Illinois made a desperate comeback against No. 22 Ohio State on Thursday night at State Farm Center, but they came up just short in their efforts before falling 86-83 to the visiting Buckeyes.

Orange and Blue News' Alec Busse returns with his Five Film Favorites series highlighting five of his favorite plays from Thursday's game.

Countless times this season Illinois has run a baseline out-of-bounds play to get Alfonso Plummer a shot from the corner. In this play, Illinois throws a wrinkle into the set they have run a bunch this season by using a double screen from Luk Goode and Omar Payne to get Plummer open coming off the curl. GIve Malaki Branham credit though for fighting through the screens and being able to get back in front of Plummer. But the Illini's best shooter uses a great pump fake into a side-step dribble to get one of his eight threes to fall.

If you're curious as to where Illinois is their weakest on defense, it's in ball screen coverage when the man setting the screen has the ability to pick-and-pop like Ohio State's Kyle Young and E.J. Liddell both do. This is the second three of the first half that Young hit on a pick-and-pop and it's actually the same action run to the opposite side of the court.

The reason Illinois is suspect in this area is that Kofi Cockburn can't play defense on the perimeter against players who can handle the basketball. Instead, he's forced to play drop coverage. That leaves the shooter open for a good look. Young makes him pay.

It will be interesting to see if more teams try to attack Illinois the way Ohio State did on Thursday night because it's odd that more teams haven't attacked Illinois this way.

So there are a couple of things that I want to highlight on this play. First, Andre Curbelo made an incredible behind-the-back pass to save an Alfonso Plummer airball from going out of bounds. Curbelo might not have needed to go behind the back, but that's what he does. Second, give credit to Coleman Hawkins for driving into the lane and collapsing the defense. This allows Plummer to get open for another triple.

Here's another ball screen action that Illinois gets beat on, but this time by Malaki Branham who eventually scored a game-high 31 points. Branham and Kyle Young play a nice two-man game here with Trent Frazier and Kofi Cockburn defending.

You can see after the second screen set by Young that Cockburn starts to drop back down into coverage. But when Young pops out to the three-point line, that leaves the lane wide open because he begins to step out. Branham is then able to get an easy dunk with the left hand. This is a defensive breakdown by Cockburn, something that he was guilty of a lot on Thursday night.

Another defensive strategy that Illinois has adopted the last two seasons is to force their opponents to make tough twos. Generally, this is a fantastic strategy for a couple of reasons. One, two points from 15-feet away is the same as two points at the rim. Second, two points is obviously less than three points. The issue with this strategy, however, is really good players will often make difficult twos. That's something that E.J. Liddell has excelled at since he was starring at Belleville West High School.

In this play, Liddell simply elevates over Da'Monte Williams while burying the jumper. Liddell's not an elite athlete. But look how much elevation he gets on this jumper. That's impossible for Williams to defend because he's simply not tall enough.