Illinois 81, Rutgers 55 Postgame

[Illini B-Ball Fan]

Good morning after a win (not a loss). Chew on the stats, then post your opinions:

Men's Basketball vs Rutgers on 1/8/2026 - Box Score - University of Illinois Athletics

The official box score of Men's Basketball vs Rutgers on 1/8/2026

fightingillini.com

 

[HereSoIDontGetFined]

Just watched Brad's complete presser. He seemed largely unsurprised by the second half and implied he knew Rutgers wasn't going to just lie down and take it. I think he was wildly happy about the game in some ways.

-Rutgers draws a lot of fouls and he thought they did a great job of not fouling.
-perimeter players hammered the glass, a point he's been stressing in practice.
-the team is figuring out when and how to get the ball to the hot hand (Jake in this game)

 

[Mobi]

Keaton Wagler has now been our best player in seven consecutive games.

He is our best player period. I have been saying that since like the OSU game.

 

[Illini in Italy]

But is that a thing? Do we struggle with long scoring droughts often? Has that been a consistent problem this year? Have we given up any big second half leads this year?

I’ll just point out a few things:

1. Fans have this weird urge to watch a game and say “if we play like that again next time, we’ll definitely lose.”

But we don’t play like that again next time. Because every game is a little different. And our struggle tonight will likely be a different, unpredictable struggle on Sunday.

And to pretend that how we played in the second half of this game, a half that we started with a 27 point lead, will be at all indicative of the second half against Iowa is just odd to me.

2. Are all fan bases like this? Does every fan base watch their team beat a conference opponent by 26 points, cover the spread by 4, and then become more concerned about their next opponent?

It seems the Loyalty hive mind insists that we shoot 100% from the field and the line, gather 100% of the rebounds, and hold our opponents to 0% shooting and 0 points. Last night wasn't our best game, but we still managed to cobble together a 26 pt win, shooting 44% from the field, 35% from 3, outrebounded them 45-32, had only 8 fouls. Some folks can simply never be happy. My MIL was one, RIP.

 

[EmpoweredIllini]

Peja was an all-time great shooter and AS outside shot is ugly. That said he gets out in transition and makes layups consistently with a seemingly endless variety of finishes. He also has a good touch on midrange shots from the post. I'm OK with him taking a couple threes a game, kids gotta hit a couple eventually even with that shot.

He does have some unorthodox mechanics as he appears to shoot from the left side of his face, which is an unusual release point. There's obviously efficiency concerns this year since he is 9-39 (23%), but that's such a small sample size that I feel it reasonable to expect positive regression. He did shoot .327 on 3.3 attempts/gm at Stanford and .318 on 4.4 attempts/gm at Cal (at Cal he was being keyed on every game as their leading scorer).

Andrej is the type of player that doesn't need to shoot 36% to be an effective offensive weapon. With a .634 two point percentage (3rd on the team behind Tomi & Z) he comes in at .560 eFG% which is 2nd among all of our starters to Tomi. His rate of 3pt attempts is down to 25% from 32% last year and 44% his freshman year, so he is being more selective with it too.

 

[Calvin]

- I've been Petros biggest fan...however, I just dont think he can play an all around game that works at this level. Small, no defense, soft and passive. Its a shame, but I may have to sell my stock. I was so hopeful...but I think I may just have been wrong
- We are 12-3 and ranked at 16 with wins over Texas Tech, Tennessee and 2 games down to the wire with a good Alabama team and a sneaky good Nebraska team. We have one of the best Freshmen in the country playing point, and our offense continues to be ranked very high.
IMO think folks have moved into this, like "Yea I don't care until we get to the final 4"..."Yea a 25 point win at home is nothing to me"..."Yea but I hate some of our coaches"..."Yea but the Nebraska game"..."Yea but you should have beat Rutgers by more in the 2nd half... blah blah blah

I'll say it. I'm enjoying the season.
I'm enjoying a 25 point win over Rutgers. Its a joy to watch Keaton play for us. Z is a fun player to root for. Mirk keeps me on the edge of my seat.
I dunno if they are a final 4 team, odds are probably not...but we are no doubt one of the best team in the country, have been a winning program since Brad has been here and we'll have warranted championship aspirations all year.

I dunno, just take one second and be like "Yea, I'm glad I get to root for this team"

Then go back into darkness.

Going through the post-game, this really captures it for me. In much of the non-conference my expectations were too high. They're young and you can see the team growing, especially after the NB loss. Even with the losses, those were all very good teams, and to my eye, we're better now. Brad seems looser, and playing Wagler the other day with foul trouble makes me think he wanted to test him and give him some experience in a difficult situation. IMO that's genius because your best players need to be leaders that help you make a run (and full disclosure I didn't like the move at the time).

I get the complaints about the sloppiness in the 2nd half. They clearly backed off. But OTOH, my sense was that if Rutgers made a run they would turn it back on. Could they? Not sure, but great teams have an extra gear that they find when they need to. A lot is going right, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

 

[Poe's Law]

Let's be real for a sec.

If you are truly drinking "Wisconsinably" you are either......

