Michigan Basketball: 3 takeaways from agitating loss to Illinois

Juwan Howard’s heavily criticized team took the floor on Friday night only to fall flat again in a mostly competitive loss to the Illini.

The undermanned Wolverines fought valiantly but wound up on the short end of the stick with a 68-53 loss to Illinois last night. Michigan basketball has lost four straight now to Illinois and is fading fast in the Big Ten standings.

They’ll look to rebound on Tuesday evening when the Wolverines return home to square off with Maryland if things commence properly.

Here are the three takeaways.

1. Not having Hunter Dickinson doomed Michigan basketball before the tip

Michigan’s chances of pulling a road upset were slim going into Champagne on Friday. They got worse after the news broke that their best player wouldn’t take the floor because of an undisclosed medical issue. The services of key reserve Brandon Johns were also unavailable in the conference loss.

Stepping in for Dickinson was primarily Moussa Diabate. He logged four fouls in 20 minutes and was spelled by rarely used Jaron Faulds.

Jace Howard even got some time guarding Kofi Cockburn because of the effort that he has been showing everyone recently that will not appear anywhere in the stat column.

Dickinson, the DMV local high school star, will work towards getting back on Tuesday to face off with Maryland, who didn’t recruit him hard enough coming out of that area. His presence will give him and his teammates a much-needed lift that can give them a fighting chance of staying out of the Big Ten basement.