![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Illinois_NCAA_1920x1080.jpg\")
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Illinois players celebrate after defeating Houston in the Sweet 16 (AP Photo\/Ashley Landis).<\/p>\n
HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 David Mirkovic had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and third-seeded Illinois flexed its defensive muscles to eliminate last year\u2019s national runner-up from the\u00a0NCAA Tournament,\u00a0beating Houston 65-55 in the South Region semifinals on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Next up is a meeting Saturday\u00a0with ninth-seeded Iowa\u00a0to see which Big Ten team will advance to the Final Four. It will be the 11th Elite Eight appearance for Illinois (27-8) and its second in three seasons under Brad Underwood.<\/p>\n
In the\u00a0Sweet 16\u00a0for a seventh consecutive time, the second-seeded Cougars (30-7) were thrilled to be playing a game just over two miles from their campus. But their poor shooting gave Houston fans little to cheer about and delighted the orange-clad Illini faithful who made the long trip to Texas.<\/p>\n
Star freshman point guard Kingston Flemings, who expected to be an NBA lottery pick, had 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting and Milos Uzan made just 2 of 11 shots.<\/p>\n
But they were far from the only Cougars who struggled offensively. The team shot just 34% in its lowest-scoring game of the season.<\/p>\n
Illinois finished well under the 84.7 points a game it averaged entering Thursday. But its offense was still plenty powerful enough to send Houston back to its nearby campus. Keaton Wagler had 13 points and 12 rebounds for the Illini, and Andrej Stojakovic \u2014 with his dad, three-time NBA All-Star Peja Stojakovic, in the stands \u2014 also scored 13.<\/p>\n
By the time the final seconds ticked off the clock, many Houston fans had cleared out and the Illinois supporters stood and cheered as their team celebrated.<\/p>\n
The Illini were up by one early in the second half when they broke it open with a 17-0 run for a 44-26 lead with about 12 minutes left. Jake Davis scored five points during the burst, including a 3-pointer, and Mirkovic and Ben Humrichous capped it with consecutive 3s.<\/p>\n
The Cougars missed seven consecutive shots as Illinois built its lead. When Uzan finally ended Houston\u2019s drought with a 3-pointer with 11:20 left, it had been almost seven minutes since the team had scored.<\/p>\n
Consecutive 3-pointer by Chase McCarty got Houston within nine with about six minutes left. But Wagler and Tomislav Ivisic made 3-pointers to lead an 8-0 run that extended the lead to 58-41.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illinois players celebrate after defeating Houston in the Sweet 16 (AP Photo\/Ashley Landis). HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 David Mirkovic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,279096,590,270932,85],"class_list":["post-567286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-houston-illinois","tag-nba","tag-ncaa-tournament-2026","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}