WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Illinois’ men’s basketball team still might have lots going for it despite the indefinite absence of star guard Terrence Shannon Jr., but tangling with the No. 1 team in the country in hostile territory was a bit too much for the Illini to handle.
Maybe down the road, fellas, but not quite yet.
Purdue’s 83-78 win against the No. 9 Illini (11-3, 2-1 Big Ten) left little doubt whose Big Ten it is for now, certainly, and perhaps for the entire season. It belongs to the team that has sensational 7-4, 300-pounder Zach Edey, the Big Ten’s most dominant player in decades, and gives him a larger load than any other star player in the country carries — yet beat a top conference challenger on a night when Edey played only 23 minutes due to foul trouble.
But the Illini can’t be overlooked, not after they sliced all but three points off a 21-point second-half deficit to make it an 81-78 game with 12.1 seconds left to go. And not with the continued blossoming of Southern Illinois transfer Marcus Domask into a major weapon, the best one the Illini have without Shannon and a better one than anybody could have seen coming.
“I’m not afraid to say it,” coach Brad Underwood said, “he’s one of the better players in the country.”
The Illini soared the 91 miles from home to Mackey Arena, a team playing so well without Shannon — who’s facing a rape charge in Kansas — that fans were speculating that something magical had been unlocked. In two games without Shannon, the Illini hung 104 points on Fairleigh Dickson and, far more impressive, dismantled Northwestern 96-66 in a performance that could be described pretty accurately as perfect.
Kind of funny, isn’t it, that it was FDU that stunned top-seeded Purdue in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last March and Northwestern that handed the Boilermakers their only loss this season? An upset of No. 1 in the first top 10 game at Mackey since 2010 would’ve tied a neat little bow on that story.
That daydream lasted no longer than a blink of the eye once the game started. A few minutes in, the Boilers (14-1, 2-1) already had six second-chance points and an 11-2 lead. By the first media timeout, it was 10 second-chance points and the lead was double digits. Not long after, the score was 20-4 and it was all one could do to keep from wondering if Harry’s Chocolate Stop was still open.
The Illini responded with a 17-4 run to make it interesting — briefly — especially with Edey glued to the bench after picking up a pair of fouls 24 seconds apart. But even though Edey scored only two points in nine minutes of first-half action, the Boilers were plus-14 with him on the floor. Better than that for a team whose supporting cast fails to strike much fear into teams around this conference and the country, the Boilers were plus-1 over 11 minutes without him.
But Domask — whom Underwood has taken to calling “Luka,” as in Doncic, for his crafty scoring ways — put his mark on the proceedings with a huge second half in which he scored 20 of his game-high 26 points. He came in on a scoring binge that included 32 against Northwestern. Throw in 17 points from Purdue’s Lance Jones (Evanston), who was Domask’s teammate the last four seasons in Carbondale, and the SIU guys lit up the night with 43 combined. Go figure, right?
Another Illini transfer, Quincy Guerrier from Oregon, had his third straight double-double with Shannon missing.
“We’ve got really, really good players in this program,” Underwood said. “We’ll continue to be an extremely good basketball program.”
But Purdue is on another level. The Illini didn’t get the full experience.
“They’ve got Zach,” Underwood said, “and nobody else does.”
