Illinois grinds out win over Ohio State, advances to Big Ten Tournament semifinals

For the better part of 40 minutes on Friday night, Illinois center Coleman Hawkins was nowhere to be found. The honorable mention All-Big Ten performer and the player with the second-highest offensive rating on the team had only attempted four shots and only grabbed five rebounds. His team trailed by three with 1:19 remaining.

That’s when Hawkins — a 6-foot-10, 225-pound X-factor for head coach Brad Underwood — finally roared to life and changed the game. He blocked a shot and grabbed the defensive rebound that allowed star guard Terrence Shannon Jr. to draw a foul at the other end, finally giving the Illini the lead. And then he snared back-to-back offensive rebounds in the span of 18 seconds to preserve a pulsating 77-74 victory after two more free throws from Shannon.

With the win, Illinois advances to the second Big Ten Tournament semifinal on Saturday afternoon. The Illini will play the winner of sixth-seeded Indiana and third-seeded Nebraska.

On the opposite side of the bracket, top-seeded Purdue will face fifth-seeded Wisconsin.

 Here are three takeaways from the game.

Hometown heroes

The night after scoring all 23 of his points in the second half to lift Ohio State over Iowa and into the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals, small forward Jamison Battle decided to give his hometown another terrific performance.

A native of Robbinsdale, Minnesota, which is roughly 11 minutes northwest of the Target Center where this year’s tournament is being played, Battle nearly matched his feat from Thursday evening by scoring 15 of his team-high 21 points in the second half against Illinois. The Minnesota transfer shot 8-for-16 from the field and made all four of his free throws to pair with point guard Bruce Thornton (20 points) as Ohio State’s primary threats. No other Buckeyes reached double figures.

None of Battle’s shots were bigger than his stepback 3-pointer from the top of the key with 1:44 remaining, a behind-the-back dribble sending Illinois guard Marcus Domask in the wrong direction. The bucket gave Ohio State a critical 74-71 lead.

But it was another Minnesota native whose team emerged victorious: Dain Dainja, a backup center for Illinois from nearby Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, some 11 miles from the arena.

Though he’d only reached double-figure scoring twice since Nov. 24, Dainja exploded for 18 points and eight rebounds on an evening when Domask (16 points per game) and Hawkins (12.9 points per game) only combined for 14. Time after time, possession after possession, Dainja muscled his way through Ohio State’s interior defenders with his brawny 6-foot-9, 255-pound frame twisting and turning for hook shots and layups courtesy of high-level — and highly effective — footwork. He scored 10 points over the final 8:18 as Illinois fought back from a 67-62 deficit to seize the win.

Showing his skills

In a game that began with a flurry and then slowed to a crawl, the player whose skill set transcended the first-half muck was Shannon, the second-leading scorer in the Big Ten at more than 21 points per game, trailing only Purdue star Zach Edey in that department.

It was Shannon who kept the Illini afloat by accounting for 14 of his team’s 31 points in the opening stanza, with no one else contributing more than 6. Domask, who joined Shannon as a first-team All-Big Ten performer, was 0-for-6 from the field and did not score. Center Coleman Hawkins, who is third on the team in scoring at nearly 13 points per game, managed two field goal attempts and made just one.

Though his teammates struggled, Shannon flashed the breadth of his skill set to reinforce why he’s so incredibly difficult to guard. He sliced into the lane for a vicious one-handed dunk after curling off a pin-down screen from the right side. He euro-stepped his way through traffic, through contact and through multiple defenders for a layup that probably deserved the chance for a traditional three-point play. He buried the Illini’s only 3-pointer of the first half following a kick-out pass to the left wing. He snapped a 9-0 Ohio State run by knifing into the passing lane at one end of the floor for a transition dunk at the other.

On a typical night, the hard-charging Shannon attempts 8.1 free throws per game, making nearly 6.5 of them. The only player in the league who draw more fouls per 40 minutes is Edey, whose gravity is such that simply comparing him to anyone else feels trivial. That Shannon is in the same universe as Edey speaks to how much pressure he puts on defenses. And the fact that he only reached the free-throw line once in the opening half against Ohio State underscored just how crisp he’d been.

Shannon punctuated the game by pouring in 12 more points over the final 9:42 to finish with a game-high 28. He shot 8-for-20 overall but made 10 of his 11 attempts from the free-throw line.

Watching and waiting

The dramatic turnaround authored by interim coach Jake Diebler remains one of the feel-good stories of the basketball season, even with Friday’s gutting loss to IIlinois.  

Ohio State had sunk to 14-11 overall and 4-10 in the Big Ten when athletic director Gene Smith stepped in and fired head coach Chris Holtmann on Valentine’s Day. To think that just a month later the Buckeyes would be on the cusp of earning an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament is truly incredible. Diebler has ensured that incoming athletic director Ross Bjork must view him as a legitimate candidate for the full-time job.

What makes this resurrection even better is that Ohio State’s resume might still be worthy of an at-large berth depending on how other conference tournaments unfold. The Buckeyes earned an impressive non-conference win over Alabama on Nov. 24 that could still improve if the Crimson Tide make a run in the SEC Tournament. And when it comes to noteworthy Big Ten victories, they have their fair share of those, too: Purdue, Michigan State (road), Nebraska and Rutgers (road) in the regular season before knocking off Iowa at the Big Ten Tournament.

Ohio State entered Friday’s quarterfinal ranked No. 53 in the NCAA NET Rankings and No. 48 on KenPom. The Buckeyes had a 6-11 record against Quad 1 and Quad 2 opponents and lost just one of 15 games against opponents from Quad 3 and Quad 4. Their strength of schedule is 11th in the Big Ten but still among the top 50 nationally.

Selection Sunday will be tense at Ohio State — and the Buckeyes probably won’t hear their name called — but simply having a chance is something Diebler and his players will embrace.  

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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