By IlliniGuys Staff

March 21, 2025

MILWAUKEE - If Illinois coach Brad Underwood decides to award a game ball to Friday night's star player, he'll need to go to the supply closet.

Tomislav Ivisic scored 20 points and hit four three-pointers to set an NCAA tournament record for most treys in a game by a 7-footer as 6-seed Illinois defeated 11th seeded Xavier 86-73 in their first-round game before a pro-Illini crowd at Fiserv Forum.

Freshman Will Riley (7) scored a team-high 22 points - 18 in the 2nd half - in his NCAA tournament debut Friday night against Xavier. (Photo courtesy NCAA Productions)

"We like Milwaukee. That's like a home game for us", Underwood said in his postgame radio show. "It was a definite home game for us."

Freshman Will Riley hit his first seven shots after halftime, including a 23-foot dagger to beat an expiring shot clock with 1:53 remaining on the clock to put Illinois (22-12) ahead 84-69 and all but assure a victory over their Big East conference foe. Riley finished with a game-high 22 points and hit three of four shots from behind the three-point arc.

Ivisic added 10 rebounds for a double-double in his first NCAA tournament action. All-Big Ten freshman Kasparas Jakucionis just missed joining Marcus Domask as the only Illini to record a triple-double in an NCAA tournament game with 16 points, 10 assists, and nine rebounds. Domask became the first Illini to do that in last year's tourney opener against Morehead State.

Xavier (22-12) came into the game hitting 39 percent from three-point range and they bettered in the first half, dialing in on seven of 14 attempts but were still down to the Illini 40-35 at halftime. But Illinois put that on lockdown, allowing just a pair of three-pointers in the second half.

Kylan Boswell added 15 points for Illinois. Dailyn Swain scored a career-high 27 points for the Musketeers.

Illinois is now 21-1 when scoring 80 points or more this season and now will have a Sunday showdown with Kentucky. The 3rd seeded Wildcats slammed Troy 76-57 earlier in the evening. It will be the first matchup of the two programs since the infamous 1984 Mideast Regional, when Kentucky benefited from a controversial no-call to post a 54-51 victory to advance to the Final Four. The NCAA rules committee prohibited men's teams from playing on their home court after that.

Stay with IlliniGuys.com for complete postgame coverage.