This is not the way to stop a three-year NCAA tournament drought.
Illinois is searching for an invite to the Big Dance after a 10-3 non-conference schedule, but it won't get it playing like it did in Tuesday's Big Ten opener. The Illini were bad on both ends, smashed by the Maryland Terrapins in an 84-59 blowout in College Park.
Maryland dominated on both offense and defense Tuesday, Illinois falling flat in its first true road game of the campaign. The Illini shot a hideous 35.6 percent on the night — including just 4-for-22 from 3-point range — and got torched in the paint, where the Terps held a 48-24 scoring advantage.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Chicago sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
The first half was a disaster for the Illini, who struggled mightily to do much of anything offensively. The team was just 8-for-30 from the field, and players not named Malcolm Hill shot just 4-for-23. Tracy Abrams was especially cold, going 0-for-6 from the field and a grotesque 0-for-5 from 3-point range. As a team, Illinois made just one 3 out of its 10 attempts from behind the arc, and Maryland held a 26-10 scoring advantage in the paint. All the while, the Terps excelled shooting the ball, hitting on 54.8 percent of their shots over the first 20 minutes and getting 13 points off nine Illini turnovers. Hence the 16-point deficit at the break.
Things only got worse for Illinois after halftime, Maryland continuing to shoot at a red-hot clip. A monster 18-3 run for the Terps boosted the lead on the Illini to 29, and shortly thereafter the gap reached a game-high 31, making it easy for Maryland to hold on for the blowout win.
Hill led the Illini with 21 points, seven of them coming from the free-throw line, but was the lone Illinois player with any significant success on the game. Abrams finished 1-for-10 from the field, with Leron Black just 1-for-5.
Maryland got four players in double figures, led by the 20 points of Melo Trimble. Jaylen Brantley scored 13 points, and Justin Jackson and Anthony Cowan had 12 points each.
Big Ten
It was a dud of a conference-opener for the Illini, who were riding high on a six-game winning streak entering the first day of conference play in the Big Ten. Tuesday's nasty performance was all too reminiscent of the team's lone poor stretch of the season, a three-game losing streak during the week of Thanksgiving.
Maryland, meanwhile, scored a convincing win that could go far in putting the Terps into the top tier of the conference with Wisconsin, Purdue and Indiana. Maryland was the de facto No. 26 team in the country in this week's AP poll. A win like this could boost the Terps into the top 25 come next Monday.