Will Riley scored a game-high 19 points off the bench as No. 25 Illinois shook off a slow start and cruised to an 87-40 nonconference win against Maryland Eastern Shore on Saturday afternoon in Champaign, Illinois. I got it.
Mores Johnson Jr. recorded his first double-double with 10 points and 13 rebounds for Illinois State (4-1), with Kylan Boswell contributing 13 points and Tomislav Ivicic contributing 11 points. After Wednesday’s 100-87 loss to No. 8 Alabama, the Illini led by as many as 52 points despite making just 10 of 40 3-pointers.
Jalen Ware led Maryland Eastern Shore (2-6) with 10 points before fouling out. Ketron “KC” Shaw, who entered Saturday into the top 20 Division I scorers with 22.3 points per game, was scoreless in the first half but had seven points on 2-of-11 shooting.
The Hawks shot just 22.1% from the floor.
Illinois jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the first 2:06, but then missed six shots. That gave the Hawks 12:21 to tie the game at 8-8 on Evan Johnson’s 17-foot pull-up.
This was the last point for Maryland Eastern Shore that lasted more than seven minutes, and the Illini scored 17 straight points to erase any tension.
Johnson started the game with a basket and two free throws, Ben Hamlicious made a 3-pointer, Tre White sank a layup, then Kasparas Jaksionis hit Ivicic with a 3-pointer and an alley-oop layup. Ta. Jaxionis set up Johnson for a free throw and followed with a layup to make it 25-8 with 5:15 left in the first.
Evan Johnson broke the visiting team’s drought with a driving layup at the 4:56 mark, but Illinois continued to grab 11 offensive rebounds to build a 35-15 lead at halftime and then 12 later. He had second-chance points and a 13-point lead. UMES had 10 turnovers.
Maryland Eastern Shore took nearly four minutes to score its first points of the second half as Illinois increased its lead to 42-15. Boswell’s driving layup with 8:11 left increased the Illini’s lead to 70-24.
–Field level media
