No Ayo, No Roadkill: Rutgers Dominates No. 22 Illinois 72-57
Even with Ayo Dosunmu in the lineup, Illinois was having recent struggles creating easy offense. Without its star player Saturday at Rutgers, the problem certainly didn’t get any better.
In a frustrating 72-57 loss to the Scarlet Knights, Illinois got little offense off the dribble without Dosunmu, who leads the Illini in scoring at 15.8 points per game, and its four starting guards (Trent Frazier, Andres Feliz, Alan Griffin and Da’Monte Williams) ended the evening shooting just 9 of 34 from the field.
Without our alpha, we competed, but you can't shoot 26 percent on the road and win,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said. “We took way too many threes. You can't shoot 28 threes on the road and expect to win. We forced some late. Their defense has great length on the perimeter with Yeboah and Baker. Trent's not going to go 2-for-13 very often."
Despite making the trip to New Jersey, Dosunmu was not active Saturday after being categorized by his head coach as “day to day” following the injury Tuesday night in the loss to Michigan State.
Following the loss, Illinois (16-9, 8-6 in Big Ten) is next-to-last in the conference in scoring in league play games and has the worst field goal percentage (39.8 percent) among the league’s 14 teams. The Illini haven’t finished a game shooting over 45 percent in a 40-minute contest since Dosunmu hit the game-winning shot in a 64-62 win at Michigan on Jan. 25.
“We took some really bad shots, and (the mistakes) compounded each other,” Underwood said. “We're usually able to put the ball in Ayo's hands, and it was evident we couldn't get much going because of that."
Rutgers (18-8, 9-6) was led by Ron Harper Jr.’s game-high 27 points as the son of the former 15-year NBA veteran reached the 20-point plateau for the fourth time this season and fifth time in his career.
In the previous five games, Harper was only converting on 3 of 18 shots from beyond the three-point arc but on Saturday he made each of his five attempts from three-point range.
“It was Ron's night and we got him the basketball and I think that's what makes us a good team. It's been different players' nights, different games, we seem to embrace the success someone else has and that's a sign of a good team,” Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell said. “We're living in a 'selfie' world and we're playing a team sport. When they embrace someone else's success, I think it's great."
With the win, Rutgers improved to a nation's best 17-0 at home. The last Big Ten program to boast a 17-0 home record was Indiana in the 2015-16 season.
“These guys (the players) are why we're 17-0. They've sacrificed, they've played the defense, they don't care who starts,” Pikiell said. “To get them to all be connected like that is very important and that's how you can do things like 17-0."
In his first start of the 2019-20 season and only second of his college career, Alan Griffin led the Illini with 14 points but was 0 of 5 on two-point attempts throughout the evening. Griffin got the start Saturday as Illinois went with a four-guard lineup on the opening tip forcing sophomore Giorgi Bezhanishvili to the bench for the first time since arriving at Illinois.
“We needed to let him settle down and see the game from the bench,” Underwood said. “Giorgi is a terrific player and he's going to have a great career. We wanted him to see how the game was going, keep his emotions in check and insert him in. He impacted the game today with seven rebounds. We have to get him more than four shots."
Illinois, which will likely fall out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time since entering national rankings on Jan. 13, will try to end its four-game losing streak when they head to No. 13 Penn State on Tuesday night.