Stingy defense lifts Illinois past Iowa

The Illinois Fighting Illini are struggling at the offensive end of the floor, but with the way their defense is playing, the 2009 Big Ten season remains colored by optimism in Champaign.
 
Just three days after scoring just 36 points in a loss at Minnesota, Bruce Weber's team was able to re-enter the win column with a 62-54 triumph over Iowa on Sunday afternoon in Assembly Hall. Playing the same hard-nosed brand of basketball that held the Golden Gophers under 60 points last Thursday, the Illini--no worse on defense this time around--avoided a train wreck at the offensive end of the floor. The mere act of avoiding a rock-bottom offensive performance was enough to help the Illini rebound from an historically poor showing in Minneapolis.

No, there weren't many style points to be found in this victory over Todd Lickliter's still-undermanned Hawkeyes, but the instructive lesson of this game is that defense will almost always keep a team competitive, even when points are hard to come by. It's only on the rarest of occasions that a team hits just 15 shots in a game and fails to crack the 40-point mark; usually, a stout defensive performance that keeps an opponent in the mid-50s should be good enough to win a Big Ten ballgame, and that's exactly what Weber received from his kids on the first day of February.
 
Leading 46-45 with 8:48 left in regulation, the home team was able to hound the Hawkeyes to 1-for-8 shooting from 3-point range down the stretch, after an impressive 8-of-19 start. Because Illinois was able to shut down the Hawks at their strongest point--Lickliter-coached teams typically rely on the trifecta for scoring punch and, just as importantly, better floor balance in half court sets--a tenuous one-point advantage turned into a meaningful 58-54 lead with 20 seconds to go. Never particularly potent on offense, the Illini were able to get airtight free throw shooting from center Mike Tisdale (4-of-4 in the final minute) and seal a bounce-back victory.

No one in Champaign will view this result as ugly, because in the rugged world of Big Ten hoops, the ability to claw out a hard-fought victory is the greatest athletic virtue of all. With more exhibitions of similarly bold blue-collar defense, Bruce Weber will see the wins pile up for his club. Why, Because 36 points isn’t very likely to repeat itself in the near future.

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