Illinois opens season with massive blowout
- Story byThe News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
- Illinois opens season with massive blowout
Nov. 2—CHAMPAIGN — It's a State Farm Center tradition.
Illinois fans don't take their seats after tip-off until the opposing team scores. The start of Monday night's season opener against Fairleigh Dickinson looked like it was going to test the Illini faithful's stamina.
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The Illinois lead reached double digits before FDU's Bol Agu knocked down a mid-range jumper after a 3 minute, 10 second scoring drought for the Knights.
Agu's 12-footer over the outstretched hand of Illinois center Tomislav Ivisic didn't suddenly change the dynamic of Monday's game. The third-ranked Illini's lead continued to grow at the same rate, with scoring runs of 11-0, 10-0 and 24-0 creating a 47-point halftime lead that turned into a 120-45 victory in front of a crowd of near sellout crowd of 14,555.
"That's the approach every game with the way we're playing this year," Illinois guard Andrej Stojakovic said. "Great way to set the tone. We learned a lot from the three exhibitions we played and we did a good job of executing on both ends of the floor and really established ourselves at both ends of the court."
That FDU was overmatched — with no answer for Illinois' uptempo style — became clear when Knights coach Jack Castleberry called his first timeout just 62 seconds into the game after Andrej Stojakovic and Quentin Coleman scored in transition for the Illini. Castleberry would go on to call the rest of his four first-half timeouts trying, and failing to, cut Illinois' momentum.
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That momentum instead carried through the full 40 minutes.
Illinois finished its season opener with a 22-2 advantage on fast break points. The Illini shot 55 percent overall and 37 percent from three-point range — setting a new program record with 19 made threes. Their misses routinely weren't a problem, with 22 offensive rebounds turning into 31 second-chance points.
If it could go right for Illinois in its season opener, it mostly did.
"It's not always going to be that easy," Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. "It won't be like that, but it's fun when it gets going like that. I think we're still missing some opportunities out of the corners. We'd like to dribble up with our bigs and roll and put some pressure on the rim. I think we're trying to anticipate the cuts better. I still think we've got a lot of room to improve there."
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Stojakovic and Stefan Vaaks led Illinois (1-0) with 20 points apiece. Stojakovic got his attacking the basket. Vaaks went 5 of 7 from three-point range. Neither missed a single shot at the rim.
Freshmen guards Ethan Brown and Quentin Coleman both flirted with a triple-double. Brown put up 12 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. Coleman had 13 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.
Those four guards combined for 21 assists and just a single turnover playing at a breakneck pace.
"I'm going to repeat it every time," Vaaks said. "We practice that a lot. We play really fast. We share the ball. We know what we have to do on the court. ... You can see a lot of cutting layups and fill-behind threes. I think our connectivity is really great right now."
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Zavier Zens and Tomislav Ivisic joined those four guards in double figures with 12 and 10 points, respectively. Lucas Morillo almost made it seven in double figures — and nearly had a double-double — with nine points and eight rebounds.
Illinois will return to action at 7:30 p.m. Thursday against Penn at State Farm Center in a rematch of last season's first-round NCAA tournament game.
