Fifteen days. We’re almost there!!
Illinois heads to Cincinnati on October 17 to open the exhibition schedule, with Baylor and UIC coming to Champaign after that. An exhibition is absolutely enough basketball for me to start planning my days around ball again.
The number fifteen gives us a couple of familiar faces, an older name that deserves some love, and an excuse to watch Arizona collapse again.
Always time for that.
GIORGI BEZHANISHVILI: RUTGERS HAD NO ANSWER
We have to start with Giorgi.
On February 9, 2019, Illinois needed overtime to put away Rutgers, 99–94. Giorgi needed 18 shots to score 35 points, breaking Deon Thomas’ then-freshman record of 34.
He finished 14-for-18 from the floor and 7-for-8 at the line, with seven rebounds. But the ridiculous part came after halftime: 29 points on 12-for-13 shooting, including six of Illinois’ 13 points in overtime.
One missed shot after halftime. One.
Rutgers had an entire second half to figure something out, got five extra minutes to work on it, and still couldn’t stop him.
The win only moved Illinois to 9–15 overall and 5–8 in the Big Ten. There was plenty of frustration that season, but this was the third straight win, coming right after the upset of No. 9 Michigan State. Ayo and Giorgi were freshmen, and afternoons like this gave us something to be excited about while the overall record was still ugly.
And Giorgi’s still giving people problems professionally. This summer, he was playing for Satria Muda in Indonesia, where he put up 24 points, 13 rebounds, five assists, and two blocks in an 89–81 playoff win over the Bogor Hornbills on June 7.
DON FREEMAN: ANOTHER NO. 15 WHO COULD FILL IT UP
Before Giorgi, before Jake Davis, there was Don Freeman.
In 1965–66, Freeman scored 668 points and averaged 27.8 a game, earning first-team All-America honors. He finished his Illinois career with 1,449 points, the most in school history at the time.
His career after Illinois was pretty damn good, too.
Freeman played eight seasons in the ABA and one in the NBA, scored 11,544 ABA points, and made five ABA All-Star Games. If you know his name from the honored jersey at State Farm Center but haven’t looked much further, there’s a lot of basketball behind that banner.
BRUCE DOUGLAS: FIFTEEN ASSISTS AGAINST HOUSTON
On December 14, 1985, Illinois beat Houston 102–92 at Assembly Hall, with Bruce Douglas handing out 15 assists.
For perspective, the Illinois all-time record book lists 16-assist games from Tony Wysinger and Demetri McCamey just above that performance. Douglas was setting people up all night.
He did quite a bit of that over four years: 765 career assists, along with 324 steals. He was the Big Ten’s Co-Player of the Year in 1984 and its Defensive Player of the Year twice. That’s a helluva combination from your point guard. Get everybody involved, then make the other team miserable when it has the ball.
The 15 assists is our excuse to talk about him today, but Douglas gives us plenty of numbers to come back to.
ARIZONA 75, ILLINOIS 60, 4:04 left in the 2nd Half
March 26, 2005.
A trip to the Final Four slipping away, and Illinois down 15.
Even knowing the final score, that is an awful place to start a replay.
Then the threes started falling. Deron Williams. Luther Head. Steals from Head and Dee Brown. Illinois kept finding another possession, another basket, another reason Arizona couldn’t quite put the game away.
Jack Ingram’s steal helped set up Deron’s tying three, and somehow, after a 20–5 run, it was 80–80.
Overtime.
And after all of that, there were still five more minutes of basketball to survive. Illinois did, 90–89, and the Illini were headed to their first Final Four since 1989.
Deron’s shot is the one everybody remembers. It should be. But Ingram getting that ball back deserves another viewing, too. So do all the possessions before it, when Illinois was still trying to get close enough for a tying shot to even be possible.
Go watch those last few minutes again. The countdown can wait.
JAKE FROM STATE FARM CENTER
We can’t do 15 without the guy wearing it now.
Jake Davis is back, and he even supplied a tidy stat line for today’s theme: 15 points against Southern last December on 5-for-6 shooting from three.
Davis finished the 2025–26 season with 54 threes on 40.6% shooting, starting 22 games along the way. He’s coming back with a full season of that experience and a Final Four run behind him.
There will be plenty to talk about with this team once the games start. For now, it’s good to know we get another season of Jake.
Fifteen days until Cincinnati. Let’s get this thing going!!!
What did I miss?