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Illinois Basketball: Three Focuses for the Illini Against Ohio State

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 3:05 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Rees Woodcock/FanSided via Writing Illini

The Illinois basketball team needs to get back on track after a 25-point loss to the Maryland Terrapins.

This is something that every Illini fan agrees on, and the path to get there is to defeat the Ohio State Buckeyes on New Year’s Day.

I wrote about three things I was focusing on heading into the Maryland game and the Illini really proved all of my focuses wrong.

Tracy Abrams wasn’t a great point guard, Jaylon Tate continued playing between 15-20 minutes and was still ineffective, and the bench scoring was one of the worst we have seen in a while.

With all of these points, I wanted to see if they would translate from the non-conference into Big Ten play and they didn’t.

So, now the three things I am focusing on will have to be slightly adjusted this time around.  The Buckeyes will be getting a new set, sort of.

The first thing I want to focus on is to see if Leron Black can get out of the minor slump he is in.

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Over the past three games, Black has scored a total of 9 points while shooting 3-of-10 from the field.  This isn’t good and the Illini need him to be effective in the game for them to have a chance.

Some of this ineffectiveness has to do with bad offense and standing around, but a lot also has to do with the fact that Black gets in foul trouble way too often.

Black needs to say on the floor so the Illini can have that big presence inside.

The second focus I am watching out for is substitutions.

In the Maryland game, it was almost a 50-50 timeshare between Abrams and Tate in the first half.  That would be fantastic if Illinois had a solid backup that John Groce was willing to play, but they do not, though.

There is no reason, I don’t care how bad he is shooting, that Abrams should only play 22 minutes in a game.  He needs to be on the court.

Abrams is a scoring and distributing threat and if he isn’t going to be playing 30 minutes per game then Te’Jon Lucas should be in a timeshare with him instead of Tate.

And the final thing I want to focus on for this Ohio State game is running plays for Jalen Coleman-Lands.

There are very few times that plays are run for Coleman-Lands and the end result is him just chucking the ball up.

I rarely see Coleman-Lands coming off screens for a three-point shot.  Running something like a screen might enable him to become open and be able to be that No. 2 scorer on the team.

These are my focuses for the Ohio State game.  Illinois needs to figure something out quick because I don’t want to see another massacre like the Maryland game.

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