Dec. 21, 2004
Box Score
NORMAL, Ill. - Illinois survived a fired-up Illinois State squad and a barrage of three point field goals to come away with a hard-fought 82-72 victory Tuesday night at Redbird Arena in Normal, Ill. Angelina Williams was brilliant once again, netting a game-high 27 points and also adding eight boards, five blocked shots and four assists in the win. It was the third straight victory for Illinois, who improves to 7-2 overall and 4-1 on the road. ISU, meanwhile, drops to 3-6 overall.
The Redbirds came out of the gates fired up, hitting their first three and six of their first eight from three point land to open up leads of 10-2, 17-4 and finally 23-8 at the 13:00 mark, getting the crowd of nearly 3,000 into a frenzy.
The Illini would roar back, however, with a 13-2 run of their own, including back-to-back threes by Jere Issenmann and Janelle Hughes, to get within four at 25-21. Illinois would stay hot and pull to within one at 31-30 after a Tiffanie Guthrie jumper 3:45 before the half. But ISU's McCormack would hit two more threes down the stretch to finish the half 5-6 from downtown giving ISU a 39-35 advantage at the break.
Tiffanie Guthrie scored eight consecutive UI points early in the second half to keep the game tight and then, at the 13:48 mark, the Orange and Blue finally broke through to take their first lead of the game, 52-50, after an Angelina Williams jumper capped an 11-2 Illinois scoring run. ISU answered right back with - what else - a three pointer, this time by Amber Shelton, to regain the lead.
The two teams traded buckets down the stretch; with Illinois finally getting a bit of cushion on a pair of Williams jumpers for a 74-67 lead with less than three minutes to go. Illinois would get a lay-in from Guthrie and hit 4-4 from the line in the final seconds to set the final at 82-72.
"We were in a hole early and had to dig our way out," said Head Coach Theresa Grentz. "Early on we were settling for a lot of jumpers and I give ISU credit for taking us out of our game, but after their surge at the beginning we felt like we had taken their best shot. In the second half, we started penetrating and getting the shots we wanted. This is a nice win going into Christmas."
ISU shot an astounding 10-16 (.625) from behind the arc in the first half, accounting for 30 of their 39 points. They finished with 16 treys on 29 attempts (.552), a school record and the most ever allowed by an Illinois team. The previous high was 12, set on three occasions, most recently by Wisconsin on 1/25/00.
Illinois was not too shabby from behind the arc either, hitting 7-17 (.412) from downtown, including 3-5 from Janelle Hughes, who finished with 15 points and four boards off the bench. Guthrie had an outstanding all-around game with 19 points on 7-12 shooting, a game-high-tying nine rebounds and four steals. Danyel Crutcher also added nine rebounds for the Illini.
The Orange and Blue shot .500 (32-64) from the field, including a red-hot .643 (18-28) in the second half. They held a double-digit rebounding advantage (43-29, +14) for the fourth consecutive game, including 17 offensive boards. Illinois blocked eight shots on the night and turned the ball over just 13 times in the fast-paced contest.
Illinois will host Central Michigan at Assembly Hall on Dec. 28 (7 p.m.) before opening Big Ten Conference play on the road at Michigan on Dec. 30.
