Adam & Ayo: All-American & Freshman Shine as No. 8 Illini Dismantle North Carolina A&T 122-60
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- In the first game of a highly anticipated season, Ayo Dosunmu and Adam Miller were determined to just outscore North Carolina A&T by themselves.
After the first half of his collegiate debut, Miller and Illinois’ season opponent were deadlocked at 19 points. By the time both players had exited the game with 4:30 left, the duo of Miller and Dosunmu (who were teammates at Morgan Park High School in Chicago three years ago) had bested North Carolina A&T 56-52.
"I'm real comfortable. I've seen the guys on this team for a long time now from afar and so I know what they do and they know me," Miller said. "Coming in here, my job was finding my spot and getting coherent with everybody. It's never too early to start out like this."
Illinois Fighting Illini guard Adam Miller (44) goes up for a shot against North Carolina A&T Aggies forward Jeremy Robinson (1) during the first half at the State Farm Center. Miller finished with 28 points in the 122-60 win.
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In the 121-58 blowout that looked as easy for the No. 8 team in the country as the score indicates, Illinois showcased everything that a preseason Top 10 team would want in its first game.
Miller finished with a team-high 28 points in 26 minutes of action. Miller, the 2020 Illinois Mr. Basketball selection and Top 30 nationally prospect, proved he brought his natural skill of scoring and shooting to the college level by knocking down 6 of 8 from 3-point range. The Peoria native got the call to start in his first game at State Farm Center, which was without fans in the stands due to the coronavirus pandemic, and didn’t disappoint by scoring six of the Illini’s first eight points. Before the first media timeout of the second half, Miller had the freshman debut scoring record, which stood for 10 years after Brandon Paul’s 22 points against Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
Miller's 28 points tied for the 10th-highest scoring performance by an Illini freshman player matching Deon Thomas, who was in the building doing radio color commentary.
The biggest knock against last year’s version of the Illini, which was slated to qualify for the NCAA tournament selection if not for COVID-19 shutting down all postseason, was its inability to consistently hit outside perimeter shots. In its first game of the 2020-21 campaign, Illinois (1-0) attempted to answer those questions by hitting 17 of 31 from beyond the 3-point arc.
"We were a better shooting team than we showed a year ago," Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said Wednesday. "Maybe it was the new (3-point) line and the arc being moved back but Trent (Frazier) is an elite shooter and Ayo has been a great shooter in his career as well. So, yeah, we also set out to change that (perception) in recruiting and obviously Adam is an elite shooter."
Illinois matched the school’s single-game 3-point shooting record by draining 17 in the contest and was just five off the school single-game points record of 127 set on Dec. 22, 1988 at LSU by the 'Flying Illini' 88-89 team that reached the Final Four.
Illinois Fighting Illini guard Ayo Dosunmu (11) hits a three point shot during the first half against the North Carolina A&T Aggies at the State Farm Center.
Patrick Gorski/USA TODAY Sports
Dosunmu, the preseason first-team All-America selection who spurned the NBA Draft for his junior season in Champaign, executed exactly what draft analysts would want to see in his 26 minutes of action. The former All-Big Ten selection and co-captain on this squad knocked down 5 of 8 from 3-point range, posted 28 points, looked normally dominant in transition and played some point guard when Underwood wanted to go with a bigger lineup.
"Ayo works so hard that you're never in shock when success comes his way," Underwood said. "If the saying is good things happen to those who work hard, well, Ayo Dosunmu works really hard. From the time our (19-20) season ended and what he thought might be a NBA run, he was always in a gym getting up a lot of shots. We've seen him light it up and he does this everyday."
North Carolina A&T (0-1), which was sent home with a 95-64 loss in Champaign last year, were befuddled by Illinois’ defensive effort into missing 17 of its first 19 shots and seeing nearly a 9-minute scoring drought essentially end the game before the third media timeout.
The game was the Illini’s first in a three games in three days stretch of its season-opening, holiday week multi-team event that will also feature matchups versus Chicago State (Thursday, 11 a.m.) and Ohio (Friday, noon).
Underwood said in his preseason media conference that he wanted to see his team’s versatility and got a lot of what he asked for as Illinois finished with 37 fast break points while also dominating points in the paint 46-24 and the offensive glass 16-3.
Kofi Cockburn began a new string of double-double efforts as the 2020 Big Ten Freshman of the Year selection finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds.
