Illinois’ Comeback Bid Comes Up Short
By Jeff Mayfield

[December 03, 2019]  The University of Illinois’ basketball team dug themselves a humongous hole, chipped into it before half, made a furious comeback, and actually had possession with a chance to win it in the closing seconds.

Unfortunately, Ayo Dosunmu was called for a charge with just under 3 seconds remaining and that was all she wrote as Illinois fell 81-79.

We’ve heard reports that practices leading up to the game including an earlier in the day shootaround did not go well. However, we can only report what we observe. And to say that Illinois came out flat would be a huge understatement. We still think this team has great potential but putting themselves behind the 8-ball in situations like this will only make it harder to reach it.

Kofi Cockburn did rattle the nets for 23 points and Trent Frazier struck from distance 4 times on his way to 14 points, while Ayo and Andres Feliz tallied 12 and 11 respectively as scorers in double figures, but it obviously wasn’t enough. The Miami Hurricane blew in living up to their moniker by exploding and shooting nearly 60% for the game and at one time were hitting at an 81% clip. We could say that the defense needs to be a lot better, but we can also report that some of those shots were circus in variety and some from way downtown. It was such a storm of made shots that Illinois had to burn all of their timeouts for the game…in the first half!

However, Illinois made several runs and when Feliz penetrated the lane with just under a minute to go they were only 1-point down. A steal on the other end with less than 20 seconds remaining gave Illinois one final shot. Miami’s defense finally clamped down and there was nowhere to go with the ball. Dosunmu valiantly tried anyway to take it to the rim but was whistled for the offensive foul and that was the ball game.

It was entertaining-at least the second half was, but Illinois just couldn’t make it over the hump. The loss sends Illinois to a record of 6-2 with some brutally tough Big Ten games coming up to start the league season. Illinois will travel to Maryland for a game there on Saturday before returning home to host a red-hot Michigan team next Wednesday at 8pm.

[By JEFF MAYFIELD]

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