Ohio State's final regular season opponent played in a huge matchup between the Big Ten's top two teams on Tuesday, and few could've expected things to go as smoothly as they did for Illinois.
The Fighting Illini, ranked No. 4 in the country and in second place in the conference standings, shocked the Big Ten's top squad with a dominant 76-53 win over No. 2 Michigan on its own home floor, handing the Wolverines just their second loss of the season.
Even more impressive was that Illinois got the job done without the Big Ten's second-leading scorer in 6-foot-5 junior guard Ayo Dosunmu, who has missed the past several games with a facial fracture.
It was a performance so commanding that despite the Buckeyes holding a win over the Illini in the first matchup this season, Saturday's rematch appears to be a much more daunting task, with or without Dosunmu on the floor.
However, Ohio State can't overreact to the one-sided blowout in its preparation for the upcoming matchup either.
We're breaking down a handful of things the Buckeyes should take away from Illinois' latest on-court offering ahead of the top 10 clash this weekend in Columbus.
Curbelo, Frazier should be defensive priorities if Dosunmu is out
Despite being listed as day-to-day entering the matchup, Illinois leading scorer and surefire All-Big Ten first team performer Ayo Dosunmu missed his third-straight game for the Fighting Illini with a facial fracture, but that didn’t matter on Tuesday.
Even without Dosunmu’s 21.0 points per game, 6.3 boards and 5.3 assists, the Illinois backcourt did just fine to pick up the slack on offense, with two names making the biggest splash in particular.
Freshman guard Andre Curbelo, a sixth man who has seen a boost in minutes in Dosunmu’s absence, scored 11 big points for the Illini in the first half against Michigan, helping his squad jump out to an 11-point halftime lead, and he finished with 17 for the night.
That was nearly 10 more points than Curbelo averages on the season, and he wasn’t the Illinois guard that went off on Tuesday.
Starting point guard Trent Frazier, who entered the night averaging a rock solid 10.4 points per game, more than doubled that against Michigan, pouring in a game-high 22 points.
In the first matchup against Ohio State, that pair scored 10 points combined against the Buckeyes while Dosunmu put up 22. Although the star wing’s status for Sunday’s matchup is still unknown, the Buckeyes will have to place more of an emphasis on stopping Frazier and Curbelo if Dosunmu is sidelined.
Cockburn doesn't need a big game for Illini to win big
One would assume that without Dosunmu, the Fighting Illini would have to rely much more heavily on 7-foot center Kofi Cockburn, who entered Tuesday with season averages of 17.7 points and 9.9 rebounds per game.
While Illinois did feed Cockburn quite a bit early on against Michigan, the Fighting Illini were just fine when they went away from that strategy for long stretches throughout the rest of the game, and they didn’t even require the near-300-pound force to have an average night by his standards.
Cockburn notched 12 points and seven boards on Tuesday, both well below the numbers that Illinois has come to expect from him, which proves just how deep this Illinois roster can be when players like Frazier and Curbelo step up.
Cockburn did help get 7-foot-1 Michigan center Hunter Dickinson into foul trouble, allowing the Fighting Illini to go on a massive run once the freshman picked up his third early in the second half, but Cockburn attempted just one free throw all game.
Statistically speaking, Cockburn had a better night against Ohio State in the Jan. 16 meeting, hitting all seven of his field goal attempts to finish the night with 15 points and 11 boards, but his contributions still couldn’t lead to an Illinois win.
The Buckeyes have struggled against dominant big men in their recent losing skid, allowing 22 points to Dickinson and 24 to Iowa’s Luka Garza, but as Illinois proved against the Wolverines Tuesday, a ho-hum performance from Cockburn far from guarantees an Illini loss, even without Dosunmu on the floor.
Impressive numbers from Illinois defense may not be replicable
It may be easy to look at the struggles of the Michigan offense on Tuesday and praise a brilliant defensive performance by Illinois, but on the bright side for the Buckeyes, the showing was something of an anomaly when compared to each team’s status quo.
Michigan’s 53 points were the lowest it has scored all year, and with the prolonged abandonment of the typical Wolverine ball movement during the game, as well as the team’s dreadful shooting numbers, it was evident that an off night had plenty to do with the result.
The Wolverines shot 34.7 percent from the field, and every single one of their starters shot significantly worse than their regular season averages.
In fact, Michigan’s top three scorers on the season combined to shoot 16.7 percent for all of 15 points between them.
Illinois hadn’t exactly been the Big Ten’s foremost defensive dynamo this season coming in either, as its scoring defense ranked just above Ohio State’s own in the middle of the conference pack entering Tuesday.
Ohio State has been in an offensive rut of its own as of late, but the Buckeyes would be hard-pressed to turn in a performance as out of rhythm as Michigan did come Saturday.
