Illinois Too Much For Michigan

Michigan is now 15-12 overall and just 9-8 in the Big Ten after falling to Illinois today, 93-85. The eight-point loss on its home court felt like the end of Michigan's tournament hopes.

1. Hunter Dickinson outmatched

Dickinson wasn't bad on the day — he scored 13 points, grabbed 11 boards and, despite picking up four fouls, stayed out of "foul trouble". But Kofi Cockburn was just better. Illinois' monstrous big man finished with 27 points, 7 rebounds and of course, the win. Obviously the stat difference between the two wasn't enormous, but Cockburn changed Dickinson's approach all day. Dickinson tried too many mid-range floaters and push shots and settled for three-point attempts on four occasions only making one. Dickinson is usually the biggest player on the floor, but today he wasn't, and it felt like it.

2. Bad three-point shooting — again

Michigan heated up a bit in the second half, but still went just 5-for-15 on the day for a pretty chilly 33%. Illinois, on the other hand, ripped the nets all day long going 10-for-17 from deep — a 59% clip. Illinois has been a better shooting team than Michigan all year, but a discrepancy like that is a recipe for disaster, and that's how it played out.

3. Poor defense — again

This is obviously related to the previous point. Michigan simply didn't do enough on defense to make things tough for Illinois. Give credit to Alfonso Plummer and Trent Frazier who definitely made some contested, tough shots, but overall Illinois did whatever they wanted and got a lot of open looks. Plummer — all 5-10 of him — went off for 23 points in the first half. That cannot happen at any point of the season, let alone when you need to ramp things up in order to get every single win possible. Whenever a team shoots 60% from three-point range, there might be some luck involved, but a lot of it is going to fall on the opponent. In this case, that's Michigan, and I'm sure Phil Martelli would say the same.

Michigan is just a poor shooting, bad defensive team. That's what they've been all season and that's obviously what they are at this point as they're fighting and scrapping for every win in order to make the tournament. Even on their home court, at full strength (minus Juwan Howard) and with all the motivation in the world, they were handled with ease by Illinois.

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