Two months ago, Illinois’ season was looking like one of years past.
Years past of course referring to the Dark Ages of Illinois Women’s Basketball. When recording double-digit wins was a milestone and a record above .500 was a once-in-a-blue-moon-type rarity.
To open the month of February, Illinois dropped a game on the road to Purdue. Illinois played some of the worst basketball it had all season long, and checked all of the boxes of a bad Illinois loss. They had a slow start on both ends of the floor, struggling to score and struggling to keep their opponents from scoring.
Now, two months after suffering arguably its worst loss of the season, Illinois is one win away from its first postseason title in program history.
What’s behind that change? How did fans go from thinking last season might have been a ‘Linsanity’ run to fighting over what outfit Shauna Green’s statue should be wearing? To start…
Slow Starts, Begone!
The Purdue loss was a low point in Illinois’ season. Not only did it come to Purdue of all teams, but it came to a Purdue team that was coming off of seven straight losses and was practically locked into the bottom four of the Big Ten. It also hurt that Orange Krush had made the trip to West Lafayette to cheer the Illini on.
It was typical of Illinois to lose in that fashion. No, it was typical of that Illinois to lose in that fashion. Since then, the Illini have gone 8-4, with wins over NCAA Tournament teams Nebraska and Indiana.
Earlier in the season, slow starts were frequent for Shauna Green and her team. Too frequent.
Waking up on the right side of the bed, eating a good breakfast and starting your day quickly and productively is true for basketball, too. The math backs it up, too.
This season, Illinois has averaged 28.67 first-half points in losses and 40.67 in wins.
When you consider that the Illini are averaging 74.4 points per game this season, starting with 28.67 means they’ve got a long way to go.
The Illini have been winning as of late and, as you may guess, have been playing fast to start in those wins.
The kicker behind the fast starts as of late has been the motive of aggressiveness.
“We got downhill early like we wanted to. And we were really attacking [the basket],” Green said after Illinois’ 81-58 WBIT semifinal victory over Washington State, in which it scored 42 first-half points. “And when we do that, it kinda just opens everything up.”
As Makira Cook, Adalia McKenzie and Genesis Bryant etched their names into Hinkle Fieldhouse’s paint, it tightened up the Washington State defense, allowing for open jumpers.
There’s no ‘You’ in ‘Confidence’, but there is Confidence in You
“When we do that it gives us more confidence,” Green said of her team’s perimeter shooting on Monday. Confidence is another reason this team has been playing so well as of late.
That’s especially the case for senior guard Genesis Bryant, who scored 18 points while shooting 7-of-11 from the field and 3-of-7 from deep against the Cougars on Monday.
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TCR // Craig Pessman
Bryant was the one that got away for Green when she was the head coach at Dayton. She committed to North Carolina State, but when Green took the Illinois job and Bryant wasn’t getting minutes with the Wolfpack, she made the switch to Champaign and has been an All-Big Ten performer for two straight seasons.
“She’s playing with such confidence right now. She’s just so smooth and doesn’t get too high, doesn’t get too low,” Green said of Bryant. “And I feel like all of our team is playing with that right now. We just have some maturity about us that we did not have even a month and a half, two months ago.”
The WBIT has been a rollercoaster — the fun kind — for Shauna Green on the sidelines. Illinois fans might notice her shouting less, smiling more and even sitting down. During the two games at State Farm Center, she even shared a few interactions with Orange Krush, who were situated behind the bench.
“It’s really fun as a coach,” Green said of her watching her team play with confidence. She pointed out the effort and correctness, so to speak, of the players in the way they play, saying, “They’re doing all the things that really we’ve tried to set in place in our core values from day one when we took this job.”
Hardware on the Line
When Green and her staff came to Illinois, they had clear goals set for the program and its players.
“I’ve been talking to them a lot the last month or so about what Illinois basketball is and what it needs to look like,” Green said on Monday. “And in the last week or so, this is exactly my vision of what I want it to look like.”
In recent weeks, Green has also talked about her vision of hosting postseason basketball at State Farm Center, and not in the WBIT.
“At some point, I want this program to be playing in March at home but in the NCAA Tournament, meaning we’re a top seed and hosting,” Green said after her team’s first-round victory over Missouri State. “That’s the vision that I have and someday, that’s gonna happen.”
When the field still consisted of 32 teams, Illinois was the only sub-500 team to be in the WBIT. After a season of ups and downs, being able to not only play in the WBIT but play for the championship is a reality for Illinois.
“We had some tough times. I think that’s a common thing everyone is saying,” Bryant said after the Washington State win. “But just to know that we [can] compete for a championship and cut down some nets still, even after how we started, I just feel like it’s a blessing.”
The Illini will look to bring their scissors onto the court and up the ladders on Wednesday at Hinkle Fieldhouse when they take on the Villanova Wildcats.
Tipoff will be at 6 p.m., and the game can be seen on ESPN2.
Sarah Wilson is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
