Tisdale’s 24 points lead Illinois past Michigan

Some sporting events are hard to analyze. Illinois’ 66-51 win over Michigan wasn’t one of them.

On Jan. 4, the Wolverines topped the Illini, 74-64, in Ann Arbor. Just ten days after that first meeting, the Big Ten rivals reunited in Champaign to see how they’d stack up a second time. The unusually early rematch—with January not quite half over—gave Big Ten basketball observers a chance to see how the two teams would react to a rare occurrence. Conference opponents always possess a certain degree of familiarity, but when two teams play just ten days apart, scouting reports lose even more of their importance. The winning team in a rapid-fire rematch is the team that plays harder and competes with conviction.

Very simply, Bruce Weber’s bunch wanted this game a lot more than John Beilein’s boys. One only had to look to the low post to confirm such a claim.

The biggest reason for Wednesday night’s lopsided result was the performance of Illinois center Mike Tisdale. While falling one point short of his career high—posted on two occasions in December against non-conference cupcakes Chicago State and Eastern Michigan—it can fairly be said that Tisdale played his best game of the still-young season. By shooting 83 percent from the floor (10-for-12), Tisdale—employing a full repertoire of shots from multiple places on the court—destroyed his opposing number, Michigan big man DeShawn Sims. After Sims busted loose for 13 points and 9 rebounds in Michigan’s Jan. 4 victory, a much more active Tisdale held the sluggish Sims to 7 points and 2 boards this time around. At both ends of the court, the Tisdale-Sims matchup offered the most striking reason why Illinois managed to gain a split of the season series.

Other factors contributed to Illinois’ reversal of fortune against the Wolverines, and much like the Tisdale-Sims comparison, they weren’t difficult to identify.

On Jan. 4, Michigan produced five double-figure scorers. In this rematch, the Wolverines had just one man-guard Manny Harris-score more than 9 points. In Crisler Arena, the Illini attempted just 3 free throws. In the comfy confines of Assembly Hall, Illinois went to the charity stripe 22 times. A week and a half ago, Michigan hit 49 percent of its field goal attempts against Illinois. Ten days later, the Wolverines—in the face of the high-energy Illini—nailed only 32 percent of their shots. Illinois’ abundant passion—absent from Ann Arbor ten days earlier—showed up in Champaign, and that’s why round two of Wolverines-Illini turned out to be very different from round one.

It shouldn’t have been too surprising that Illinois answered the bell. While it’s a bit alarmist to say that a January 14 game is a must-win, this contest came pretty close to such a label for the Illini. Since Illinois and Michigan might find themselves on the NCAA Tournament bubble two months from now, Bruce Weber had to split the season series with the Wolverines.

Given that John Beilein’s team had already snagged prime non-conference scalps named UCLA and Duke, a sweep of Illinois would have given Michigan an unquestioned advantage over the Illini in March. If the Big Ten race remains tightly packed in the middle tier of the league, an Illinois team bereft of a huge out-of-conference win (Vanderbilt and Missouri are the best the Illini can offer) can at least say that it beat Michigan once during the season. If Illinois can beat Michigan State or Wisconsin, and then finish at least two games above Michigan in the season-ending standings, the Illini will make it hard for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee to ignore them on Selection Sunday. Tonight’s win was just one more step for a program that wants to return to the Big Dance.

Michigan and Illinois won’t play each other again in 2009, unless the two teams meet in the Big Ten Tournament. Thanks to this bounce-back win by the Illini, a hypothetical tournament tussle—very possibly in the quarterfinals—could carry a great deal of significance.

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