Illinois basketball has now won 12 games in a row, and is 11-1 in conference play. The recent play of Illinois shows they are a clear March Madness contender. On Wednesday night, the Illini took a 40-point victory over Northwestern, winning 84-44.
That 40-point victory was nearly Illinois' history in Big Ten play, according to Jeremy Werner of 247Sports.
With 5:27 left in the game, Andrej Stojakovic dunked the ball to make it 79-30, giving the Illini a 49-point lead. If they had held onto that lead, it would have been the largest margin of victory for Illinois in a Big Ten game. The record was a 47-point victory over Ohio State back in 1956.
“Tonight we made a few shots. I thought that, you know, their defensive plan early was taking Keaton out of the game and trapping him, and it took us a couple, two or three possessions to kind of acclimate and get our spacing right. But I thought our ball movement, I thought our, (what) we call it 0.5 basketball, our unselfishness was very good on that end,” Underwood said in his post-game press conference.
It was a slightly slow start for the Illini. They led 11-7 five and a half minutes into the game, but took off from there. Illinois would take a 47-19 lead into the halftime, and go on to score another 37 points in the second half.
“With multiple threats on the court at once allows us to play with a certain freedom and trust, and sharing the ball like we did tonight just gets us open looks,” Stojakovic said after the game.
Stojakovic scored 17 points in the game, leading the way, but he was also one of five players to score in double digits in the game. Meanwhile, no player on Northwestern got to double-digit points, with Tre Singleton leading the way with eight points.
Illinois is now 20-3 on the season, and looking for a top seed in the NCAA tournament. They have a major test on Saturday, as the Illini will visit Michigan State.
