The Illinois basketball team's upcoming Big Ten schedule just got exponentially more difficult. The Illini will proceed down the stretch of the regular season without point guard Kylan Boswell, who will be sidelined with a significant hand injury suffered in practice.
Illinois head coach Brad Underwood confirmed that Boswell will be out for “at least a month” with his hand injury, 247 Sports' Jeremy Werner reported. With roughly seven weeks remaining in the regular season, the Illini hope that the senior guard can return one to two weeks before the conference tournament begins.
Boswell, who has started each of the team's first 18 games, is second on the team with 14.3 points and 3.4 assists per game. He also adds 4.2 rebounds and 0.7 assists while playing a team-high 31.8 minutes per game.
Underwood confirmed Boswell's injury days after Illinois' 77-67 win over Minnesota, which improved its record to 15-3. Boswell contributed nine points, three rebounds and three assists in the victory.
The victory was the team's seventh consecutive since losing to Nebraska in mid-December. While Illinois' three losses have all come against top-20-ranked opponents, its schedule is about to get much more difficult with matchups against No. 7 Purdue, No. 10 Michigan State and a rematch with No. 7 Nebraska in the next two weeks.
Without the senior captain, Illinois will turn to leading scorer Keaton Wagler as its primary facilitator. Scarcely used freshman Mihailo Petrovic will likely be asked to play additional minutes off the bench.
Petrovic has only averaged 7.8 minutes per game in 11 outings thus far. After averaging 14 minutes in the first four games of the year, the Serbian has fallen out of Underwood's rotation over the last two months.
