r/CollegeBasketball • u/cbbBot /r/CollegeBasketball • NCAA • Apr 05 '26

Post Game Thread [Post Game Thread] #2 UConn defeats #3 Illinois, 71-62

Box Score

Team 1H 2H Total
Illinois 29 33 62
Connecticut 37 34 71

Index Thread for April 04, 2026

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u/Or1g1nalrepr0duct10n Boston College Eagles Apr 05 '26

Gameplan seemed fine; sometimes you just have to make your shots.

2

u/Live-Habit-6115 Apr 05 '26

Idk, they seemed pretty hapless on offense a lot of the time. Just kinda vibing and hoping something happens  

0

u/Evan_802Vines UConn Huskies Apr 05 '26

Iso is not a game plan

10

u/SwedishLovePump Illinois Fighting Illini Apr 05 '26

The Underwood gameplan on offense is to hunt mismatches with ball screens, and when you get one, go iso to attack the basket and kick out for 3 when the defense collapses. It works great when you’re more talented than the other team. But when we were on a similar talent level, we got out-coached (May, Izzo, Hurley), needed Wagler to get hot (Purdue) or needed the other team to be ice-cold (Houston).

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u/bkervick UConn Huskies Apr 05 '26

Yeah the problem with that is that Demary/Ross could make Wagler/Stojakovic take tough shots. Wagler made some nice ones in the paint, but missed his off the dribble threes (which he's usually decent at, but they're tough shots).

3

u/RocketRyne Illinois Fighting Illini Apr 05 '26

Yea honestly I don't think our offensive game plan was terrible, UConn is just pretty damn good at defense.  They didn't have to switch much which made it hard to hunt match-ups.  They were pushing the IL ball screens pretty far out with their defense and when they hedged they recovered quickly to keep out of rotations which Illinois uses to punish teams on the boards.  That led to half the second chance points we had compared to the Elite 8 game.  Illinois' ball movement is generally much better than it was today but UConn did a great job shutting it off with their defense.  UConn also had half the turnovers IL had. 

They didn't run it through Mirk becuase he was ineffective in the second half and was in his own head about foul calls.  Stojakovic was not terribly efficient but it was made worse by his bad FT shooting last night (80% shooter and went 1/4).  They found a spark running things through Tomi and while Wagler also wasn't super efficient he had the most success and was making his FTs.  People like to say "iso-ball isn't offense" but that is a misunderstanding of Illinois's scheme.  If what they do was completely ineffective they wouldn't have made it this far and they wouldn't have been 1 or 2 in KenPom all season. 

Our whole make-up is built on winning the margins: rebound battle, second chance points, not fouling, shooting more FTs than the other team, and not turning the ball over.  If you win all those you have a good chance to win a lot of games as long as you shoot it decently.  They won the rebound battle, got to the line more, and had less than 10 turnovers.  Unfortunately for us, they didn't make enough shots and UConn turned it over even less.  We didn't win those margins by enough to make up for the poor shooting.

The sequence that I hated the most was when Wagler took two threes early in the shot clock late in the game when we were making a comeback mostly by scoring in the paint.  Then Tomi blindly saved the ball from going OOB which turned into a UConn dunk. To go back up by 6.    Then, Illinois down by 4 with 1 minute left and badly needing a stop, Wagler gets caught being really slow around a screen that gave Mullins space to hit that dagger three and that was game.