NIT first round
March 14 at State Farm Center in Champaign, IL
espn3.com
It's been an interesting last month for Illinois. The Illini had a four-game winning streak at the end of February that included wins over future NCAA teams Northwestern and Michigan State & gave them a chance at an at-large bid, followed by a terrible loss to Rutgers in the regular season finale that probably put an end to that chance and a blowout defeat to Michigan in the Big 10 Tournament.
Two days after the Michigan loss (NOTE: this was the game where the Wolverines had to use practice jerseys because their regular uniforms were still stuck on a plane that had crashed on the runway prior to takeoff. Yes, it was THAT game), Illinois fired head coach John Groce. So, anything was possible in the Illini's NIT opener.
Well, Illinois turned it around at least for one day, getting 25 points from Malcolm Hill in an 82-57 victory. That's a 1-0 record for interim coach Jamall Walker, who watched the hosts hold Valpo to 3-of-18 shooting from three-point range.
Valparaiso had a really difficult end to its season: the nation's eighth-best scorer, Alec Peters, went down with a season-ending injury, the second-seeded Crusaders scored 41 points (12 in the first half) in their first game of the Horizon League Tournament, a loss which ended a shot at an NCAA bid, and then Tuesday's blowout loss. That all happened in about a three-week span.
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