Illini women鈥檚 basketball 13th in Big Ten
URBANA, Ill. (BVM) — The University of Illinois women鈥檚 basketball team has been pushing hard this 2021-2022 basketball season. This year, the starting five includes guard Sara Anastasieska, forward Lyric Robins, guard Solape Amusan, guard De鈥檓yla Brown and forward Jada Peebles. Out of the 14 games they have played this season they have six wins and eight losses with the team falling to Nebraska last game. This team has been working on strengthening their defense with planned plays, but also improvising once they are out on the court. But, it is hard to continue strengthening their skill when the Illini’s women basketball has not been able to get in a steady flow of playing this year due to their basketball games being consistently postponed.
Their games against Indiana University on Jan. 27, Northwestern University on Jan. 30, and Michigan on Feb. 3 were each moved. Their first game back was on Feb. 6 against Wisconsin where the Fighting Illini lost by 12 points. During this game, the team possessed great offensive skills when setting up and passing with intent as sophomore Kendall Bostic putting 15 points on the scoreboard and rebounding 13 balls.
The following game they had was against Indiana University where they also lost. During this game, the Illini team was loose on defense allowing the Hoosiers to flow with the ball on offense. When the Illini were on offense amidst this game, they were rattled heavily by the aggressive defense Indiana brought that night which led to the loss.聽
During their most recent game against Nebraska on Feb. 12, they lost by 19. While they played hard during this game, Nebraska fought hard during defense using screens in most of their plays and always going to rebound the ball. This intense game showed that though the Fighting Illini women鈥檚 basketball fights rigorously during games to both put points on the board, they must work on improving their defense to make it impenetrable.聽
They have an average of 50-60 points throughout this season, which shows that this team is impressive when putting points on the scoreboard, but there is no effective offense without a tight defense and that is what these previous games show the Illini women鈥檚 basketball needs to improve on.
