Illini Slip by Northwestern, 75-71
By Jeff Mayfield

[January 20, 2020]  From my seat high above the court at the State Farm Center I never know what we’re going to see. Part of the joy of following a college basketball team is just the journey.

And this 2019-20 Illinois Fighting Illini team has been on a journey for the ages. In fact, Saturday afternoon’s clash with the Northwestern Wildcats was a wild journey in and of itself before the largest crowd of the year at 14,131 happy patrons.

The Illini had all week off and also found themselves ranked for the first time in something like five years coming in at the #24 spot in the weekly poll. So, you really had no idea how the Illini would come out for this one. As is sometimes the case after a week long lay-off, they came out a little rusty. They also had to overcome the hyper energy of the Wildcats.

Dusting themselves off after the rough first 8 minutes enabled Illinois to make a run to take a 38-34 lead at halftime. Since Northwestern didn’t seem to falter that may be even way more important than we at first realized.

Thank goodness, Trent Frazier (1) was dialed in early as he almost single-handedly willed Illinois to that first half advantage by scoring 11 points in the first frame.

This was a battle virtually all the way with Illinois finally wrestling away a 9-point lead with just under 4 minutes remaining. I don’t think I can accurately depict what happened in those final four minutes but let’s just say I died and lost several of my nine lives during that action. Luckily the Illini finally closed the Cats out with a final score of 75-71 in favor of the good guys!

Mostly because when it was Ayo time-Ayo took over. All he did was hit a big-time jumper and converted on huge fts to salt this game away that very easily could have slipped into the loss column. Frazier led the way with 16 big points including 4 3-pointers. By the way, Frazier joined the Illini 1,000-point club and also just happened to complete his 6th game in a row without a turnover [I’m checking to see If that’s some kind of a record-it’s certainly unheard of!] Ayo Dosunmu tallied 15 points to go with 4-4 free throw accuracy.

Giorgi Bezhanishvili (15) came up with 13 points to go with 4 rebounds and one of his better games of late.

Kofi Cockburn (21) had 12 points and 7 huge rebounds and Andres Feliz chipped in 10 even bigger points.

Illinois had one of its narrowest rebounding battle wins, 32-30. Northwestern was able to stay close throughout cause they only turned the ball over 5 times and they outscored Illinois 16-8 in 2nd chance points. The Illini were lucky to escape the SF Center with the coveted “W”. But with the “W” the Illini won their 4th in a row and it makes them now 13-5 overall and 5-2 and all alone in 2nd place in the league.

The “W” was even more important when you consider the brutal week that lies in store for our men in Orange. They will become road warriors with a game Tuesday vs. Purdue and then they travel to Ann Arbor on Saturday in another re-match, this one with Michigan.

[By JEFF MAYFIELD with photos by Ed Bacon]

Respond to the writer at [e-mail].