Illinois Begins Season With Exhibition Rout Of Ottawa At State Farm Center

Terrence Shannon's 18 points lead Illinois to a 116-65 victory against Ottawa

Illinois coach Brad Underwood refused to get caught up too much into the moment. 

He knows Friday's victory against NAIA opponent Ottawa was just an exhibition. Still, he liked what he saw in 116-65 win at State Farm Center. 

“I’m excited to go watch film and learn from that,” Underwood said. “Most of the emphasis going into (Friday night) was not about personnel or anything they did. It was about us having a fundamental base and making all the fundamental plays we’ve been working on and trying not to make mistakes and communicate and over-communicate and value possessions. I thought we did a lot of good things.”

Terrence Shannon led the No. 25 Illini with 18 points while Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn added 15 points. Justin Harmon and Luke Goode each had 11 points. 

"I thought we did a lot of good things," Underwood said. "I loved the start of the game. Luke got us going. Marcus got us a couple extra possessions with offensive rebounds. I love the fact we had 26 assists. I was very disappointed in the fact we gave up five threes. Most of those were on very poor close-outs. I think one was contested."

QUOTABLE: 

Amani Hansberry: "I think we played well for our first time. We have a lot of experience and a lot of leadership, which helped a lot. I think we have a lot of things we have to clean up, especially if we want to compete against Kansas coming in here next week, but overall I think we did great. We've been talking about defense, and on the boards, we did a lot of stuff that we talked about doing in the locker room."

Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Illini Now. He can be reached at srichardson@gmail.com