{"id":222703,"date":"2026-03-27T06:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/222703\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T06:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T06:31:08","slug":"illinois-clamps-down-on-houston-for-a-65-55-march-madness-win-to-reach-elite-eight-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/222703\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois clamps down on Houston for a 65-55 March Madness win to reach Elite Eight"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2013 David Mirkovic had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and third-seeded Illinois flexed its defensive muscles to eliminate last year’s national runner-up from the NCAA Tournament,<\/a> beating Houston 65-55 in the South Region semifinals on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Next up is a meeting Saturday with ninth-seeded Iowa<\/a> to 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 Sweet 16<\/a> for a seventh consecutive time, the second-seeded Cougars (30-7) were thrilled to be playing 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

\u201cAt the beginning of the game Houston fans were a little louder, but as game was going, (our fans) started being louder in their city,\u201d Mirkovic said. \u201cSo it\u2019s just really important for us, I would say just like a wind to our back. They pushed us and thanks for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Star freshman point guard Kingston Flemings, who is 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

Underwood was asked about his team’s defensive performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a mental focus,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been very good at times defensively. It\u2019s just sustaining it. We\u2019ve got very capable defenders, we\u2019ve got size and length, and we just got to make shots difficult.\u201d<\/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

\u201cI was proud of our kids\u2019 effort,\u201d Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t play good enough.\u201d<\/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

\u201cWe were getting stops and we were limiting them to one shot, and to tough shots as well,\u201d Wagler said. \u201cMaking them shoot tough middies or contested at the rim, 3-pointers, all of that, and then we were going in and grabbing the rebound and offensively we were getting the shots that we wanted, we were knocking them down.\u201d<\/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

Illinois gets the rebounding it needed<\/p>\n

Wagler, the Big Ten freshman of the year, shot 4 of 14 from the field but led the team in rebounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoaches were telling us before the game: \u2018It\u2019s going to be a guard game to get rebounds. We need 10-plus out of the guards,\u2019” he said. \u201cSo I took that challenge on. I went in there, tried to play as tough as I could, not let them get any second-chance rebounds. I went in there and tried to get every rebound I could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uzan thought the rebounding of Wagler and Illinois’ other guards was a key to the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what hurt us, defensive rebounding from the guards,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 David Mirkovic had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and third-seeded Illinois flexed its defensive muscles to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[58188,84370,58183,56,58,57,86631,58181,154],"class_list":["post-222703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-ben-humrichous","tag-brad-underwood","tag-david-mirkovic","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-jake-davis","tag-keaton-wagler","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}