On Tuesday night, after Alfonso Plummer hit his first three-point attempt, he shot an arrow with his arms and held up three fingers as he proceeded to get back on defense.

After his second, he turned to the Illini bench and said “I got my swagger back” and after he buried his third consecutive trey ball he was swarmed by teammates as he went back to the bench after a Kansas State timeout.

Plummer’s seven three-pointers, a number that ties him for the second-most ever made in a game by an Illinois player, helped propel the Illini to a 72-64 victory over Kansas State and former Illinois head coach Bruce Weber in the third-place game of the Hall of Fame Classic in Kanas City.

A transfer from Utah, Plummer, entered Tuesday night’s game shooting just 5-for-18 from three-point land, a rough start for a player who entered the season with a career 39.9 percent rate from behind the arc. But some of his shots were just barely rimming out and others just weren’t the best selection. That, and some poor defense, led to Plummer not getting on the court until the 9:39 mark of the first half.

One of his first plays was actually a bad pass that led to a turnover, but he and Andre Curbelo hustled back on defense to alter a shot at the rim and Illinois was able to recover from the bad pass without any major damage.

Illinois needed a spark. They had opened up an early lead for the second consecutive night, but they had seen their offense go cold for the second straight night too. That’s where Plummer’s three-point shooting came. After a six-minute stretch without a single field goal, which led to Kanas State taking an 18-16 lead the Puerto Rican offered the energy boost that the Illini needed with a trio of trey balls.

“I’ve been working on my shots,” Plummer said after the game. “I know I was kind of off early in the season, so I have to find a way to help the team. I was working extra hours in the gym. Finally, when I made the first one, I thought: ‘Okay, I feel like I’m back.’ That’s why I started screaming when I made the second one. I was like, ‘I’m back!’

Illinois doesn’t lack confidence, although their confidence might have taken some of a hit after the 20-point termination they took on Monday night in the first round of the Hall of Fame Class at the hands of Cincinnati. After a cold start to the season, Plummer’s confidence took a hit too. But shooters will shoot – and that’s what Plummer did.

“I thought he was pretty good,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said after the game with a big smile. “He’s capable. To be honest, he’s been struggling and it’s been frustrating – as we all have. We’ve all been struggling. But I bet in the last week he’s shot six, seven thousand balls. That’s the kind of stuff that gets him going.”

Tuesday night was the first time that Illinois had seen the microwave scoring ability that makes him a potent offensive player. Back in March of 2020, Plummer hit 11-of-16 threes against Oregon State in the Pac-12 Tournament, it’s the most prolific outing he’s had as a college player. Nights like that – and nights of seven made threes like Tuesday – likely aren’t going to become the norm for Plummer this season. But knocking down the big shots is something that he can do on a consistent basis.

Making the big ones is what Plummer did on Tuesday night. In the last six minutes against Kansas State, Plummer buried two threes. The first, with 5:57 left in the game, gave Illinois a 62-49 lead. The second, at the 4:15 mark, increased the Illinois lead to 52-65 on a pass from Coleman Hawkins. Plummer also made another three around the mid-way point of the second half on a kick-out pass from Kofi Cockburn.

“He always calls me ‘gunman.’ He said a gunman is a man who always scores when he’s open,” Plummer said of his relationship with Cockburn. “We all that they’re going to double, triple-team Kofi. Coach has been telling him: ‘You can get 20 or 30 if you want. If you want this team to win, you got to spread it because there are going to be open shooters in the corner, on wings. He understands that. He’s a smart guy. He’s a smart player. … He’s got that confidence in me.”

Plummer finished Tuesday night’s game with 21 points of 7-of-9 three-point shooting. It’s the most made three-pointers for an Illini since Trent Frazier buried seven against Wisconsin back in February of 2018 when he was a freshman.

With Frazier suffering an injury to his left leg in the second half on Tuesday, Plummer could see his role increase in the coming games should Frazier be forced to miss games with the injury. Plummer’s microwave scoring is something that the Illini could rely on in Frazier’s absence.

“I felt that confidence back,” Plummer said. “I’m glass that happened.”