THE ESSENTIALS

Right: At halftime, a special magic show. Or something.

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. %Min and %Poss figure are from this season now—yes, there will be a fair amount of noise in these numbers for a while. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open.

*returning starter

THE RESUME

Illinois is off to one of the better starts among Big Ten teams by virtue of not having a crippling non-conference loss. (Or two. Sigh.) Two of their three losses have been to teams Michigan has faced: #7 Villanova and #66 Oregon. The Illini also fell on the road to #78 Miami (YTM).

Aside from an admittely impressive eight-point triumph over #19 Baylor, however, they lack quality wins; their next-best victory came against #143 American, and no other team they've beaten sits within the top 170 on KenPom. Only Mizzou kept it even remotely close among those teams, however, so the Illini are at least thumping the teams they should.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

THE THEM

Illinois has worked their way into position to make a tourney run due in no small part to the improvement of Rayvonte Rice, a bull of a guard who'd lacked shooting touch earlier in his career. Rice has never had trouble getting to the basket, but now he's also hitting 47% of his three-pointers while rarely turning the ball over and reaching the line at a high rate. Just like that, he's got one of the top 100 offensive ratings in the country, and he's no slouch on defense; in fact, he boasts the Illini's best steal and defensive rebound rates.

Rice often acts as the lead guard, but Illinois still trots out a traditional point guard in 5'9" grad transfer Ahmad Starks, formerly of Oregon State. Starks was a 40% three-point shooter in his final season in Corvallis, but he's hitting them at just a 31% clip this year. That's sapped much of his effectiveness as his size prevents him from getting to the hoop much at all—just 8% of his shots come at the rim. He does boast a solid assist-to-turnover rate, at least.

Kendrick Nunn took over the starting two-spot after Aaron Cosby had a rough go of it early in the season; Nunn's thrived, knocking down 44% of his threes, while Cosby's shooting just 27% from two and 33% from three. Nunn isn't a very good finisher inside the arc, but he's lethal from the right corner and has a decent midrange game.

Nearly 60% of Malcolm Hill's shots are two-point jumpers, which would normally be a very bad thing, but he's been remarkably effective from midrange (diagram via Shot Analytics):

Hill also gets to the line freqently and pulls down his fair share of offensive rebounds. He's the #2 scoring option after Rice and thus far he's been a good one.

Center Nnanna Egwu is infamous around these parts for his remarkable aversion to defensive rebounding given his 6'11" frame, and that's held up in his senior season; his 13.1 DR% is a couple percentage points back of Derrick Walton and ahead of only Starks and Nunn among Illinois starters. Egwu isn't a total nonentity, however; he's good on the offensive glass, finishes well at the rim with range extending out to the three-point line (7/19 3-pt this season), and he blocks or alters a lot of shots.

The primary backups aside from Cosby are guard Jaylon Tate, a turnover-prone distributor with a minuscule shot rate—7.8%(!!!)—and forward Leron Black, a very good rebounder who's still finding his way in the other aspects of the game; he's shooting under 50% on his twos and committing 6.7 fouls per 40 minutes. 6'10" center Maverick Morgan, whose statistical profile eerily resembles Egwu's right down to the bizarre rebounding splits, plays about a fifth of the available minutes.

THE TEMPO-FREE

The Illini defense has been their strength this season thanks to them being above average in just about every regard; they rank well inside the top 100 in all four factors defensively as well as two-point and three-point percentage allowed. While nothing they do pops off the page, there's no obvious weakness, either.

Their offense has had an up-and-down campaign, chugging along against the dregs of the schedule but failing to crack one point per possession in each of their three losses. They've been exceptional at two things—avoiding turnovers (14.1 TO%, 4th nationally) and hitting free throws (77.7%, 5th)—and very good at knocking down threes (37.7%, 52nd); otherwise, they're pretty average, and their great shooting from the line is somewhat offset by the fact they're well below average at getting there in the first place.

THE KEYS

Don't hack, bigs. Look, a 6'11" player with some skill is going to get his against Michigan; that's just a fact of life at this juncture. What the Wolverines can't afford is for Ricky Doyle and Mark Donnal to knock themselves out of the game—and play tentatively when they're on the court—because they're picking up fouls against Nnanna Egwu, a career 70% free-throw shooter. The good news for Michigan is Egwu rarely gets to the line. The bad news is the Illini have a couple players in Rice and Hill who get to the rim and draw a lot of fouls; this key is predicated as much on the guards staying in front of their men as it is on the bigs being disciplined when that doesn't happen.

Box and go. Illinois gets a lot of rebounding from non-bigs, so Michigan's guards are going to have to be disciplined in defending the glass against the Illini. If M gets some boards from their guards, that could have the added benefit of getting them into transition instead of having to set up against a strong Illini halfcourt defense.

Hit some dang shots. This will continue to be a key until Michigan does, in fact, hit some dang shots against a team that isn't Coppin State.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 1.

KenPom currently projects the Wolverines to go 7-11 in the Big Ten, and this is one of the seven projected wins before four straight projected losses. (Yes, the ugly nonconference performance has turned road trips to Purdue and Penn State into semi-daunting tasks. I'm as appalled as you are.) It's tough to say the first game of conference season is a true must-win, but this is about as close as it gets.

ELSEWHERE

UMHoops preview. Preview from the other side by The Champaign Room.