CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Rutgers men's basketball team was defeated 86-51 by Illinois at the State Farm Center on Friday night.

The Fighting Illini were led by guard Alfonso Plummer, who had a game-high 24 points and shot 8-for-15 from the field on the night. Plummer knocked down three shots from behind the arc and was 5-for-5 from the free throw line.

The Fighting Illini strung together a scoring streak of 10 consecutive points with 11:14 remaining in the first half to push their lead early in the game. Illinois took a 43-23 score into the locker room at halftime.

"They are good but we didn't play well in any area," Pikiell said. "It's on me. You have to rebound when you are on the road. We didn't bring any toughness. I thought we had some good looks. We didn't finish any plays. We didn't defend them. I actually thought with Kofi (Cockburn) we did a decent job. He's averaging a zillion points, but everyone else got free. We have a lot of work to do. We have six days and we have a Purdue team coming here who is playing as well as any other team in the country."

The Fighting Illini scored 30 points in the paint, 19 off turnovers and 17 on second-chance shots. The Illinois bench scored 28 points in the game.

"We went to the free throw line four times and I was begging our guys to get to the rim and be tough," Pikiell said. "We need a secondary way to score, but our defense gave up way too many points. It was active for 10 percent of the game."

Junior center Kofi Cockburn had 13 points and 15 total rebounds in the game. Guard Jacob Grandison had 16 points and shot 7-for-11 from the field in 18 minutes of play.

Forward Coleman Hawkins added nine points, two assists, two steals and a pair of blocks. Trent Frazier, Luke Goode, and Da'Monte Williams each scored six points on Friday night.
The game the first Big Ten conference matchup of the season for the Scarlet Knights.

Freshman Jaden Jones was the only Scarlet Knight in double figures with 10 points in 26 minutes played.

Center Clifford Omoruyi added eight points on 4-of-9 shooting in 21 minutes. Forward Mawot Mag had eight points and knocked down a pair of three-point shots in the game.

Guards Caleb McConnell and Paul Mulcahy added four assists apiece. Guard Jalen Miller had a basket, and a pair of assists in his second career game and showed some hustle on the defensive end. Miller played a career-high 12 minutes on Friday night. Forward Ralph Gonzales-Agee scored four points in 18 minutes played.

The Scarlet Knights shot 7-for-17 from the three-point line. RU only attempted four free throws in the game and was out-rebounded by Illinois 47 to 33.

Up Next

The Scarlet Knights will have some time to regroup as RU is set to be back in action in six days at Jersey Mike's Arena on Thursday night, Dec. 9 against the Purdue Boilermakers at 7 p.m. 33.

"We have showed signs of it. We beat Clemson the other day and we were a good basketball team," Pikiell said. "We've got to get back to moving the basketball and to where our defense held down the fort. You've got to do that in this league. We certainly can't go on the road and give up 86 points. That's not the recipe that we need. We have Purdue coming up and some really good basketball teams, so we've got to get better and that's what we plan on doing."

Postgame Quotes 

Head coach Steve Pikiell

On shooting

"It's been kind of a theme with this group. When you are focused on that, you aren't focused on 90 percent of the other things that you can do. It's been an issue and we'll continue to address it. Shots are an important part of the game, but there is 90 percent of other parts of the game that you can do right. It did affect us on defense that's for sure. We got some early layups that we missed. We let it affect every area of our play today. When you play a good team like them on the road, obviously you can't have nights like this."

On believing in this team

"We have to get better. We play in the best league in the country. We need to get Geo (Baker) back. We could use his leadership. Paul (Mulcahy) got in a little foul trouble tonight and we needed him on the court for much more minutes in this basketball game than he was able to play tonight."

On transition points

"I think that was really important for us in this game. We just over-dribbled in the first half. We got ourselves into a big hole and you can't get yourself into a hole in this league. Our offense didn't help us in the first half and the shots we did get the good clean ones we didn't finish. Our defense couldn't keep us hanging around and then we came out in the second half and scored some points, but we couldn't get stops. On both ends of the floor we have to do a better job. We have to limit our dribbles. I am counting on our veteran guys to help our young guys while these young guys are figuring it out a little bit."

On Geo Baker's status

 "We haven't made any progress. He hasn't practiced, he hasn't worked out, he hasn't been able to do anything. Hopefully soon, but I haven't seen him at all practicing or doing anything athletically."

On the offense

"I am concerned where our defense is too. If we can't score than they can't score. That has always been our motto. I will look at the tape. I think we did get a lot of layups. We got good looks. Ron Harper Jr. had 23 points the other night and he struggled tonight, but we have to get better.