A. So smashed at the bar you can't get to your _________ (car, snowmobile, bathroom)
B. Driving the wrong way on the highway
C. In Jail

Well it’s not C. There’s a reason the first sign you see when you cross the border into Illinois is WE ARREST DRUNK DRIVERS.

 

[2008NRESGrad]

He does have some unorthodox mechanics as he appears to shoot from the left side of his face, which is an unusual release point. There's obviously efficiency concerns this year since he is 9-39 (23%), but that's such a small sample size that I feel it reasonable to expect positive regression. He did shoot .327 on 3.3 attempts/gm at Stanford and .318 on 4.4 attempts/gm at Cal (at Cal he was being keyed on every game as their leading scorer).

Andrej is the type of player that doesn't need to shoot 36% to be an effective offensive weapon. With a .634 two point percentage (3rd on the team behind Tomi & Z) he comes in at .560 eFG% which is 2nd among all of our starters to Tomi. His rate of 3pt attempts is down to 25% from 32% last year and 44% his freshman year, so he is being more selective with it too.

Right, which is why I said I'm not selling my stock! I also expect him to revert to his "mean" which is certainly better than 23%.

 

[HereSoIDontGetFined]

It seems the Loyalty hive mind insists that we shoot 100% from the field and the line, gather 100% of the rebounds, and hold our opponents to 0% shooting and 0 points. Last night wasn't our best game, but we still managed to cobble together a 26 pt win, shooting 44% from the field, 35% from 3, outrebounded them 45-32, had only 8 fouls. Some folks can simply never be happy. My MIL was one, RIP.

I mean, it's not this. There's just this expectation that if we blow them out by 27 in the first half, we'll continue to blow them out in the second. That's just rarely how basketball ever goes.

 

[NarrowJ]

I mean, it's not this. There's just this expectation that if we blow them out by 27 in the first half, we'll continue to blow them out in the second. That's just rarely how basketball ever goes.

There was a comment last night along the lines of "Illinois should never lose a half against this Rutgers team, no excuse for it"

But, this is common enough in sports at and above this level. Everybody at this level is good enough to beat you in a single game sample size, let alone a 0.5 game sample size.

Just a couple of days ago a 13-23 Charlotte Hornets team went into Oklahoma City and trounced them by 30 (and OKC had their full squad).

 

[Get yourself a new map]

Our last game: 26 point win against bad team
Iowa’s last game: 3 point loss against bad team

Our Q1 record: 3-3
Iowa’s Q1 record: 0-2

But yes, it is us who needs to play better on Sunday.

Iowa will be favored.

 

[Indy Illini Fan]

Happy with the win … They’re the worst team in the league, we should’ve won … It wasn’t about winning tonight …

Tonight was the opportunity to play a complete game … Dominate from start to finish …

Didn’t play to the standard in the 2nd half … Brad would literally be the first person to tell you that … If Brad is happy with that 2H performance then I’ve got questions …

No one expects perfection … I expect them to strive for it … I expect the standard to be the standard … Knowing the thrill of an all out effort …

We didn’t bring the fire in the 2H … Played down to the level of our competition … Great teams stomp on peoples throats … We’ve shown we can do it (see: Mizzery game) …

That’s what I expected to see in the 2H … It’s the standard that Brad has set with this team …

 

[Indy Illini Fan]

There was a comment last night along the lines of "Illinois should never lose a half against this Rutgers team, no excuse for it"

But, this is common enough in sports at and above this level. Everybody at this level is good enough to beat you in a single game sample size, let alone a 0.5 game sample size.

Just a couple of days ago a 13-23 Charlotte Hornets team went into Oklahoma City and trounced them by 30 (and OKC had their full squad).

We should NEVER lose a half to the worst team in the Big Ten …

We should NEVER have to question which team has more fire … That they can control … Rutgers was competing in the 2H … Our guys looked ready to hit the showers at times …

 

[NarrowJ]

We should NEVER lose a half to the worst team in the Big Ten …

Well we did (and like I was saying a terrible Hornets team whooped Oklahoma City by 30 on their home floor the other night, so stuff like this happens)

We should NEVER have to question which team has more fire … That they can control … Rutgers was competing in the 2H … Our guys looked ready to hit the showers at times …

This kind of thing is sometimes fairly natural to an obviously superior team that is already up 30 going into 2H... I'm sure Brad will have the treadmills out

 

[Indy Illini Fan]

Well we did (and like I was saying a terrible Hornets team whooped Oklahoma City by 30 on their home floor the other night, so stuff like this happens)

I'm sure Brad will have the treadmills out

Absolutely it happened … Not up to the standard …

He gave a quick treadmill answer the other day but he’s very careful talking about it with the media because of well I think we all know … But trust me, Brad does have access to a treadmill …

 

[EmpoweredIllini]

Rutgers won the 2nd half in a game vs then #17 Tenn in which they also lost by 25 points

Rutgers played even in the 2nd half in a game vs then #1 Purdue in which they lost by 16 points

seemed like its not just an Illinois thing idk

 

[aaeismacgychel]

I thought this was a good win over an extremely overmatched opponent where we did what we needed to do in the first half and just coasted to the final whistle. I do think the consternation about the "not playing the full 40" is a bit much, as that second half was not too dissimilar to what happens in garbage time. From a metrics perspective it's why kenpom and torvik both utilize limiters for margin of victory. Winning by 30 vs winning by 50 is extremely trivial compared to say winning by 5 vs winning by 25. NET has no such limiter so on that front, yeah, not playing a full 40 is unfortunate, but again, this stuff happens. Hard to keep the energy up to go full bore when your opponent just isn't very good.

