It won’t be easy, but none of them are. Xavier meets another opponent from a highly touted conference in the first round.
The first round of the NCAA tournament is a magical place to be. It’s here where legends start to be made and runs that live forever start. It was here where Sean O’Mara scored 18 to help Xavier pull past a Maryland team that was in full flight. It was the first round where Tu Holloway rose over Jack Cooley. Xavier beat Louisville in a time where that was nearly unthinkable in a first round matchup the year of The Run. Xavier stormed back form down 11 in the first round to knock off Georgia the year that BJ Raymond made the shot against West Virginia.
A lot can happen in this round. It’s where stories start. These teams got here by vastly different routes. Xavier wasn’t the last team in the tournament, but they were far, far too close for comfort. Illinois was basically in from the moment they started rolling off Q1 wins in the Big Ten. In fact, barring a bizarre thrashing by Duke, their entire resume is that of, well, a six seed. For Xavier fans it was hard not to check Bracketologists to see if their Q1 last night got them in for sure.
Team Fingerprint
Illinois on offense is really good at one thing: offensive rebounding. They parlay that into a pretty good shooting percentage inside the arc. Their 16th in the nation inside the arc is strongly bolstered by shooting 67.8% close to the rim. That’s extremely good. Should their coaching staff note that, they may instruct the Illini to stop heaving 46.9% of their shots from deep, where they shoot only 31.3%. These guys hammer the offensive glass relentlessly. They get back 36% of their misses. SJU is the closest comp Xavier has played this year.
Defensively Illinois defends the perimeter ferociously. Only two teams in the nation allowed teams to take a lower ratio of threes to field goals attempted. They don’t try to force turnovers at all and focus on not allowing threes, forcing teams to shoot terribly inside the arc (they’re 18th in the nation at that), and ending possessions with defensive rebounds. They’re brutally effective at keeping teams from shooting well. The only reason they don’t have an elite defense is that they don’t ever force turnovers.
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Kasparas Jakucionis | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Freshman | Class | Senior |
| 6’6″, 205 | Measurements | 6’0″, 188 |
| 15/5.6/4.6 | Game line | 9.5/2.6/4.3 |
| 44.8/32.9/84.1 | Shooting line | 42.2/35.2/79.2 |
| There’s a sense in which Illinois kind of lives and dies by what this guy does. He spends a ton of time with the ball in his hands, leads the team in PPG and APG, and leads the team in usage rate by a wide margin. He’s a good finisher at the rim but doesn’t have the range of a Tre Johnson sort of player. He turns the ball over a lot and can be a little foul prone; a whistle here or there could change the whole tenor of this game. | ||
| Kylan Boswell | Shooting Guard | Ryan Conwell |
| Junior | Class | Junior |
| 6’2″, 205 | Measurements | 6’4″, 215 |
| 11.9/4.9/3.4 | Game line | 16.7/2.8/2.5 |
| 41.2/22.4/79.4 | Shooting line | 45.4/41.7/82.2 |
| Boswell spent two years at Arizona, where he hit almost 100 threes at over a 38% success rate. He has been much worse as a shooter this season, but he has really made up for it by developing into a much more frequent and effective scorer at the rim. If he’s forced to shoot a jumper, he’s cooked. He’s a good defender, does a solid job at getting to the line, and doesn’t turn it over much. | ||
| Will Riley | Small Forward | Marcus Foster |
| Freshman | Class | Senior |
| 6’8″, 195 | Measurements | 6’5″, 215 |
| 12.5/4.1/2.3 | Game line | 8/4.9/2 |
| 42.9/32.1/71.6 | Shooting line | 41.2/40/76.8 |
| Jakucionis leads the team in usage rate, but Riley leads it in shots percentage. He’s on the floor to shoot and he’s not bashful in fulfilling that mission. He splits his shots almost evenly between the rim, mid-range, and three-point range, getting a little more frequent and a little less effective the farther out he goes. He doesn’t board much by percentage and isn’t a distributor; he lifts. | ||
| Tre White | Power Forward | Dailyn Swain |
| Junior | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’7″, 210 | Measurements | 6’8″, 220 |
| 10.7/5.4/0.8 | Game line | 10.5/5.4/2.6 |
| 50.7/34.4/82.4 | Shooting line | 52.8/17.4/81 |
