m not going to turn this into a whine session on the officiating, but I’ll say this once: Illinois got an absolutely terrible whistle in this game. This sequence shows two strikingly similar plays - one in which a foul was whistled and one where it wasn’t. Four point swing. And that’s all I have to say about that.

2 - (60-47 Illinois - 10:27 left 2H):

Shot making vs shot missing. On one end of the floor you have a 30% three point shooter in Zvonimir Ivisic badly missing a wide open assisted stand still three point shot and on the other you have a 38% three point shooter drilling a three pointer on the move. Six point swing. I should note this was not great help defense by Big Z here. If he’s just one step further up the floor - he can prevent the three point attempt and still be in easy range to recover back to his man.

3 - (60-54 Illinois - 8:44 left 2H)/(62-56 Illinois - 7:54 left 2H):

Awareness. Focus. Kylan Boswell has three inches of his right foot over the three point line on this spot up. The butterfly effect is a thing here, but getting three here instead of two was no small thing in a game that was tied after 40 minutes.

The second clip? Just be locked in man. That can’t happen.

4 - (62-58 Illinois - 7:09 left 2H)

The foul line. Just another gigantic sequence here. Illinois gets maybe its only favorable call of the half on the Wagler slip, but he misses the front end and instead Wisconsin gets free throws on the other end after an equally lousy call against David Mirkovic. Another four point swing. Illinois would finish just 9/15 (60%) from the line in the game and left four points out there in the second half with two missed front ends in the bonus. Just a killer.

5 - (78-76 Illinois - :56.7 seconds left 2H)

Rebounding. Again. Andrej Stojakovic is in no man’s land here - basically guarding no one. He couldn’t have recovered to Blackwell in time if Boyd had looked to pass that way and he was also too far away to put a body on him on the rebound.

Here is an excerpt from my “low five” post after the first Wisconsin game:

“The defensive glass has been a problem…to get outscored in second chance points by a Wisconsin team who came into the game ranked in the bottom third of the conference in offensive rebounding percentage? Not good enough.”

Once again today, the effort on the glass wasn’t good enough and it cost us dearly down the stretch. In conference games, Illinois is the third best defensive rebounding team and Wisconsin is the eleventh best offensive rebounding team. Yet here they are grabbing the most important rebound of regulation on this possession and outscoring Illinois on second chance points for the second consecutive game.

Blackwell’s ensuing free throws tied the game and after empty possessions from each time in the final 50 seconds, this game went to OT and we all know what happened from there.

So now what to think on this Selection Sunday with our NCAA Tournament draw due in about five hours? Do you choose to believe in the team who was good enough to build substantial second half leads against Michigan State, UCLA, and Wisconsin (twice)? Or do you see this as the team who blew every one of those leads and went 0-4 in overtime in those games? Honestly, man, I just don’t know.

low five.