Good Morning, Illini Nation An ideal offensive performance

Nov. 5—Illinois’ performance in its 112-67 victory against Eastern Illinois on Monday at State Farm Center epitomized offensive basketball in the year 2024. The Illini scored 28 points in the paint, 34 points at the free throw line and 48 points from three-point range.

That’s 110 of the 112 points scored in blowing out the Panthers. The other two? One mid-range jump shot from freshman Will Riley as part of his 31-point debut. Riley, in fact, took the only two shots for Illinois that weren’t in the paint or from three-point range. Two shots out of 64 that weren’t a layup or a three.

“I’ll have to run him,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood joked after the game. “That’s all we talk about — threes, layups or paint shots. We play a shot selection game, which has completely different scoring than the game of basketball does based on where you shoot the shots and how you get them. It’s making players aware of those good and bad shots.

“(Monday) was 46 free throws, 42 threes. I hope we have a night where we have 50 three-point attempts and make 25 of them. It’s what this team is made to do and what we’re trying to help them do. We shot poorly in the first half, and the numbers are pretty good.”

Illinois shot 38 percent from the field overall in the first half and made just 28 percent of its three-pointers. The second half saw the Illini shoot 57 percent overall and 46 percent from beyond the arc.

“The first half we missed a lot of good looks that we normally make, but we got 50 percent of our misses back, which was a positive,” Underwood said.

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/good-morning-illini-nation-ideal-154800571.html

Author : The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Publish date : 2024-11-05 15:48:00

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