INDIANAPOLIS — In its vast basketball history, Illinois has teased winning a national title throughout the generations.
This Final Four appearance marked the program’s sixth in history, yet it remains without a national title in men’s basketball. Only Houston, with seven Final Four appearances, have more without a title.
And as the No. 3 Illini exited the NCAA tournament with a 71-62 loss to No. 2 UConn, the tenor of the loss matched the program’s tortured high-end history at this stage — achingly close yet not enough.
In a locker room filled with wet eyes and low voices, the consistent theme from Illinois players was the amount of shots that danced on the rim but didn’t manage to fall. Illinois shot just 6-for-26 from 3-point range, and the night was filled with teases that assistant coach Orlando Antigua called “toilet bowls” that swirled around and out of the rim.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Illinois senior Kylan Boswell said of the near-misses. “I’ve never personally shot layups, and they bounce in and out like how they did today. But I mean, [stuff] just happens. Can’t make excuses, but end-to-end today, they beat us.”
Illinois entered the game with the country’s No. 2 most efficient offense, per KenPom.com. And they proceeded to have a game that was anything but efficient. Along with the struggles form 3-point range, Illinois also shot just 13-for-30 from 2-point range.
“We fought, we fought, we fought, and had a very tough shooting night, especially at the rim,” Illinios coach Brad Underwood said. “We missed some shots that we normally don’t miss. It’s part of this game. The ball has to go in.”
Illinois played well defensively, as UConn shot just 35.5% from the field. But Underwood acknowledged that UConn guarded them well.
“We’ve had the No. 1 offense in the country all year, and again, give UConn credit,” Underwood said. “They forced some of those misses.”
Illinois’s history includes losing an epic title game to North Carolina by five points in 2005 under Bruce Weber, a two-point semi-final loss to eventual title winner Michigan in 1989 and a pair of two-point Final Four losses in both 1951 and 1952.
Illinois used its geographic proximity to Indianapolis — nearly 130 miles — to flex the most dominant fan base at the Final Four. And that crowed roared to life as Illinois went on a 10-0 run in the second half to cut the UConn lead to four points with just over five minutes remaining.
UConn got stuck on 57 points for nearly five minutes, and Illinois clawed back into the game with a flurry of free throws and a put back by Andrej Stojakovic.
But with the crowd engaged and UConn’s offense slumping, Underwood called a 30-second time out after an Illinois make. Antigua said the point of the time out was to warn the Illini that UConn would pound the ball to star forward Tarris Reed, who’d been scoreless in the second half to that point.
UConn drew up a play for Reed, as expected, as Karaban found him deep in the post with his defender sealed. He finished with his left hand, and UConn quickly leveraged a turnover to flip the lead to 61-53 with 4:08 remaining.
Illinois cut the lead to four points two more times — including a Keaton Wagler 3-pointer with 44 seconds left that answered a Braylon Mullins 3-pointer — but never got any closer. UConn stayed composed and made its free throws.
Wagler finished with 20 points on 7-for-16 shooting, but was just 2-for-10 from 3-point range. Tomislav Ivisic had 16 points but finished just 4-for-11 from the field.
“I feel like we missed a lot of shots at the rim that we usually make,” Ivisic said. “I don’t know how other way to call it than bad luck.”
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