Game one is in the books, and the women's Illinois basketball team has started on the right foot.
The Illini came into the matchup with Detroit Mercy ranked No. 23 in the country . This high ranking has the hype train going at full speed.
Early on, it didn't look like Illinois was the No. 23 team in the country, though. Detroit Mercy was forcing turnovers, and they kept the game close. Thankfully, Illinois snapped out of the funk.
A four-point halftime advantage for the Orange and Blue turned into a 34-point thumping. Illinois won the second half by 30 points, coming out with a victory over Detroit Mercy, 84-50 .
The final score indicates that this game was a blowout, but that wasn't the case for the first half of play.
Detroit Mercy was putting up a fight. Illinois got out to a double-digit lead, but the Titans fought back and got the halftime margin to just four points, 36-32.
Illinois was clearly the better team, but rust was showing throughout the first 20 minutes of action. You could tell that Detroit Mercy was coming into this contest having already played a game and had their legs under them.
The Illini were pretty sloppy early on. They turned the ball over a lot, and they weren't in sync. The Titans were the opposite. They fed off Illinois' issues, and when the Illini would struggle to communicate on defense, they would make shots.
In the second half, everything changed. The rust wore off, and they put the game away early. The second half is exactly what I wanted to see.
We all knew the Illini had a ton of talent coming into the season. The frontcourt blew me away on Wednesday night, though.
The combination of Berry Wallace and Cearah Parchment isn't just one of the best frontcourt duos in the Big Ten, but you would be hard-pressed to find a better frontcourt duo in the country.
Wallace finished the game playing 30 minutes and amassing 21 points, 11 rebounds, two steals, and two assists. She shot 8-of-16 from the floor and 2-of-4 from three-point range.
This was a great start to what could be an All-American campaign for Wallace. Parchment went toe-to-toe with Wallace.
By the final whistle, Parchment finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds, and four blocks. She was 9-of-11 from the field.
Illinois has something special with this frontcourt. I can't wait to see what they can do against some of the elite teams in the Big Ten.
Coming into the 2026-27 season , I was touting the depth of the Illinois roster. We have 10 players who can play each night and not miss a beat.
Against Detroit Mercy, I was disappointed in the Illinois bench.
Aaliyah Guyton is the only one who can stand tall on this bench. Guyton finished with nine points and three rebounds on 2-of-5 shooting from the field. The rest of the four bench players who suited up were a combined 3-of-13 for 10 points.
In addition to the bench not giving Illinois a ton of offensive production, they also registered a 5:8 assist-to-turnover ratio. That means they had five assists to eight turnovers. Those are bad numbers. Illinois needs more out of the deep roster.
While there were some issues I saw out there on Wednesday night, I think the Illinois defense was by far the best thing going.
The Illini came out of the gates playing some solid defense. There were some communication issues at times, but Illinois fixed those in the second half.
I loved how well our guards covered on the perimeter. Detroit Mercy couldn't get anything going from the outside, shooting just 5-of-19 from three-point range.
The dominant duo of Wallace and Parchment suffocated anything the Titans had going in the paint as well. Detroit Mercy was held to just 30.9% from the field
This type of defense not only wins these cupcake games, but this defense will be crucial in getting to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. Let's see if Illinois can play all four quarters like this moving forward.
I touched on this a bit in the previous sections, but Illinois was clearly rusty. We didn't look great early on, but this team gelled in the second half.
Sloppiness was our biggest bugaboo on Wednesday night. It is the reason Detroit Mercy was in the game in the first half.
For the game, Illinois had 18 turnovers. That is lot, but the reason the Titans were within four points at halftime was for the fact that 15 of the 18 turnovers for the Illini came in the first half.
Illinois having a lead despite having 15 turnovers in a half is pretty crazy. This was an outlier, as the Illini corrected things in the second half. I mark it up to rust.
It is something I am going to keep an eye on moving forward, though. If we have that bad of a half against a good team, Illinois will get blown out of the water.
This article was originally published on www.writingillini.com as 5 Illinois basketball (W) observations from the pull-away win over Detroit Mercy .
