Sunday featured one of the biggest matchups of the Big Ten regular season as Illinois and Michigan State basketball squared off in East Lansing.
The Spartans were looking to prove themselves as the best team in the Big Ten yet again after starting the conference season with a perfect 6-0 mark. They were the last undefeated team left in the Big Ten. But Illinois would be their toughest test of the season to date.
Brad Underwood's Illini came out firing from the get-go, taking a 10-point lead in the first half before Michigan State stormed back to tie things up at halftime.
Michigan State would go on to best the Illini by two in the second half to win 80-78 and Illinois missed its best player, Kasparas Jakucionis, for most of the game as he fouled out in nine minutes.
Even though he fouled out, he was still on the floor enough to make an impact, and he did in small bursts, but finished with just three points. It felt like Michigan State did a perfect job of neutralizing him, keeping him in check and attacking him, knowing he likes to play a little more aggressively than most.
Underwood didn't quite see it that way.
Brad Underwood: "MSU did nothing defensively to stop Kasparas Jakucionis. When he did play, every bucket was easy. He was dicing them up."
— Emmett Matasovsky (@E_Matasovsky57) January 19, 2025
The Illinois head coach gave Tom Izzo and Michigan State some praise, but he also said that the Spartans did "nothing" defensively to hold the guy who usually averages 16.7 points and 5.4 assists to three points and three assists on 1-for-3 shooting. Wild.
Michigan State clearly did enough as they were able to force him into some bad positions, getting him to foul out, and also forced him to take two shots that he wasn't able to hit. He also score three points on the game. To say the Spartans did "nothing" is laughable.
Champaign is high on delusion, it seems.