Box Score
Jamel Waters had a game and career-high 27 points, but it wasn't enough as the Hornets dropped an 80-63 decision at Big Ten member Illinois.

"I thought we competed pretty well, but we didn't do a lot of things the way we wanted to especially on the defensive side of things," Head Coach Lewis Jackson said. "We didn't communicate and we didn't play tough. They out-toughed us and pushed us around at little bit because they did have the size, but if you're fundamentally sound you can overcome things like size. Again, overall I thought we competed and played fairly well."

Waters scored his points on nine of 17 shooting, but that includes knocking down four of his five three point field goals and four of five from the free throw line. In the second half he hit six of his nine field goal attempts on his way to scoring 18 points.

"He (Waters) put in a lot of good work over the summer and it shows by the way he is playing now," Jackson said. "He's playing strong; he's playing tough and aggressive. He's our spark. We have to get some other guys to come in and fight along with him, but he played really, really well, especially in the second half."

Bobby Brown was next in scoring with eight points and Maurice Strong added seven. Strong and Brown were the leading rebounders for ASU with nine for Strong and Brown grabbing six.

ASU (0-1) struggled shooting the ball as a team and finished shooting 35 percent (23-66) from the field. The bigger Illini players out rebounded ASU 52-28, with 20 of Illinois' rebounds coming on the offensive end which led to 22 second chance points.

The Hornets also had trouble keeping Illinois off the free throw line as the host' hit 22 of their 30 free throws (73.3%), while ASU only attempted 13 free throws hitting eight (61.5%).

ASU did a good job in protecting the basketball as they finished the game with only seven turnovers.

The Fighting Illini (1-0) shot 44.3 percent from the field (27-61) with Rice Rayvonte leading the way with 22 points. Egwu Nnanna had a double-double for the host with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

Illinois used a late run over the final eight minutes of the first half to push a 20-17 lead out to the 40-26 halftime score, outscoring the Hornets 20-9.

The big difference was the rebounding where the much taller host out rebounded ASU 31-15, with 13 of those being offensive rebounds giving the Illni second chance scoring opportunities.

Rice had 11 of his points at halftime to lead Illinois as they shot 38.5 percent from the field.

Waters had nine points for the Hornets to lead them in scoring. ASU shot 30 percent from the field, but did hit five of their 10 three point attempts. ASU also did a good job taking care of the ball with only two turnovers in the opening half.

"We have a lot to build on and we had some guys that did a lot of good things," Jackson said. "We are going to go back and look at the tape and point out the things that we are not doing so well and hopefully get those corrected by our next ball game on Sunday."

ASU will be back in action Sunday, Nov. 10 when they travel to Peoria, Ill., to play Bradley University at 4 p.m.