Three Key Observations From Illinois WBB's 81-69 Victory Over North Texas

The Illinois women’s basketball team picked up an 81-69 win over North Texas on Sunday at State Farm Center in Champaign, improving to 10-1 on the season. It wasn’t a blowout, and it wasn’t flawless, but it was a solid non-conference victory against a North Texas team that came in with experience and a winning record. The Illini controlled most of the game, did enough offensively to create separation and avoided letting things get uncomfortable late.

Today's win marked the 200th Division I win of Coach Green's career!

Let's keep them coming 🔶🔷 pic.twitter.com/CFc5jps0v1
— Illinois Women's Basketball (@IlliniWBB) December 14, 2025

The box score tells the story of a game in which Illinois leaned on its top scorers, shot the ball efficiently and made enough plays to offset some sloppiness. North Texas hung around by competing on the glass and capitalizing on Illinois turnovers, but the Illini’s shot-making and free-throw production ultimately proved too much.

Here are three key observations from Illinois’ win over North Texas.

1. Berry Wallace reasserted herself as Illinois' engine

Berry Wallace was the clear offensive leader for Illinois, finishing with a game-high 28 points. She did it efficiently, shooting 8-for-14 from the field and 3-for-5 from beyond the arc, while also getting to the free-throw line frequently. Wallace accounted for more than a third of Illinois’ total points and was the only Illini to consistently score at all three levels.

Berry Wallace powered @IlliniWBB to a win over North Texas with a career-high 2️⃣8️⃣ points 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/mKkLaezSLX
— Big Ten Women's Basketball (@B1Gwbball) December 14, 2025

Illinois has looked at its best this season when spreading the scoring around, but the fact that North Texas was never able to fully neutralize Wallace speaks volumes about her potential to create scoring opportunities when they may be tougher to come by in Big Ten play and beyond. Every time the Mean Green threatened to make things interesting, the Illini had a reliable scoring option to turn to.

2. The Illini may be emerging from their shooting slump

If there’s one area where Illinois clearly separated itself Sunday, it was efficiency. That hadn't been the case lately, as the Illini had shot no better than 30.4 percent from three-point range in any of the past five games. But against the Mean Green, they made 22 of -47 shots from the field (46.8 percent) and were lights-out from long distance, knocking down 11 of 17 attempts (64.7 percent). That level of shooting allowed Illinois to maintain control even when other areas weren’t clicking.

1️⃣1️⃣ 3-pointers for the Illini!!!!

.@gretchendolan4 pic.twitter.com/quOgcRVSbc
— Illinois Women's Basketball (@IlliniWBB) December 14, 2025

Illinois also went 26-for-33 (78.8 percent) at the free-throw line, continuing a trend of strong late-game production at the stripe. That mattered in a game in which North Texas played and stayed competitive longer than the Illini would have preferred. Making shots – particularly free throws – prevented any real momentum swing.

3. Turnovers were an issue

One area Illinois will want to clean up moving forward is ball security. The Illini finished the game with 20 turnovers, compared to just 17 assists. (For comparison's sake, they had averaged 11.5 and 16.9, respectively, through their first 10 games.) Against stronger opponents, anything approaching a 1-to-1 assists-to-turnovers ratio is going to be pretty limiting.

North Texas took advantage of several of those miscues to stay within range, particularly when Illinois struggled to string together clean offensive possessions. Although the Mean Green didn’t fully capitalize enough to flip the game, the turnover numbers helped keep the margin tighter than it otherwise might have been.