I was going to lead this post with the statement that Sunday's 72-53 loss to Ohio St. was the worst Illini home loss of the Bruce Weber era. That is, until I read Mark Tupper's blog post last night and realized it was not just the worst home loss of the Weber era, but the worst Illini home loss since January 1976.Holy Lou Henson!
That's not a good way to start the stretch run of the Big Ten schedule.
I came away with a couple competing thoughts from the game. On the one hand, after watching Ohio St.'s performance against the Illini, I'd venture that they are a national title contender. They have an extremely talented starting five and, with the possible exception of a matchup against John Wall and Kentucky, will have the best player on the court no matter who they play (that would be Evan Turner for those lucky enough not to have watched Sunday's game). If David Lighty and Jon Diebler are hitting shots and making dagger plays like they did Sunday, and it is conceivable they could go on a run of 4 or 5 or 6 games playing as well as they did Sunday, and Dallas Lauderdale continues to man up in the post and snag rebounds and putbacks, I'd put this Ohio St. squad up against anyone.
On the other hand, Illinois played Sunday's game like my Grandma's rec league team (note: my Grandma doesn't even have a rec league team). I'm pretty sure I, like Jon Diebler, would have hit 6 of 11 threes against that threadbare Illini perimeter defense. Not to mention that not one Illini could make a shot on the offensive end. Demetri, D.J. Richardson and Chris Paul made it look like Thad Matta invented the 1-3-1 defense minutes before the game. News flash: there's a reason not many teams play a 1-3-1 zone ... and that reason is it has wholesale weaknesses against strong guards who can push the ball up the court, swing it around the perimeter and either find a big man on the weak side post or hit an open shot resulting from a late-rotating defender.
But I'll give credit to Matta and the Ohio St. players. They took advantage of the freshmen Illini guards and schooled them.
My only hope is that Ohio St. used up its juice in this more or less meaningless game and now the Illini can learn from the loss and bring the fury in their next meeting.
