After suffering back-to-back losses to close out February, the No. 11 Illinois Men’s basketball team (23-7, 14-5) closed out the regular season in Champaign with a dominant win against Oregon (11-19, 4-15). The Illini beat the Ducks 80 to 54 and honored senior players, AJ Redd, Kylan Boswell and Ben Humrichous.
Takeaways
Illinois: It started slowly for Illinois as they let Oregon get a six-point lead, but soon Illinois forced Oregon into contested shots and began to ride the momentum of the crowd. The Illini would go on to score 21 straight points and leave Oregon scoreless for five minutes in the first half. Freshman guard Keaton Wagler helped lead Illinois to a 20-point lead heading into halftime.
As the game went on, Illinois did not settle for the lead it had. As the second continued, Illinois went on another 15-point run to increase its lead to 30 points. With the time ticking away, Illinois clinched another win and ended its final home game of the season with a blowout victory.
Junior guard Andre Stojakovic led Illinois with 21 points and 12 rebounds.
Oregon: The Ducks tried to respond to Illinois’ huge run in the first half, but they could not get any shots to find the bottom of the net. Oregon turned the ball over four times in the first half and shot nine for 33 the entire first half. During Illinois’s 20-point run, Oregon missed 11 shots in a row. After not scoring for five minutes of game time, Oregon found itself down by 20. Senior center Nate Bittle tried to keep Oregon in position to come back with nine points in the first half.
After the break, Bittle started to become more aggressive and started the second half by scoring six points in five minutes. But as time went on, Oregon still could not make shots consistently, missing another seven consecutive shots in a row.
Bittle led Oregon in points with 15 on the night and three blocks.
Up Next
The Fighting Illini Men’s Basketball team will travel one last time to take on Maryland Sunday at 2 PM and close out the regular season.