Good morning Illini. Perfect offensive game | Content

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Welcome to “Good Morning Illini Nation,” a daily dose of college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Scott Ritchie. Every morning, he shares his thoughts on Brad Underwood’s team and college basketball in general:

Illinois’ 112-67 win over Eastern Illinois on Monday at State Farm Center was the epitome of offensive basketball in 2024. The Illini scored 28 points in the paint, 34 points at the free throw line and 48 points from 3-point range. .

That’s 110 of the 112 points scored in the rout of the Panthers. The other two? One mid-range shot from freshman Will Riley in his 31-point debut. In fact, Riley made the only two shots for Illinois that weren’t in the paint or from 3-point range. Two of the 64 shots were neither shots nor threes.

“I’m going to have to beat him,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood joked after the game. “That’s all we talk about—threes, layups or drawn shots. We play a shot selection game where the scoring is completely different than basketball, depending on where you take your shots and how you make them. This informs players about these good and bad frames.

“(Monday) there were 46 free throws, 42 3-pointers. Hopefully we’ll make 50 three-point shots this evening and hit 25 of them. That’s what this team is built for and what we’re trying to help them with.” .We shot poorly in the first half, and the numbers weren’t bad.”

In the first half, Illinois shot 38 percent from the field and made just 28 percent of its 3-point attempts. In the second half, the Illini shot 57 percent overall and 46 percent from beyond the arc.

“We missed a lot of good chances in the first half that we usually make, but we got 50 percent of our misses back, which was a positive,” Underwood said.