Streak Over: Illini Can’t Overcome The Luka Garza Experience

Illinois sees seven-game winning streak end Sunday thanks to likely Big Ten Conference Player of the Year Luka Garza.

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The conference’s longest winning streak was halted be the likely Big Ten Conference Player of the Year in his house.

Luka Garza emphatically kept himself as the frontrunner to become Iowa’s first-ever conference player of the year honor with his 13th double-double while leading No. 18 Iowa to a 72-65 victory over No. 19 Illinois. Sunday in front of a packed and seemingly desperate Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The 6-foot-10 center ended with 25 points and 10 rebounds but his contribution seemingly came in short spurts as he would awaken the sold-out crowd with an eight-point minute in the first half and key 3-pointers in the second half to give the Illini (16-6, 8-3 in Big Ten) its first conference loss in a month.

Garza’s performance, coming from a player who is one of only two players in the nation averaging 23 points and 10 rebounds per game, reiterated the permanent green light to shoot that Hawkeyes head coach Fran McCaffery has given him all season.

“Luka can shoot 18 threes if he wants to,” McCaffery said. “I felt like we did a better job getting him the ball as the game went on. We have to give him touches.”

Iowa (16-6, 7-4) has won the last five games against Illinois and had too much offensive firepower Sunday for Illinois to win another ugly game with defense and rebounding.

CJ Fredrick, who has gone from the 2018 Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year out of high school to forgotten redshirt and now a double-figure contributor this season, provided 18 points on just eight field-goal attempts while also failing to record a turnover in 36 minutes.

“I thought Frederick was terrific, made big plays and it’s going to be a pain in the ass to see him for the next four years,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said.

Iowa’s constant switching of defenses forced Illinois, which hadn’t topped the 65-point total in four of its seven-game winning streak heading into Sunday, to get passive and 3-point happy with its zone offense. Illinois connected on 8 of 22 3-pointers and a lot of that inconsistency comes from Trent Frazier missing six of his first seven attempts from beyond the arc and Illini leading scorer Ayo Dosunmu being plagued with foul trouble in the first half. Iowa would come out of every media timeout in a different defense and it was the 2-3 matchup zone that stymied Illinois’ dribble penetration and forced perimeter passing around the arc.

“I didn’t like our shots early,” Underwood said. “We talked all week about playing north and south with them instead of east and west. You can’t fall into that lure against that zone.”

Illinois got production from its bench with Andres Feliz leading the team with 17 points and the 6-foot-2 guard was a major reason Illinois was able to outrebound the Hawkeyes on the offensive end 13-9. Feliz led an Illini bench that outscored Iowa’s reserves 29-0 thanks to the return of previously suspended guard Alan Griffin.

Iowa was able to run its home record to 12-1 by outscoring Illinois 17-6 over the final five minutes and 28 seconds to turn a five-point Illini lead into a brief memory.

“We just couldn’t get a stop late at all,” Frazier said. “You feel like every bounce is going their way but obviously they were doing a lot of things right too. No excuses. We just couldn’t put stops together.”

Dosunmu, who has been Illinois’ go-to closer for road wins at Wisconsin, Purdue, and Michigan, couldn’t find any offensive rhythm Sunday as he finished with just three field-goal attempts in the second half. The Chicago native picked up his second foul with seven minutes left in the first half and was forced to watch his teammates maintain a 31-30 advantage into the locker room.

With its first loss since Jan. 2 at Michigan State, Illinois moves back into a first-place tie with the No. 14 Spartans for the top spot in the league. With just one month of regular season play left, the spot from No. 1 to 6 in the conference are separated by just one game in the loss column.

“This league is the best league in America and if it doesn’t get 12 teams in (the NCAA Tournament) I’ll be shocked,” Underwood said. “Tonight was Big Ten basketball at its finest. Two teams slugging it out.”