{"id":22430,"date":"2025-11-06T06:18:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=22430"},"modified":"2025-11-06T06:18:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T12:18:28","slug":"illinois-opens-mens-basketball-season-with-113-55-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/sports\/basketball\/22430-illinois-opens-mens-basketball-season-with-113-55-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Opens Men&#8217;s Basketball Season With 113-55 Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p><strong>BY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CHAMPAIGN, Ill. \u2013 No. 17 Illinois cruised to a 113-55 season-opening victory over Jackson State on Monday night at State Farm Center.<\/p>\n<p>The 58-point Illini win stemmed from lockdown defense, dominating the glass, and shooting well from deep. They outrebounded the Tigers 61-19 and knocked down 17 threes.<\/p>\n<p>Tomislav Ivisic and Ben Humrichous led Illinois in scoring, pouring in 21 points apiece. Humrichous&#8217;s 21 tied his highest-scoring game at Illinois, knocking down five threes, shooting 6-11 from the field, and grabbing five rebounds. Ivisic shot 9-12 and grabbed four boards.<\/p>\n<p>David Mirkovic came out flaming hot against Jackson State, putting up eight points and grabbing eight rebounds in just the first five minutes. He recorded a double-double before the half, becoming the first Illini freshman to achieve the feat in a season opener since Kofi Cockburn in 2019. Mirkovic finished the game with 19 points, 14 rebounds, and four assists.<\/p>\n<p>Keaton Wagler had a strong showing in his collegiate debut, finishing with 18 points, six rebounds, four assists, and two steals. Wagler shot 4-8 from the field and 8-10 at the free throw line.<\/p>\n<p>In his first game of his senior season, Kylan Boswell put up 10 points, five rebounds, and five assists to start the 2025-26 campaign. He shot 4-9 and hit two 3-pointers in 28 minutes of action.<\/p>\n<p>Finishing with 13 points and three 3-pointers, Jake Davis brought his sharpshooting back to State Farm Center on Monday night. He shot 5-11, recorded four rebounds, and dished out four assists.<\/p>\n<p>Jason Jakstys and Blake Fagbemi recorded the first buckets of their collegiate careers. Jakstys, a redshirt freshman, scored his first off a two-handed dunk off an assist from Davis with six minutes left in the first half. He also grabbed nine rebounds in his 12 minutes on the floor. Fagbemi&#8217;s layup came with seven minutes remaining in the second half.<\/p>\n<p>The Illini made eight of their first 12 shots from the field, opening the night with a 24-3 run to grab a 21-point lead just over six minutes into the contest. The Orange and Blue knocked down five 3-pointers during that stretch, including makes from four different scorers.<\/p>\n<p>With the home side holding a 22-point edge shortly after, the Illini began an 11-0 scoring stretch over the next three minutes to lengthen their lead to 33. Ahead by as many as 34 in the opening frame, the hosts went into halftime with a 60-27 advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Four Illini scorers posted at least eight points across the opening 20 minutes of action, led by 15 points on three 3-pointers from Tomislav Ivisic and 13 points and 10 rebounds from Mirkovic.<\/p>\n<p>A 13-1 run early in the second half pushed the Orange and Blue lead above the 40-point mark for the first time. After the Tigers ended a field goal drought that spanned nearly four-and-a-half minutes, Illinois orchestrated a 7-2 stretch to establish an 80-35 edge with 13:34 remaining.<\/p>\n<p>With the Illini maintaining their 40-point lead over the next five minutes of play, a 9-2 stretch from the home side carried their scoring output above the 100-point mark with just over four minutes to go in the contest.<\/p>\n<p>Illinois ultimately closed the game on an 11-2 run, holding Jackson State without a field goal for the final 4:40 of play, to wrap up the 58-point victory.<\/p>\n<p>The Fighting Illini continue their season-opening four-game homestand on Friday night, when Florida Gulf Coast makes its way to Champaign. The opening tip between the Illini and the Eagles is slated for 7:30 p.m. CT on Peacock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHAMPAIGN, Ill. \u2013 No. 17 Illinois cruised to a 113-55 season-opening victory over Jackson State on Monday night at State Farm Center. The 58-point Illini win [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Illinois Opens Men&#039;s Basketball Season With 113-55 Victory - Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader, 979XFM and KJ Country 102.3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Effingham&#039;s News and Sports Leader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/sports\/basketball\/22430-illinois-opens-mens-basketball-season-with-113-55-victory\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Illinois Opens Men&#039;s Basketball Season With 113-55 Victory - 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