Illinois’ 101-66 exhibition win over UIC on Wednesday at the State Farm Center didn’t exactly hand over a full scouting report for the season ahead. But it did offer a few real clues about what this Illinois team looks like when it’s moving with purpose.
The first thing that stood out was the way UIC tried to disrupt the Illini. The Flames used a defensive setup Illinois may only see once this season, though it’s a familiar one in another place the Illini will visit. Nebraska, which beat Illinois in Champaign last year, plays a very similar scheme.
The blueprint is straightforward: send the ball toward the baseline, then load up with a trap in the short corner. UIC has the size and athleticism to make that work, and for stretches it tried to force a young Illinois group into bad choices.
Instead, Illinois kept the ball humming. The Illini finished with 28 assists on 37 made field goals and shot 54.4 percent from the floor. Players kept relocating, the ball kept whipping around, and UIC’s defense - one KenPom expects to be the best in the Missouri Valley Conference - spent much of the night chasing rather than dictating.
Illinois also looked far sharper defensively than it had in its first two exhibition games. After allowing more than 95 points in both of those outings, the Illini held UIC to 66 points and 39.7 percent shooting.
That said, there’s an important catch. UIC’s offense was probably going to have a tough time against Illinois no matter what. The Flames are built to hunt mismatches and work from there, with a system that can feel pretty static if that first advantage never shows up.
On Wednesday, it didn’t. UIC simply didn’t get many favorable matchups, which meant Illinois was rarely forced into the kind of rotation-heavy chaos that has been a problem for this team. The Illini didn’t have to do much scrambling, and they weren’t asked to communicate under the same kind of stress they’ll face against better-prepared opponents.
Illinois did show some signs of being organized when it tried its zone, but the bigger answer will come later. The team’s size, length and athleticism are obvious. What remains to be seen is how consistently it can move and communicate as one unit.
Offensively, though, Wednesday was a much clearer win. Illinois looked far less rigid than it did a year ago, when the offense often felt locked into set spots on the floor.
That structure is no longer the whole story. With Keaton Wagler gone and the attack altered, the Illini showed off a much cleaner brand of off-ball movement and relocation.
UIC defended hard, and for much of the game it defended well. But the Flames could only stay connected for so long on each possession.
Illinois made split-second decisions on catches, kept the defense in motion and rarely let UIC settle into a comfortable shape. When the Flames did get organized, they usually didn’t stay that way.
The freshmen were especially impressive in that regard. They kept moving, kept finding space and kept turning good floor spacing into clean shots. That helped fuel one of Illinois’ most balanced offensive performances in memory, even if the flow of the game helped shape that outcome.
Illinois also did what it needed to do on the glass. That mattered, because the Illini had not been especially sharp on the defensive boards in their previous two exhibitions. That weakness hurt them against Baylor and made the Cincinnati game tighter than it needed to be.
UIC, though, never found much traction there. The Flames came in with a strong offensive rebounding profile - they ranked No. 22 in the country in offensive rebounding rate last season at 36.3 percent - but they managed just 10 offensive rebounds on 41 misses in Champaign.
Illinois matched that toughness at the other end, grabbing 12 offensive rebounds on 31 missed shots.
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