Michigan Basketball: 3 predictions for the Wolverines against Illinois
Wolverines won’t take the Illini lightly
If there is one thing that Michigan basketball should know about playing Illinois, especially on the road, is that the Wolverines can’t take this game lightly.
While the Wolverines are a much different team this season, the last two trips Michigan basketball made to Illinois didn’t go well. In fact, they were double-digit losses both in 2016 and 2017. Of course, if you follow Michigan hoops, you will also know that led to the “White Collar” comment about Michigan from Illinois players.
Hear what head coach John Beilein had to say heading into tomorrow's game against Illinois ⤵️https://t.co/FCV3wQekzo
— Michigan Men's Basketball (@umichbball) January 9, 2019
Since then, Michigan is 3-0 against Illinois and the games haven’t really been that close. However, two of the meetings were in Ann Arbor and the other was in the 2017 Big Ten tournament.
Illinois does have three double-digit scorers in Trent Frazier, freshman Ayo Dosunmu and Giorgi Bezhanishvili. However, the Illini also rank 196th in points scored and are 248th in points allowed, so statistically, Michigan should dominate this game.
Yet even though Illinois is 0-4 in the Big Ten, the second-ranked Wolverines can’t afford to overlook this one and with the way, UM struggled against Western Michigan, Air Force and Binghamton, at home, it shouldn’t have a problem getting up for it.