Tonight at the United Center- The Rayvonte Rice Show. Unfortunately, the supporting cast is a bit lacking.
While tonight was a one a man cast, this Illini basketball season has been pretty much a duet, with Malcolm Hill, the entire time. Rice and Hill are the team’s two leading scorers and rebounders.
It’s not good when two guards (although Hill is often playing the forward position) are your leading rebounders. Also, it’s a not a good thing that Rayvonte Rice and Malcolm Hill are the only players averaging double figure scoring.
Remember how the 2010-11 Illini were pretty much all Demetri McCamey? Felt like that again with Rayvonte Rice tonight at the U.C. This was supposed to be a homecoming for the eight players on the roster from the Chicagoland area. Instead the whole team revolved around someone who hails from the base, Champaign. Rice had 29 of the 70 points the Illini scored.
However, it “felt” like he had all 70. The spread was Illini -7.5, and it ended up being Oregon who won, 77-70. So “7s wild” I guess. Oregon lost at home to Ole Miss. Yes, the same Ole Miss team that blew a 17 point lead and lost at home today to Western Kentucky. The Ducks have had trouble in the few games that they have played versus high-major and opponents, and ranked competition this season.
Therefore, this loss for the Illini, at their second home, is very very troublesome. It’s inexcusable and inexplicable.
Rayvonte Rice finished 9-16 shooting; a lot of those were highly contested drives to the whole. However, that’s the shot you want if you’re an Illini hoops fan. You want Rayvonte attacking the tin early and often. Maybe those shots aren’t the highest of percentage, but they are the only true option that the Illini have when it comes to scoring inside.
We knew the Illini were going to be guard heavy this season. We all said in the preseason that this team is small, and lacks depth on the front line. Those issues truly reared their ugly head tonight.
“I thought we actually played much better than the other night, they had a great spirit about them, but we didn’t finish the last five minutes,” said Groce.
“You don’t want to foul jump shooters, those are cardinal sins, you want to challenge the jump shooters.”
Said Nnanna Egwu about trying to move forward from a devastating loss such as this:
“These things have happened in the past, but we’ve got to be all in for the rest of the season.”
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2