What to Expect: Illinois at Indiana
Indiana will try to bounce back from Saturday’s 85-60 loss to Iowa when it hosts Illinois tonight at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. The Fighting Illini are 12-4 overall and 4-2 in Big Ten play.
Tuesday’s game will tip at 7 p.m. ET on Peacock:
(Sign up for a Peacock subscription to watch the IU men host Illinois on Tuesday and the IU women host Illinois on Thursday.)
Indiana’s five-game winning streak was snapped Saturday night when Iowa crushed the Hoosiers at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. It was the program’s worst regular-season Big Ten defeat under Mike Woodson.
The schedule only gets more difficult for the Hoosiers from here. Indiana hosts No. 19 Illinois tonight and the Fighting Illini are coming off a surprising 82-72 loss to USC on Saturday at the State Farm Center. It’s a crucial week for Brad Underwood’s team, which is hoping to state in the thick of the Big Ten title race. Illinois travels to Michigan State on Sunday.
For Indiana, it’s an opportunity for a resume win against a program currently ranked in the top 15 of KenPom. The Hoosiers have just one Quad 1 victory this season and each of their next 10 contests currently fall in Quad 1.
MEET THE FIGHTING ILLINI
Underwood is one of the top coaches in the Big Ten. He rebuilt the Illini roster after a significant roster turnover in the offseason. The Illini reached the Elite Eight in the 2024 NCAA tournament but fell to eventual national champion UConn.
Among the notable losses from last season’s roster are Marcus Domask, Terrence Shannon Jr., Coleman Hawkins, Quincy Guerrier, Luke Goode and Dain Dainja. Ty Rodgers is on this season’s roster in Champaign but is redshirting.
This Illinois roster is a mix of elite freshmen, a sophomore big man in his first season of college hoops and several key transfer portal additions.
Freshman point guard Kasparas Jakucionis is the team’s leading scorer. However, he missed the last two games due to a forearm injury. Illinois beat Penn State by 39 in Champaign without Jakucionis, but his absence was felt in the loss to USC.
The 6-foot-6 point guard from Lithuania averages 16.4 points on 49.6 percent shooting. He’s 29-for-70 (41.4 percent) on 3s and 63-for-72 (87.5 percent) from the free throw line. Jakucionis is fifth in the Big Ten in assist rate and averages 5.4 assists per game. He’s also third in rebounding at 5.6 per game.
Joining Jakucionis in the backcourt is Arizona transfer Kylan Boswell. The 6-foot-2 guard is a Champaign native who played his first two seasons with IU big man Oumar Ballo in Tucson. Boswell has struggled with his perimeter shooting. He’s just 18-for-68 (26.5 percent) from distance. Over the last two games, Boswell has committed 11 turnovers. He’s an excellent defender who can pressure the ball and turn opponents over. Boswell is currently eighth in the league in steal rate and has had eight steals over the last two games.
Louisville transfer Tre White is the team’s third-leading scorer at 11.3 points per game. The 6-foot-7 junior struggled last season under Kenny Payne, but Underwood and the Illini staff have turned him into an efficient scorer. White is making 63.4 percent of his 2s and is an 89.3 percent free throw shooter.
Evansville transfer Ben Humrichous is an elite shooter who began his career at Huntington University and has steadily worked his way up the ladders of college hoops. The Tipton native has taken 96 of his 125 field goal attempts from 3 and is shooting 37.5 percent from distance. At 6-foot-9, Humrichous has excellent size at the four.
Croatian big man Tomislav Ivisic is a matchup nightmare at 7-foot-1. The sophomore is mobile, can stretch the floor and is an efficient finisher. Ivisic leads Illinois in rebounding with 8.6 per game and is second in scoring at 12.8 points per game. He shoots 35.8 percent on 3s and 62.1 percent on 2s. His mobility will likely be an issue for Ballo, who must guard him away from the basket.
The key reserves for the Illini are freshman Will Riley, sophomore Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn and freshman Morez Johnson Jr.
Riley is a projected first-round pick in June’s NBA draft. He reclassified up to the 2024 class and doesn’t turn 19 until next month. Riley is averaging 10.9 points in 21.9 minutes per game off the bench.
Gibbs-Lawhorn is a Lafayette native who gained valuable experience on last season’s Elite Eight team and has taken on a bigger role this year. Gibbs-Lawhorn is 28-for-39 (71.8 percent) on 2s and is an excellent free throw shooter at 77.8 percent.
Johnson was a top 35 recruit out of Chicago in the 2024 class who is a capable scorer and excellent rebounder in his first season. He averages 5.8 points and shoots 64.8 percent while grabbing 6.6 rebounds per game, which is second on the team. Johnson averages just 14.7 minutes per game.
TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW
(Notes: All national rankings in the chart and the text below are through Sunday’s games.)
Illinois is an elite defensive team, ranking 11th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metrics. Opponents are only assisting on 39.8 percent of their field goals against the Illini and Underwood’s team is excellent at forcing opponents into tough, contested looks.
Illinois ranks in the top 30 in offensive rebounding percentage and fifth in defensive rebounding percentage. The Illini also excel at defending without fouling and rank 41st nationally in opponent free throw rate.
Offensively, Illinois is an average 3-point shooting team (33.1 percent) and in the top 40 nationally in 2-point field goal percentage (57.1). Jakucionis’s status looms large, as the Illini are a different team offensively when he’s available to play.
WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO
The KenPom projection is Illinois by five, with a 33 percent chance of a Hoosier victory. Bart Torvik’s rankings favor the Illini by six, with a 30 percent chance of an IU victory.
Indiana has held serve at home this season (10-0), but this is the first game at Assembly Hall against an opponent ranked higher than 68 in KenPom. Illinois already has two Big Ten road wins and needs Tuesday’s game to avoid falling three games behind Michigan and Michigan State in the loss column in the Big Ten race.
For Indiana, a win would give the Hoosiers a second Quad 1 win and momentum going into Friday’s road trip to Columbus. The health of Jakucionis is a significant storyline on Tuesday. Illinois is a different team with its star point guard. If he’s unable to play, it would be the second time in less than two weeks that a Hoosier opponent is without its best guard (Dylan Harper).
Rebounding and avoiding prolonged scoring droughts will be pivotal for the Hoosiers to prevail. The Illini are one of the nation’s best rebounding teams and can play suffocating defense. IU’s guards will need to excel at attacking drop coverage in the pick-and-roll and be much sharper defensively than they were in Saturday’s blowout loss at Iowa.
Filed to: Illinois Fighting Illini