​Oct. 19—Illinois scoring 105 points in its exhibition opener against Cincinnati — without star sophomore David Mirkovic — was a warning shot across the bow of every other college basketball program in the country. There would be no step back offensively for the Illini even after losing the No. 5 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft who last year’s entire system was built around.Giving up 96 points to the Bearcats, though, also made it clear the Illinois offense was pretty far ahead of its defense. At least in mid-October in a game that ultimately doesn’t count.Some positives? Landon Davis might give the Illini a second shot eraser with Zvonimir Ivisic, and, on the freshmen front, both Quentin Coleman and Ethan Brown were handsy defensively. (That’s a good thing).Still, Cincinnati guard Tylen Riley scored a game-high 31 points and also finished with 12 assists. That’s one player — perhaps unsurprisingly a high-level guard — accounting for 61 total points.”The best thing we did was see a different uniform and a team that ran a lot of really good offense,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “It’s awareness. It’s experience. That quick timeout at the start of the second half, that was the same play three straight times that two freshmen botched.”We didn’t scout. We talked personnel, but we didn’t talk about Xs and Os and what we were going to do in coverages. It was just our base. A lot to grow with and a lot to be pleased with, but I think we’ve got some things to figure out, especially personnel wise. We could really cause some problems with some switching and doing other things.”