That one hurt.
For 20 minutes in Lubbock, No. 3 Illinois looked nothing like a No. 3 team. It turned the ball over 11 times, got pushed around on the glass, and walked into the locker room down 49-29 to No. 16 Texas Tech. Then the Illini came out and played about as well as they can for the next 20 minutes. They shot 58% in the second half, cut a 22-point deficit to one, and had the United Supermarkets Arena crowd nervous.
But they couldn't get over the top. Texas Tech won 84-78, and the stat Illini fans will be thinking about all week is the free-throw line. Illinois went 8-for-19, and Texas Tech went 23-for-26.
The First Half Was a Disaster
Brad Underwood didn't sugarcoat it. "I'm disgusted with how we played in the first half," he said on the postgame radio show. He called it "nauseating," and he said the meltdown "was not surprising but shocking."
The numbers back him up. Illinois turned it over 11 times before halftime, and Tech scored 15 points off those turnovers. Most of them were live-ball turnovers, steals that turned into layups at the other end. The Red Raiders outrebounded Illinois 23-15 in the half. Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn and Cruz Davis combined for 26 first-half points, and the lead hit 22 at 49-27 with 1:04 left. The Illini were also 1-of-4 from the line in the first half, an early sign of what was coming.
"The first half was just live-ball turnovers, pick sixes, whatever you want to call them, giving them easy baskets," Underwood said. "You can't help your defense when you're turning it over at the rate we did in the first half."
Sound familiar? Underwood thought so too. He said the game "really looked very similar to our Baylor exhibition," when Illinois gave up 95 points and got killed on the offensive glass.
Then Came the Comeback
Whatever got said at halftime worked. Illinois got more aggressive on the ball, cleaned up its ball-screen coverage, and made Texas Tech play in the halfcourt. The Red Raiders, who shot 18-of-38 in the first half, went just 8-of-27 in the second.
On offense, Quentin Coleman took over. The freshman buried a three at 11:44 to make it 61-51, then another at 10:52 to make it 61-54. Tomislav Ivisic finished an and-one at 9:13, and suddenly it was 61-57. At 5:37, Andrej Stojakovic scored a layup that made it 65-64. A 22-point lead was down to one.
Illinois never got the lead, though. Tech answered, and Donovan Atwell's three made it 71-66 with about four minutes left. Underwood pointed to that possession afterward: Tech got three shots at it before Atwell finally hit. "I think it's a one-possession game and they get three shots," he said.
The Illini kept fighting. Coleman hit another three with 34 seconds left to make it 80-76. But Tech made its free throws down the stretch and closed it out.
The Free Throws
Illinois shot 50% from the field, made 20 of 26 two-pointers, and outscored Tech in the paint. Normally that's how you win a road game. But Texas Tech scored 15 more points at the free-throw line, and it lost by six.
The 42.1% mark was the program's worst since a 39.1% night against Indiana in January 2023, according to Writing Illini. Stojakovic went 5-of-6. The rest of the team went 3-of-13.
"I don't know in my lifetime if I've ever had a team go 8-for-20 from the free-throw line," Underwood said. (He was off by one, but you get the point.) He was blunter on the radio: "You can't spot a team 20 and then go 8-for-a million from the free throw line. And you win the game if you make free throws."
— Brad Underwood
The Glass, Again
Illinois came in as the No. 1 rebounding team in the country. It left outrebounded 43-32, the first time all season it lost the battle on the boards. Tech grabbed 18 offensive rebounds and scored 15 second-chance points.
The biggest problem was a player Illinois didn't know it would see until that morning. In our preview, we noted Jamichael Stillwell's eligibility was tied up in court. He was cleared to play Tuesday and made his debut with 11 points and 13 rebounds, six of them offensive, in 26 minutes off the bench. He was the difference on the boards.
Tomislav Ivisic led Illinois with just six rebounds in 30 minutes. Zvonimir Ivisic had one in 11 minutes. Without David Mirkovic, last season's leading rebounder, Underwood said his top defensive rebounders were freshmen Ethan Brown and Zavier Zens. Zens had a career-high four. That's not how it's supposed to work. "We talked about it a lot for two days," Underwood said. Illinois will hear about it a lot more before Duke.
Coleman Was the Bright Spot
Quentin Coleman — 19 PTS · 7/9 FG · 5/6 3PT
The freshman led Illinois in scoring for the first time in his college career, with 14 of his 19 points after halftime. When the rest of the team was 5-for-28 from three, Coleman was 5-for-6. Writing Illini reported he hurt his ankle in the first half and appeared to be battling an illness during the game. Illinois hasn't given an update, but he kept coming back.
Stojakovic scored 14 of his 18 after halftime and was the only Illini who could make a free throw. Underwood praised Tomi's leadership again: "His leadership was incredible. There's a reason he's one of the best bigs in the country." Underwood also said the guards missed him on "four or five pops" where he had open looks at threes. Ethan Brown had 5 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals. According to Raw Chili, he was the only Illini to finish with a positive plus-minus.
Texas Tech Earned It
Credit to the Red Raiders. Even without JT Toppin, they played a great first half. Cruz Davis led them with 20 points and 5 assists, 13 of the points before halftime. Gibbs-Lawhorn scored 13 in the first half and finished with 15. Wreck'em Red reported he hurt his leg early in the second half and didn't play much down the stretch. Tech is now 3-0 and has won 49 straight non-conference home games. That building is just as hard to play in as everybody said.
What It Means
The Comeback That Almost Was
A win would have been the second-largest comeback in Illinois history. The record is still 23 points at Clemson in 2009. Instead, Illinois has now lost three straight non-conference road games, and its three-game winning streak against Big 12 teams is over.
We picked Illinois 81-74. We were wrong. But we said we'd learn more about this team in Lubbock than in the first two games, and we did.
The bad: This team still has the same problems it had against Baylor. When it gets shoved around and gets careless with the ball, it can fall behind by 20 against anybody good. Underwood also put some of it on the veterans: "I was more disappointed in our veterans for allowing it to happen. They were just as guilty of the turnovers and the non-rebounds." And he played a tight rotation. Only eight players got real minutes, and Lucas Morillo barely played.
The good: Down 20 on the road, without Jake Davis and Mirkovic, with a freshman-heavy rotation, this team didn't fold. It shot 58% in the second half, cut its turnovers from 11 to 5, and made a top-20 team sweat. "I'm proud of them for the comeback," Underwood said. "These guys have to learn, and they got to fight through."
Most fans on social media took it in stride. It's game three, it's a young team, and early non-conference losses haven't stopped Underwood teams before. The free throws will come. The rebounding has to get fixed now.
Up Next
Friday, Nov. 13: Sam Houston at State Farm Center, 6 p.m. CT (B1G+, Busey Bank Illini Sports Network). It's a chance to get right before the big one.
Tuesday, Nov. 17: At Duke, 6 p.m. CT. Another top opponent, another road crowd, and another chance to show that the second half in Lubbock is the real Illinois.
I-L-L. 🧡Reporting compiled from FightingIllini.com, Sports Illustrated (Illinois on SI), Writing Illini, Raw Chili, Busting Brackets, Wreck'em Red and fan reaction on social media.