Illini turn back the clock in loss at Michigan
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In Illinois' big chance to push the arrow all the way to "special" on the Bruce Weber-O-Meter, it instead picked a terrible time to point the arrow back toward 2007-08.
Tied with six minutes to go at No. 23 Michigan on Sunday - a situation that occurred so many times last season - the Illini misfired on 8 of their last 9 shots.
Meanwhile, the Wolverines abused Illinois' defense with drives to the hoop and hit their last 4 field goals and last 4 free throws.
The throwback result that Illinois wished it could throw back?
Michigan relished a 74-64 victory before 12,912 at Crisler Arena that forced the Illini to accept a split of their rugged start on the Big Ten road.
"If you're going to end up having a good year, you've got to try and hold court against the best teams in the league," said Michigan coach John Beilein. "And Illinois obviously is."
Senior forward Calvin Brock came off the bench to lead the Illini (13-2, 1-1) with a season-high 13 points and 7 rebounds.
Manny Harris, the Big Ten's leading scorer, topped five Wolverines in double figures with 16.
"I told you guys we were going to find out how good we are at Purdue," Weber said. "Then I told them today, we're going to find out if you're special. And right now, we're not special yet.
"I think we have an opportunity to become that, but right now we're not."
Everyone with Illinois pointed the finger at the team defense - or lack thereof.
Spreading the floor from the outset, Michigan rained in 8 of 18 3-point attempts in the first half to draw out the Illini's man-to-man defenders.
With everyone focused on the bombs to start the second half, the Wolverines (11-3, 1-1) scored 12 points on drives to the basket where nobody came from the help-side.
And that count doesn't include Michigan's three breakaway dunks and one short floater in transition.
That gave the Wolverines 20 easy second-half points when the Illini had 25 altogether. No wonder Illinois' 1-point halftime edge didn't hold up.
"They hit some 3s and you start thinking, 'I need to stay out on this man,' " said senior guard Trent Meacham. "Then the second half they had some drives and we're still hugging our man on defense and they're just going in for a layup. That gets to you a little bit.
"We had a chance. We may not have played great at all, but we had a chance and we weren't the better team there at the end."
The Illini scored just 2 points in the final 6:17 as they couldn't connect no matter how open the shot.
With Illinois trailing 66-64 with three minutes to play, Brock missed an open 15-footer from the baseline.
Michigan answered with a rare post play as DeShawn Sims (13 points, 9 rebounds) got the smaller Brock on the block and tossed in a short jump hook.
Then Alex Legion, booed all day because he asked out of a Michigan letter-of-intent with when Tommy Amaker was fired, missed an open 12-foot pullup in the lane-Demetri McCamey couldn't finish a driving layup-Mike Davis missed a 10-foot turnaround-and Michigan responded with 2 points every time but one.
Despite the result, Legion would like to reposition the Weber-O-Meter arrow.
"Oh, I still think we're special," Legion said. "We're 13-2. Just another loss that we have. We don't look down, we look ahead and hopefully get the win next time."