Indiana head coach Darian DeVries knew it would be an uphill battle to go into Illinois and come out with a win. It was an uphill battle indeed as the Hoosiers’ flaws were exploited in the Illini’s 71-51 win on Sunday afternoon. It is no secret that IU struggles with rebounding due to a lack of size on the interior and Illinois cleaned up like Windex on the glass Sunday.
“We we knew (rebounding) was the number one thing that we had to do a good job of if we were going to come in here and win. DeVries said after the game. “Illinois is one of the best rebounding teams in the country. and for good reason. They got great size. They go with some physicality. They go with effort. And if we we’re going to stay with them, we were going to have to limit that.”
The Hoosiers did not limit the Illini’s advantage on the boards and paid dearly for it.
The Illini dominated the offensive glass grabbing 15 rebounds, while IU only had 21 defensive rebounds, and turning them into 17 points.
“it was was really too much for us to overcome.” DeVries said. “We had to clean up that glass better so we could get our own transition opportunities and stuff. We had to play against a set defense so much of the time. So it just, that second half, caught up to us.”
The Hoosiers have struggled in this area all season and Sunday was the 14th time this season that IU had surrendered 10-or-more offensive rebounds.
“We just got to be tougher, more physical. That’s tough.” IU forward Sam Alexis said postgame. Alexis grabbed eight of Indiana’s 25 rebounds and scored 11 points on 5-9 shooting.
The size advantage was not the only reason why Illinois was able to dominate the boards. The Illini do a great job of putting their bigs in position to grab those rebounds as well.
“I think they they do a great job schematically with what they do. They they do a good job of of of hunting matchups and then but also when those shots go up, they do take a lot of threes. So you get long shots, long rebounds, and they’ve done a terrific job of creating those habits of guys going and going with force to go get the ball.” DeVries said
Hoosiers Struggle Shooting in the Second Half
Poor second halves were thought to be a thing of the past after IU had won five of their previous six games, but a bad second half doomed whatever chances IU had of keeping them in the game on Sunday.
The Hoosiers scored just 20 points and shot just 33.3% from the field (7-21). More concerning is the fact that just three different players scored in the scored half. IU has been successful recently because their offense has come from different sources.
DeVries said IU got some good looks at the basket, but did not knock the shots down.
“(The second half struggles) was a combination of both. I actually thought we had some really good possessions, got some pretty clean looks by by guys we weren’t taking them and and we didn’t make them.” DeVries said. “The problem was we couldn’t get enough stops to withstand it during that time and specifically the offensive rebounding on their end.”