If you did any scoreboard watching over the weekend you might have noticed a shocking result at Illinois, Indiana’s opponent on Tuesday (7 p.m. / Peacock).
And that result came via IU’s last home opponent, the USC Trojans.
USC went to Champaign just a couple days after losing 82-69 in Bloomington, and handed the No. 13 Fighting Illini an 82-72 home loss after outscoring them by 13 in the second half.
Illinois head coach Brad Underwood was frustrated with his team’s effort and mental sharpness in his postgame comments, but another factor was clearly who wasn’t available.
The Fighting Illini enter the game against IU with a record of 12-4 (4-2 Big Ten) under Underwood, now in his eighth season. Illinois ranks seventh in the country (second in the B1G) in scoring offense at 86.9 points per game while allowing just 67.2 points per outing on the defensive end.
But unavailable in each of their last two contests has been 6-foot-6 freshman guard Kasparas Jakucionis. The projected lottery pick from Lithuania has missed those games with a forearm injury, and appears to be day-to-day based on Underwood’s comments.
Jakucionis is averaging 16.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per contest. He shoots 49.6% from the floor, 41.4% from behind the arc, and 87.5% from the free throw line.
Illinois’ last four games have shown they’re capable of being one of the best teams in the country, with a 32-point win at Oregon and a 39-point home win over Penn State. But after each of those games they showed surprising inconsistency, with a 4-point win at Washington and the home loss to USC.
The Fighting Illini offense runs through Jakucionis, who has the highest usage rate on the team (25.0%) and leads the way in points, assists, steals, and 3-point percentage.
Indiana will also be hoping to get leading scorer Malik Reneau back. The 6-foot-9 Reneau went down with a right knee injury in the opening minute of IU’s Jan. 2 win over Rutgers. He’s been listed as “OUT” on Indiana’s availability report in each of the Hoosiers three games since. But the injury is not expected to be season-ending.
Whether their leading scorers play or not, Illinois and Indiana will now both be highly motivated to avoid their first two-game Big Ten losing streak of the season.
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