| White is on his third school in three years, having started his career at USC and swung through Louisville before landing at Illinois. He’s a really efficient scorer, especially at and around the rim, and a good rebounder on both ends. He has been cash at the line this year and does a good job getting there. He can guard a little, but foul trouble has occasionally gotten him. | ||
| Tomislav Ivisic | Center | Zach Freemantle |
| Sophomore | Class | Senior |
| 7’1″, 255 | Measurements | 6’9″, 227 |
| 12.5/7.7/2.3 | Game line | 16.7/2.8/2.5 |
| 49.8/34.6/74.6 | Shooting line | 45.4/41.7/82.2 |
| Ivisic shoots 63% from inside the arc and 84% at the rim, but for some reason he also shoots a lot of threes. His 34.6% mark from out there certainly isn’t hateful, but he is really hard to guard in the paint. He’s a really good rebounder, especially on the defensive end, and a reasonable rim protector. He doesn’t draw a lot of fouls and generally makes himself maybe a slightly easier matchup than he could be. |
Reserves
Ben Humrichous is a 6’9” senior forward late of Evansville. He averages 8/3.8/0.9 per game on extremely low usage; his .383/.350/.688 shooting line isn’t superficially impressive, but he gets a lot of offensive efficiency just from never turning the ball over. He’s helped out in the front court by 6’8” freshman big Morez Johnson, who averages 7.1/6.7/0.3 on .640/.000/.619 shooting. He eats glass on both ends, is an okayish defender, and has shot zero threes in his collegiate career. As you might expect from a freshman big man, fouls have been an issue.
The Big Ten’s leader in two-point shooting percentage this year was Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn, a 6’1” sophomore guard for the Illini. He comes off the bench to average 6.3/1.7/0.5 on .443/.255/.806 shooting, He’s great at the rim and from the mid-range; he also takes more than half of his shots from behind the arc, where he’s 25-98 on the year. Jake Davis provides 10 minutes per game of depth at the wing; he shoots 34% from deep and has occasionally popped up with a (comparatively) big number in the scoring column.
Three questions
- Can Xavier find room to shoot? Illinois has allowed 12 high-major teams to shoot more than 31% of their shots from behind the arc. Those teams are 5-7 against the Illini. Teams that make 35% of their threes are .500 against the Illini. Those aren’t stone lock numbers, but they do go a long way toward beating Illinois.
- How will Illinois shoot? The Illini shoot a lot of threes, but they don’t make a particularly large chunk of them. In 15 of their games they have shot lower than 30% from behind the arc. They’ve lost ten of those. Stunningly, twice that terrible shooting hasn’t stopped Illinois from hoisting over 40 attempts. If Illinois shoots badly from behind the arc, they tend to lose.
- Can Xavier keep Illinois off the offensive glass? In conference play, Xavier was second in the Big East in defensive rebounding. In conference play, Illinois was second in the Big Ten in offensive rebounding. After getting punked by St. John’s, Xavier was ninth best in the nation in defensive rebounding. That doesn’t erase that SJU game, but it does give reason to think that X can stay with the Illini.
Three keys
– Find a hero: James Breeding did his level best to keep Zach Freemantle and Ryan Conwell from living their best March lives against Texas. Marcus Foster put in a monstrous second half shift to keep Xavier in touching distance. Dante Maddox had done the same in the first half. Conwell and Freemantle will get another shot against Illinois, but Xavier will need someone else to jump in and help.
– Get the crowd on side: Xavier rode a home crowd to the win against Texas. In Milwaukee they’ll have a neutral crowd that will be ready and willing to get behind a lower seed looking for an upset. It will take a run, a Dante Maddox four point play, or something crazy from John Hugley, and this crowd will be ready and willing to go. It won’t be Cintas North, but it could get loud.
– Slow down the Illini offense: Illinois plays offense almost as fast as Xavier does. They also look to force short defensive possessions. Xavier doesn’t. Xavier likes to slow opposing offenses down. If they can do that and keep the Illini from getting in rhythm, they’ll have a better chance. Nine of Illinois’ 12 losses have come when the pace is at 73 possessions or below.