Filtering the Illinois basketball truths and lies from the exhibition loss to Baylor

We are now through the second exhibition game for the Illinois basketball program, and there are some interesting things going on with the team.

Illinois has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to scoring. We can shoot from anywhere on the court, and this might be the most high-powered Illini offense I have ever seen.

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Defense could be an issue, though. I saw some things on Friday night that could be true and could end up fooling us once the season starts.

Here are the truths and lies from the Illinois basketball loss to Baylor

Truth: Illinois is efficient from the free throw line again

Illinois was one of the best free throw shooting teams in the country last season. We hit 78.0% of our shots from the charity stripe, which ranked No. 17 in the country.

Despite multiple departures, that number seems to be staying consistent. Illinois shot 79.2% from the free throw line against Cincinnati. We followed that up with a showing on Friday night against Baylor of 77.8%.

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With so many freshmen and newcomers to the squad, I will take that solid free throw shooting. I think this is a real number.

Lie: Inability to rebound by Illinois

I touched on the Illinois rebounding in the five observations article, but at the end of the day, I don’t think the numbers we saw against Baylor are true. I think they are a lie.

Illinois was outrebounded 47-38 against the Bears. This margin was mainly in the first half, when we looked pretty bad and Baylor was clicking. The Bears outrebounded Illinois by 10 rebounds in the first half, and we got them by one rebound in the second half.

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Brad Underwood isn’t going to allow Illinois to be a bad rebounding squad. On top of that, we were missing our best rebounder from last season, David Mirkovic. Illinois should be fine when the dust settles.

Truth: Baylor exposed Illinois’ bad perimeter defense

While rebounding issues might end up being nothing, I think there is real concern about Illinois’ perimeter defense.

In the second…

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Publish date : 2026-10-24 12:16:00

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