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EspañolFeb. 28—Illinois' offensive success this season — its rise to the most efficient offense ever recorded in the KenPom era — is in no small part predicated on the way the Illini exploit matchups. Versatile personnel and good decision making help fuel that style of play.
Michigan made that difficult for Illinois on Friday night at State Farm Center. A pair of post-ups on smaller guards by Zvonimir Ivisic and David Mirkovic led to a pair of easy buckets in the second half. Add in a Keaton Wagler three-pointer, and the Illini saw their deficit shrink to five with just more than 13 minutes to play.
But those were matchups Illinois couldn't consistently exploit. Because of the Wolverines.
"Credit to their personnel," Illini coach Brad Underwood said. "We got some mismatches based on some of their substitutions, but for the most part probably as many challenges as we've had exploiting mismatches."
Yaxel Lendeborg was at the heart of Illinois' struggles running effective offense. The 6-foot-9 forward spent the majority of Friday's game guarding Illini freshman Keaton Wagler for the full 94 feet. Lendeborg's size, skill and athleticism kept Wagler off kilter enough. The Illinois freshman did score a game-high 23 points, but it came on 7 of 17 shooting.
"He was picking me up 94 feet the whole game being physical, getting through ball screens," Wagler said of Lendeborg. "Just pressure on me the whole time making it hard. He's a really great player. He did a good job. ... I let his physicality kind of bother me."
Exactly the way Michigan drew it up.
"Yax was up to the challenge," Wolverines coach Dusty May said. "He loves guarding point guards, and then when he switches you have a big body. You have a guy that played the 5 in the American conference and played it pretty well switching on to big men.
"It's not as easy to get to the matchup advantages they're hunting against us because we can change our matchups. We can change what we do. They're really, really good at punishing a matchup. Because of our lineup versatility I don't think they did it as well as they typically do, and Yaxel was a big part of that."