By IlliniGuys Staff

January 23, 2025

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The bad news for Illinois began in pregame when sophomore center Tomislav Ivisic was scratched due to illness.

It only got worse from there.

Julian Reese took advantage of the 7-foot-1 center's absence with career highs of 27 points and 17 rebounds as Maryland routed the Illini 91-70 Thursday night at State Farm Center.

It was the Terrapins' first road win in five tries this season. In his third season at Maryland, head coach Kevin Willard is just 6-21 in road games, but 2-0 at Illinois.

"No excuses. That's just an old-fashioned butt kicking. give them all the credit in the world", Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said on his postgame radio show. "We were just short of abysmal. We know (Derik) Queen is good, we know Reese is good. It wasn't any secret what they were going to do and we just couldn't stop it."

Star freshman big man Derik Queen added 25 points as Maryland (15-5, 5-4 in Big Ten conference) scored 62 points in the paint and took advantage of 16 Illinois turnovers, scoring 27 points off the miscues.

"(There's) no excuse for (Kasparas Jakucionis) turning it over seven times and Kylan Boswell five times. That's 12 turnovers from your backcourt against a team that's doesn't press.", Underwood lamented.

Ivisic is Illinois' second leading scorer at 13 points per game and leading rebounder with an 8.5 average. But his defense and averaging a blocked shot per game may have been the biggest absence, as the Terrapins shot 50 percent from the field, their best effort in a road game this season.

Underwood said he shouldn't have played in Sunday's loss at Michigan State and says he's not sure if he will be ready for Sunday's home game against Northwestern. Freshman reserve Will Riley, who scored a game-high 19 points while Jakucionis battled foul trouble against Michigan State, hadn't practiced all week due to illness and was held scoreless in 16 minutes off the bench.

But Illinois' poor shooting didn't help. The Illini shot just 38 percent from the field; they are now 0-4 this season when they fail to hit at least 40 percent of their shots. For the fourth time in the six games since the record-setting 32-point rout at Oregon just two weeks ago, Illinois was under 25 percent from the three-point arc, hitting just 6-of-28 tonight. The Illini have lost three of those four games during that stretch.

"We had our night at Oregon where everything went right. Tonight was the reverse of that.", said Underwood. "Tough night. We gotta bounce back, give them the credit, and get ready for the next one", said Underwood.

Jakucionis led Illinois (13-6, 5-4) with 21 points, his eighth game this season with 20 points or more, but also tied a career high with seven turnovers. He had turned the ball over a total of eight times in his last four games.

Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn scored 15 points off the bench while Boswell added 14.

It's the first time Illinois has lost consecutive games since February 2023 and the first time they've lost back-to-back home games since January 2021, when they fell to Maryland and Ohio State.

Illinois will host Northwestern Sunday afternoon for a 2:00pm tipoff on Big Ten Network.

Stay with IlliniGuys.com for complete postgame coverage.