3 things we learned in Michigan Basketball’s loss to Illinois

Michigan basketball faced top 25 Illinois in the first-ever matchup in the 2022 season between the Big Ten Regular season Champs vs the Big Ten Tournament Champs. Michigan was ousted 68-53 in Champaign dropping to .500 on the season.

In a game that while at first glance seems bad actually turned out to showcase plenty of positives for the Wolverines moving forward. Over the past few weeks, Michigan has endured a rigorous battle with COVID-19 and was unable to play against Michigan State and Purdue.

However, Michigan basketball was able to gather a formable team to take on the Illini in their first game in 10 days. While the game looks like a blowout at first glance, it was a one-point game with about seven minutes left, but after that, the flood gates opened.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important things we learned about the Michigan vs Illinois game and really try and understand what exactly this season can potentially be if Michigan plays their cards right.

1. Michigan showed a lot of heart (for 35 minutes)

A beaten and battered Wolverine team that was relying on the backs of young and unproven showcased an elite performance for 3/4 of the game against a very good Illinois team who is bound to make a deep tournament run.

While in previous games this year, we’ve seen a lack of heart from this team and a serious decline in effort and tenacity, we saw both of that tonight by these underclassmen who play limited minutes. There’s a lot of work to do, such as cleaning up turnovers and figuring out how to capitalize outside of the arch.

Even without Hunter Dickinson, Michigan basketball was able to rebound competitively with Illinois and was able to force turnovers playing scrappy defense. Michigan played big even though they were small which gave them the ability to stay in the game for as long as they did.

In summary, Michigan was not expected to win this game, the Wolverines did not even cover the spread, but they did showcase elite potential and lots of heart in a game where it got out of hand, but could have easily been a 1-2 point loss if Michigan could have finished stronger.