CHICAGO — The edge felt extra sharp Friday night, with blank stares draping the Fighting Illini locker room as the swirl of frustration, anger and agitation palpably pulsed.
An all-too-familiar sensation was echoed by a disgruntled Brad Underwood, who had very little to say to his team after Illinois’ first crack at postseason play ended in disaster with a 91-88 loss to Wisconsin in the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinal.
Add this to the list of games in which Illinois couldn’t hold on to a sizeable lead. Add this to the list of overtime failures (0-4 in overtime). Add this to the list of heartwrecking lows to juxtapose the exhilarating highs from earlier this season.
A season that — barring a monstrous NCAA tournament run — is seemingly bound to end clouded in dissaray.
“It requires more than we gave,” Tomislav Ivisic said. “The game became a lot harder than expected, and they closed a lot harder.”
Indeed, they did, as Illinois was outscored 9-4 in the first four minutes of overtime, with David Mirkovic as the only player to score for Illinois in that period. They also allowed 69 points combined by Wisconsin guards Nick Boyd and John Blackwell in the full game.
The inability to close out Quad One games has become a defining characteristic of Illinois ever since the team went perfect in January. Illinois is 0-5 in its last five Quad One games and now 0-4 in overtime in the entire season.
“When we make shots, we get casual on the other end, and we think it’s just easy,” Underwood said after Friday’s game. “And today I thought it was a lack of focus.”
“I feel like we lost focus a little bit, and that cost us the game,” Zvonimir Ivisic told TCR.
Perhaps another guy on the team who can offer up a unique perspective as an ‘end of the roster’ piece that mostly helps out in the scout and in practice, AJ Redd.
“I think a lot of that comes from how good an offensive team we are, we’re making shots and we’re seeing the ball go in, that’s what we’re riding off of. And if we’re going to make a strong run in March, we’ve got to have strong defensive principles and need to continue that,” Redd told TCR.
Immediate reaction inside the locker room
It’s one thing for a coach and a coach-esque figure to acknowledge why it seems there’s a lack of focus in these kinds of games; it’s another for the guys on the court to acknowledge what’s led to second-half collapses. Outside of Kylan Boswell, few had answers for what’s behind a lack of focus that crops up in critical games.
“If I knew, I’d love to fix it, you know,” Mirkovic told TCR.
“I don’t know, man. I really… They’re going to have to look through the whole game, detail by detail, and just see what the problem is, how to work on it, and how to fix it,” Zvonimir Ivisic told TCR.
The other brother didn’t offer much else.
“I feel like we did a lot of good things in the first half; somehow, we just stopped,” Tomislav Ivisic said.
The quest now becomes playing 40-minutes of complete basketball, and not letting up. Defensively, Illinois had held Blackwell and Boyd to 19 points combined. It was really the second half where the team struggled.
“I think we did a good job guarding them. They’re two really good players. I think we did a lot of what we’re supposed to do… I don’t know, they played well. It’s hard to stop guys when they’re playing well,” Jake Davis said.
But in Davis’ mind, he’s not sure mental focus was lost, but rather pointed to the usage of personnel as perhaps something that led to the collapse.
“I just think teams don’t give up, and we have great players who are going to make great shots, we’ve got to keep them in the game,” Jake Davis said. “Ten out of ten times, I think we beat them seven. They just got the better of us in the past two games.”
It’s noteworthy to point out that Zvonimir Ivisic had five points and six rebounds through 12 minutes in the first half. He played eight minutes in the second half with stagnant production (four points, one rebound). Stojakovic had a stellar first half, notching 12 points and five rebounds, but his production dropped in the second half despite similar minutes.
The philosophy now
“We know we can do it….We’ve just got to go and… do it,” Zvonimir Ivisic told TCR.
If there’s any moment to go out and ‘do it,’ it’ll have to be starting this week in practice and crop up on Thursday when Illinois plays Penn in Greenville to kick off what Illinois hopes to be an NCAA tournament run.
“We know how good we are, we know we can go far in March Madness. Just feel like we don’t need any type of motivation, just seeing each other more than just one time, sharing the locker room for more than one game should be enough motivation,” Tomislav Ivisic said.
Boswell and Mirkovic organized a players’ only meeting this past weekend following the disheartening loss in Chicago. It will have to be them, alongside Davis and Ben Humrichous, whose voices must resurface to elevate Illinois’ performance for the tournament.
“I was frustrated with our rebounding in our last couple of games, in terms of being nasty enough to go get a rebound,” Underwood said on Sunday. “It’s just sustainability for 40 minutes, we can’t take plays off or have lapses. Especially when we do make shots.”