Just what the doctor ordered — a win. I disagree with some on here who are saying Illini needed to be pushing the ball more. I think BU purposely had this team take their time, relax and get into the offense. I think they’ve been a bit quick to shoot of late, which isn’t a great combination when not shooting well. Two previous losses, Illini shot 38% and 28%. They shot 52% last night. Sure Plummer getting hot had something to do with that, but excluding him the team still shot 47%.
And how about Plummer. Finally had a game like I saw him deliver in Pac 12. He won’t shoot like that every night, but I can guarantee you that won’t be his last hot night. And I thought one decision by BU went largely unnoticed last night. When Frazier and Curbelo were out, BU turned to others to bring ball up and start offense, leaving Plummer to play to his strength. Shooting is what he does. He’s not really that effective creating for others or for himself. He stayed out around the 3-point line and his teammates found him — even Kofi
I have to eat my words a bit regarding Kofi. In pregame thread I said Kofi didn’t have passing in his tool belt. It didn’t look very natural last night, but he made several passes out of the post. More impressive to me than the Plummer find were several times when he made the pass right away before the double team came, realizing he couldn’t make a quick move. He keeps doing that and both he and his teammates will benefit.
Finally, the other thing I liked that I thought went hand in hand with taking their time on offense was the straight up D they played. They didn’t get many steals or forced turnovers, but they held K-State to 39% and 29% shooting, and multiple times their defensive stops seemed to fuel the offense. All and all, it seemed like BU wanted this team to get back to basics — run the offense and play stout D (KSU shot only 9 FTs after opponents in previous two games shot 31 and 20). This team has shown it wasn’t ready to just pick up where they left off last year, so BU went back to establishing the foundation needed for winning basketball. Once they’ve shown the foundation has set then they can worry about pushing the ball and playing more like we’ve seen them play in past. But with Ayo gone, don’t be surprised if this year they never get back to playing like last year’s team. By that I don’t mean they can’t win like last year’s team, but they might just have to use a different road map.