Penn State 38, Illinois 33

I truly hate to return from a 16-day hiatus to write about this horrorshow of a game, but so it goes. Over at Basketball Prospectus, John Gasaway writes: "clocking in at just 0.59 points per trip, the Illini’s evening ranks, it need hardly be said, as the single most futile outing posted by any major-conference offense in league play this year." Unfortunately the game was on Big Ten Network (as was the 59-36 debacle at Minnesota) so I can't say for sure what went so horribly wrong for the Illinois offense. Perhaps the answer is just that they had a fluky shooting slump, but considering this is the third time in seven games they've posted an eFG% of under 40, there seems to be a larger problem than just bad luck. I suppose you could commend the defense in this game, but when the point totals are this low, it's just bad basketball.

Here's a plus-minus chart for last night's game:

Player	P/M	Minutes
Demetri McCamey	-8	27
Trent Meacham	-5	34
Chester Frazier	+1	37
Mike Davis	-4	38
Mike Tisdale	+1	34
Calvin Brock	+4	12
Dominique Keller	-7	7
Jeff Jordan	+1	7
Alex Legion	-8	4

No one really stopped the bleeding, although Calvin Brock was +4 in his 12 minutes. McCamey was largely ineffective, battling the flu, and was -8 in just 27 minutes. Illinois also couldn't get much off the bench with the team being soundly outscored with Keller and Legion on the court. It's hard to explain an offensive debacle like this one, but I can only hope it's not an ominous sign for the team's NCAA future.