That said, I do think there are some very valid criticisms of the gameplay in general. We did seem to settle for some quick bad quality threes. And we also had a very sizable height advantage inside that we really didn’t look to take all that much advantage of. I personally would've liked to see us draw up a few more lobs to Big Z for example. One other thing that does seem to be a running theme this year is that entry passes to our bigs seem to be a struggle for us. Boz had opportunities but opted to hold and pass it around the horn. And really, Mirk is the only player I see who actively looks to complete an entry pass with good placement and delivery. While I know it's not a big feature of our offense this year, it'll be extremely useful against some undersized opponents and I would've liked to see it a bit more in this game.

Outside of that, thought we played a very good game. Keaton was ridiculous. Jake was hot, Tomi showed some good play and energy, and just another ho-hum 20+ pt victory over a much lesser opponent, which is what good teams do. Now onto a much bigger test in Iowa

 

[RockfordIllini]

Did Rutgers play harder and with more fire than us in the second half? I think that’s pretty clear.

However, Rutgers also hit a lot of tough shots. Contested fall away 2s, 3s off of movement etc. that made our defense look worse than it was. I think the second half score was a little misleading. I would bet the computers would say we had better shot quality and were probably 5-10 points better.

The counter is Rutgers couldn’t throw it in the ocean in the first half so it netted out the same. But if that’s the case not worth arguing about the second half. 26 points better win and holding a BIG opponent under 60 is a success. Otherwise just picking nits.

 

[madillini4]

2-2 since Caleb showed up and the Bears had the ball last with a chance to win it in all four. Things may just be changing.

Jordan Love played less than a quarter in both of those games the Bears won, just sayin. Like I’m said, I’m happy the rivalry has been reignited.

 

[FreshlySqueezed]

And certain people don't have to be constant sky-is-falling complainers either but I don't see you pointing that out. But please, continue with your double standard.

When people incessantly complain about the #3 offense in the country, smarter people are going to [easily] come out and defend the offense.

 

[Guest]

I was telling my son that I'm starting to feel sorry for Petro. He just can't get into a rhythm.

Yeah, me, too. I was really high on MP when he committed to Illinois based on the information that others here provided. An incredibly skilled PG. And I’m just disappointed that he can’t get more playing time to shake off the rust. Does no one remember the UTRGV game? He played around 15 minutes and played pretty well. The comments after that game were the exact opposite of most of the negative (but realistic) comments since then.

Dariush Takhtehchian, M.D
@takhtehchianmd
22-year-old Mihailo Petrovic. As advertised. Already has 12 pts, 3 dimes, 2 boards in 12 minutes

Someone posted, "I need more Mihailo."

And another: I'll go out on a limb here and say we got a good one in Petrovic.
Really good, really quick.

And other similar posts.

I think he can still be a good PG. I just don’t know why he isn’t more consistently good like he was in the UTRGV game, other than the many reasons that have been posited here already: got to campus late, hamstring injury, didn’t get to practice more with the team, not enough minutes when he does play to get into a rhythm, and maybe trying too hard when he is in, that is he overextends himself and makes mistakes. Sadly, he does not seem to be improving, but why can he play so well against UTRGV and not in any later games? My money is on the fact that he just doesn’t get enough minutes in actual games. But I also see the other side, that he doesn’t make the most of the minutes he has, and hasn’t improved since UTRGV. Maybe he will come back next year, since many believe KW will be gone. But I am becoming less optimistic of that after each game.

Edit: I just listened to BU’s presser, and he was pretty complimentary toward MP.

 

[FreshlySqueezed]

LOL the general climate of society is the people who complain JUST to f'n complain. We're the 9th best team in the country per KP, the 7th best team in Torvik, and the 10th best team per Evan Miya.

So yeah, it's reasonable to suggest people complain less and enjoy the ride.

 

[FreshlySqueezed]

Iowa will be favored.

KP has us favored by 1.

 

[Rap47]

I for one am glad the Illini didn't bust their butts in the second half. This might keep them more rested for Iowa. It is not impressive to beat a sub par team by 50 points.

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

We should NEVER lose a half to the worst team in the Big Ten …

We should NEVER have to question which team has more fire … That they can control … Rutgers was competing in the 2H … Our guys looked ready to hit the showers at times …

Our lead was also NEVER less than 20pts at any point in 2H.

It's just life being up 27 at halftime .

Sure Mizzou was great, but when you're up by that margin, you're significantly likelier to not come out with the same focus and energy.

Tennessee beat Rutgers by 25. Second half score: 30-29 Rutgers. I don't think anyone was claiming Tennessee's team was cooked.