CHAMPAIGN — Zach Edey is arguably the first Big Ten star casual men’s college basketball fans point to as the face of the conference.
It makes sense.
The 7-foot-4, 300-pound Edey is the most dominant physical force in the country. A walking double-double that’s always been a rim protector and is turning into a capable facilitator.
But Edey is also more the exception than the norm in this Big Ten these days. It wasn’t all that many years ago physical big men ruled the league.
Caleb Swanigan.
Luka Garza.
Kofi Cockburn.
Hunter Dickinson.
A slew of All-Americans. Even another national player of the year in that bunch with Garza winning in 2021. Edey, of course, is about to repeat. Just without another dominant big man pushing him in the conference.
“I’m really tired of the narrative in the Big ten that this is a big, slow slug-’em-out league,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “The dynamic has changed in this league. This is a guard league. There’s some unbelievably good guards in this league. The best I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”
That’s what Underwood, in his seventh season leading the Illini, attributes the spike in offensive efficiency to this season.
A way to explain how Wednesday night’s game against Minnesota ended in a 105-97 Illinois victory in front of another sold-out State Farm Center crowd of 15,544 fans.
Even if it was a trend that didn’t extend to College Park, Md., earlier Wednesday night in a 68-61 Northwestern win at Maryland in a game where the two teams combined to shoot 4 of 35 from three-point range.
Illinois (21-7, 12-5 Big Ten) and Minnesota (17-11, 8-9) were significantly more accurate. The 13th-ranked Illini and Gophers combined to make 24 of 42 three-pointers. Combined to average 1.54 points per possession. Per former ESPN stats and info guru Jared Berson, of the tens of thousands of Division I games played in the last 15 seasons, none of them could match Illinois and Minnesota’s combined efficiency.
Purdue was the Big Ten’s most efficient offense last season, ranking 12th nationally per Ken Pomeroy.
Four current Big Ten teams — Purdue, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin — have a higher adjusted offensive efficiency than the Boilermakers did during the 2022-23 season. A better showing Wednesday night from Northwestern might have made it five.
“Offense is at a premium,” Underwood said. “You have to be able to score to win games. The old cliché, that offense wins games and defense wins championships, offense won us this game. I think we’ve got really, really good players (in the Big Ten) — really good guards — and it makes it tough.”
Illinois has certainly taken the score-to-win mentality to heart in the new year. Since Big Ten play resumed in early January, Illinois is 11-5 and putting up 85.7 points per game. The Illini haven’t scored fewer than 80 points since their 70-62 win against Indiana on Jan. 27.
“We knew we weren’t going to hold them in the 60s or 70s,” Minnesota coach Ben Johnson said. “The score is what it is. Obviously, you don’t want to give a team 105, but they’re tough to guard. They’ve got some matchup problems for us at a lot of spots, and they do a good job of utilizing and going to those matchups. I thought we did a good job of making them take some tough twos and threes. When they make tough shots, sometimes you’ve got to tip your cap.”
Minnesota made its share of tough twos and threes. As prolific as Illinois has been offensively the past two months, its defense hasn’t kept pace. The Illini have given up 78. 4 points per game in that span, with Michigan and its measly 68 points the only team not to score at least 80 in February.
Underwood said he’s not worried about the discrepancy between Illinois’ offense and defense. While the Illini rose to No. 3 in adjusted offensive efficiency after Wednesday’s win, they also dropped to 94th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency. The number of possessions played — there were 62 apiece for Illinois and Minnesota — eases the Illini coach’s worry.
“How do you move up in the NET, in KenPom?” Underwood said. “Well you beat people by 100. It’s offensive-based. I think in the NCAA tournament, you’e got to be able to score. I think we have a lot of weapons to score. Do we need to be better defensively? Yes. My problem defensively is some of the mistakes that we’re making. Those are allowing teams the good starts.”
Minnesota’s finish was just as hot. The Gophers shot 67 percent from the field in the second half and made 7 of 8 three-pointers. A single kill for Illinois — three consecutive stops between the six-minute mark and five-minute mark of the second half — gave the Illini the late upper hand in a back-and-forth game that featured six ties and 20 lead changes.
“I don’t know if they had one. I don’t know if we went three possessions in a row without scoring,” Underwood said. “There’s nights when the game is pretty and it looks great and the ball goes in and getting those three or four consecutive stops is the difference.”