On Wednesday night, Illinois defeated No. 11 Wisconsin 80-67 at State Farm Center to take over sole possession of first place in the Big Ten with a 9-2 record in their first 11 games.
Behind a career night from Kofi Cockburn in which he scored 37 points on 16-of-19 shooting with 12 rebounds, the Illini showed why they have all the tools to win the Big Ten’s regular season championship despite not having Cockburn for two games – a loss on the road at Maryland and a home win vs. Michigan State – and only having preseason third-team All-American Andre Curbelo for only three conference games.
It's the first week of February and Illinois basketball finally has all of their pieces, aside from Austin Hutcherson who will likely miss the rest of the season after undergoing a surgical procedure to remove an athletic hernia.
“Now that we have a full roster, I feel like our confidence is going to go through the roof and we’re going to keep chopping wood and getting better as a team and individually,” Cockburn said. “It just about growing right now as a team with the full roster that we have.”
That’s why Illinois is so scary – they finally have their full roster. No longer are the Illini forced to play games with Cockburn, Curbelo, Trent Frazier who have all missed games this season because of injury. But Illinois was able to overcome all of those injuries to still own a 16-5 overall record.
“There’s no doubt about that,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said about his excitement about the Illini’s roster finally having its stars available. “I feel great about Omar (Payne) and Ben (Bosmans-Verdonk), but let’s call it what it is – it’s pretty nice to have Kofi in the middle. Belo lived in the paint tonight. He’s a guy who played 12-13 minutes and we’ll work him back in as we go.
“(Curbelo) was invaluable because Trent picked up a couple of fouls. You’ve got a guy who no one has yet to stop – including Baylor last year – can stop him from getting in the paint. That stresses a defense. It’s nice to actually have a whole group and to work with them every day.”
Sure, it’s fair to question if this Illinois team will be able to fight off a February run from a Purdue team that came to Urbana-Champaign and beat the Illini 96-88 in double overtime on Martin Luther Kind Day. Purdue currently has a 19-3 overall record with an 8-3 Big Ten record. The Boilermakers rank ahead of the Illini in the AP Top-25, NCAA’s NET ranking and Kenpom.
But Purdue’s defense leaves a lot to be desired – it currently ranks 88th nationally in DER, according to Kenpom. The Boilermakers allowed Wisconsin star Johnny Davis to explode for 37 points, which led the Badgers to a major road upset over the Boilermakers.
Purdue’s backcourt also allowed an average at best Indiana backcourt of Rob Phinisee (20 points) and Xavier Johnson (18 points) to go for 38 combined points in a 68-65 loss upset loss at Assembly Hall to the Hoosiers.
Meanwhile, the Badgers surely aren’t out of the Big Ten Championship race even after losing to the Illini on Wednesday night. The Badgers have a favorable schedule ahead with only two games left – at Michigan State and at home vs. Purdue - on their schedule against teams currently ranked in the AP top-25.
Maybe it all comes down to the schedules that Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin and Michigan State have to play in the next handful of weeks, and the Illini have a doozy of one that includes tough games on the road at Indiana, Purdue and Michigan State. But why should there be any reason to believe that Illinois will struggle in their remaining Big Ten games?
The Illini have a 41-13 record against Big Ten opponents in the last three seasons, including the Big Ten Tournament – and in their last 26 games, they’re 23-3 in Big Ten play. Over the last two seasons, Illinois has a 12-3 record in Big Ten road games.
Illinois plays really well away from State Farm Center – they have for the last two seasons under Underwood. Their ‘roadkill’ mentality prepares them really well for tough environments, and the senior leadership of Frazier, Da’Monte Williams and Jacob Grandison has the rest of the locker room not satisfied with being in first place in early Feb.
“We worked really hard to be in first place, and we have to work even harder to stay in first place,” Grandison said. “Last year, we didn’t win the regular season championship, so firstly we want that one and then get back to that Big Ten (Tournament) Championship. It’s an amazing feeling to win a championship. … Just one thing at a time. We have practice tomorrow. Keep stacking every day. We know what our goals are.”
There might not be a team in the country that could improve as much as Illinois could in February. With the return of Curbelo, the Illini offense gets their primary facilitator back – and he gets to come off the bench and work his way back into the rotation at his own pace.
The Illini still have three shooters – Frazier, Alfonso Plummer and Grandison – who are shooting it at least 34.5 percent from three this season. Plus, their three freshman – Luke Goode, RJ Melendez and Brandin Podziemski – are starting to come into their own and have started to contribute in recent wins over Michigan State and Northwestern.
“We’ve got to continue to get better on the glass,” Underwood said. “We got to continue to get better defensively. We can’t have lapses like we did tonight (vs. Wisconsin) and nights where we don’t’ have the right fight. But our bench tonight really gave us a nice lift. Luke, RJ, Belo, Omar is right there in the first half gave us a good lift, some good minutes. But I’m pleased. Those guys have to stay confident, keep working and their time is coming.”
But what the Illini learned in the early months of the season when Cockburn, Curbelo, Frazier and others were missing games with injuries or illness is that for them to win basketball games they needed to play really, really hard. With all the pieces coming back into form, Illinois will likely play just hard – but with more talent on the court.
“I think most nights we fight really, really, really hard,” Underwood said. “I think they care enough about each other to do that. There are a lot of really talented teams. There’s a lot of basketball left. We’ve dealt with so much adversity, I think it’s helped us draw closer.”
And that’s why the road to winning the Big Ten regular season Championship currently goes through Champaign, Illinois.
