Illinois Basketball: Takeaways from Illini’s failed comeback effort against Miami

Kofi Cockburn needs to be featured more in the Illinois offense

One thing that was working from the start for Illinois was feeding looks to freshman big man Kofi Cockburn but the issue was that they simply weren’t going to him enough.

Illinois usually commits pretty hard to get the ball to Cockburn early and often, which they didn’t in this one.

Of the three baskets Cockburn scored from the field in the first half, two were assisted by fellow big man Giorgi Bezhanishvili. This highlights the fact that Illinois’ guards were in shoot-first mode and some restraint from them would’ve paid off big-time in this one.

U of I clearly had the advantage inside on a Miami team with some weak interior defense, yet there were only 8 field goal attempts in this game for Cockburn, who averages 9.9 shots per game.

To be fair, Miami did a wonderful job of double-teaming and crowding Cockburn with multiple defenders, something Hurricanes head coach Jim Larranaga commented on postgame.

"Kofi is big and strong and he’s really hard to guard one-on-one. So, we made some changes going in and double teamed him, what we call our 4-5 trap. It was pretty effective. – Miami basketball head coach Jim Larranaga via Associated Press/ESPN"

Regardless of how Miami guarded Cockburn, he exploded in the second half, going 5-for-5 from the field and 2-for-2 from the free throw line, playing a large part in the Fighting Illini pulling within five points (and eventually within one) down the stretch.

Cockburn would end the game with 23 points and 4 rebounds, shooting 8-for-8 from the field and 7-for-8 from the free throw line. There is plenty of blame to go around in this loss but not a ton to place on the massive shoulders on the freshman big out of Kingston, Jamaica.

Both of the Fighting Illini’s losses on the season come in games in which Cockburn has 8 or fewer field goal attempts.