The Illinois Fighting Illini (19-13, 9-9 B1G) had an early exit from this year’s 2015 Big Ten Tournament and mostly likely saw their Big Dance hopes come to an end as well. The Fighting Illini couldn’t seem to shake off Michigan’s big runs early on, the Wolverines went on a runs of 12-0, 12-0, 19-2 and well yeah the Wolverines (16-15, 8-10 B1G) just about single handily picked apart the entire Illinois defense.
“Obviously we're disappointed we didn't play very well today. Certainly don't want to take anything away from Michigan. I thought they were terrific. We didn't have any answers for stopping them. I didn't think our defense was very good. When we've been good this year, our defense has been good, and we just didn't have any answers on that end of the floor, and when we played well here late, we've been able to get stops, and we weren't able to do that today very successfully,” said Illinois head coach John Groce.
The first half started out scoreless through the first 2 minutes until Michigan’s Aubrey Dawkins connected on an easy FG to break the 0-0 tie. The offensive pressure and defensive awareness seemed absent for majority of the game for John Groce’s squad, they had 3 or 4 air balls within the first 3 minutes of play and they were putting shots up way too early in the shot clock. The Illini ended the half shooting 1-11 from the floor and went into the break trailing Michigan by a score of 40-23. The Illini had just five assists on 22 baskets, with 40 of their 55 points coming in the paint. The woes ended up continuing for the Orange and Blue throughout the remainder of the game as they shot an overall 37.3% from the field and they finished the game with only one three pointer.
Sophomore G Malcolm Hill led Illinois with 13 points, including a perfect 6-for-6 performance at the free throw line. Senior guard Rayvonte Rice tallied 10 points and added a team-best nine rebounds.
“We’re disappointed in the way we played. We practiced better than that, and there was just a point where we didn’t come out—we came out, we punched back once they struck first, but there was a point where we could make the second effort to come back,” said Illinois senior center Nnanna Egwu.
The 18-point win is Michigan’s largest margin of victory over a Big Ten opponent this season. Wolverine sophomore guard Zak Irvin contributed 14 points and a career-high six assists.
“We came up with a great start, up 14‑2 and Illinois was able to make their run, but I think we were able to stay connected and stay together and were able counter that run and make ours.” said Irvin.
Irvin was 2-of-5 from long range, giving him a three-point basket in all 31 games this season and 59 of 68 career games.
“Really proud of our team because we know Illinois is a very good team. We've been seeing some things in practice over the last couple of weeks that showed some growth, even though we may not have seen that in a couple of our losses at the end of this year,” Michigan’s head coach John Beilein commented.
Michigan will play the University of Wisconsin tomorrow afternoon in the quarterfinals at 12 PM ET.