We held on for the win, defending the home court again. Box Score Tonight's game against Michigan State almost showed the Illini give up a late lead due to a horrible night shooting free throws (16 of 31) and another relatively cold night shooting from the field (40%).
The team's defensive effort was mostly solid, with McBride and Frazier doing a nice job on Neitzel, holding him to only 10 points on the night. Offensively, Pruitt, Frazier and McBride were the players who kept the Illini in the lead. Pruitt is playing inspired basketball down low, even though he looks like Shaq from the line. Randle, Carter and Smith mostly struggled on the offensive end. Carter in particular was disappointing, since he suffered several obvious defensive lapses and did another disappearing act on offense, other than a late drive to the hoop for a reverse layup. Randle and Smith seem bothered by their injuries again, but provided some minutes. Coach Weber used a longer rotation of 9 players tonight which seemed to keep them fresh against Michigan State.
Defensive rebounding was a very weak spot tonight for the Illini, where they took down only 16 boards when MSU missed. This level of defensive rebounding will not win many games the rest of the year.
Steve Lavin feels the Illini will have to win 5 of their last 7 games to make the NCAAs. This would mean defending home court for 3 games, and winning 2 away games, most likely at Northwestern and Penn State. This would provide the Illini with 21 wins going into the Big 10 tournament, and a chance to gain one of the final spots. I wish I felt more confident in this team's ability to play on the road. At least Northwestern has the feel of a neutral court most years, with many Chicago-area Illini fans showing up for that game. Next up, Minnesota on Saturday.
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