Missed dunk in closing seconds costs Illinois a potential win
Michael Finke may have a hard time sleeping tonight.
The Illinois forward missed a tip dunk in the closing seconds Wednesday night that almost certainly would have given his team a quality road win at Providence.
With the Illini trailing by a point and just a few ticks left on the clock, Malcolm Hill attacked off the dribble but missed a contested layup in heavy traffic. Finke blew by a flat-footed Ben Bentil and crashed the glass for a put-back slam, but his two-handed attempt caromed hard off the back iron, dooming Illinois to a 60-59 loss that will be especially hard to swallow.
It’s cruel that Wednesday’s game will be remembered for Finke’s botched dunk attempt because the redshirt freshman had actually played very well. Finke scored 12 points, grabbed seven rebounds and had a pair of assists, earning crunch-time minutes after playing sparingly in both of Illinois’ first two games.
Among the other silver linings for Illinois was the performance of promising freshman guard Jalen Coleman-Lands. Now fully healthy after missing much of the preseason with a stress fracture, Coleman-Lands sank five 3-pointers off the bench and finished with 17 points.
Illinois falls to 1-2 with challenging games against Notre Dame, Missouri, UAB and Yale still remaining before the start of Big Ten play. Providence improves to 2-0 and gained some confidence that its supporting cast can come through on a night when All-American candidate Kris Dunn is not at his best.
Dunn didn’t make his first field goal until less than nine minutes remained in the second half and finished with only 10 points, but other Friars picked up the slack. Bentil scored 18 points and fellow forward Rodney Bullock had 13.
(Thanks for the video, Terrence Payne)
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
