CHAMPAIGN — Illinois regularly has used a 10-man rotation this season. It’s even hit 11 at times since Leron Black returned from his six-game suspension.
John Groce believes in “strength in numbers.” But the Illini coach found a group he liked in the second half of Tuesday’s 88-74 win against North Carolina State, and more or less stuck with it.
The first sign something different was going on with the Illinois rotation against the Wolfpack was in the second-half starters. Groce almost always reinserts his original five, but tweaked them for a backcourt of Tracy Abrams, Jalen Coleman-Lands and Malcolm Hill and a frontcourt of Leron Black and Mike Thorne Jr.