There have been questions about Illinois’ offense all season. Where are the sets? Why isn’t there more choreographed off-ball movement? Shouldn’t a team this talented be running something that looks a little more … organized? Those questions are understandable – and also increasingly irrelevant.

The art of Illinois Basketball pic.twitter.com/1cMf4HuzTH

— Illinois Men’s Basketball (@IlliniMBB) December 23, 2025

Because although the Illini may not run a textbook offense, the results have become impossible to argue with. Illinois ranks second nationally in offensive efficiency in both the KenPom and Bart Torvik metrics, and Monday’s 91-48 demolition of Missouri was the loudest possible rebuttal to any lingering skepticism.

This wasn’t chaos. It was freedom – and Missouri paid the price.

Illinois coach Brad Underwood’s squad doesn’t lean on a dense playbook. Instead, it hunts matchups, attacks space and trusts individual players to make the right reads in real time. Beat your man? Go. Help comes? Kick it. A late closeout? Shoot it. That philosophy turns every possession into a choose-your-own-adventure nightmare for defenses, and the Tigers never found the page that led them to survival.

What made the performance even more impressive was who wasn’t doing the scoring. Kylan Boswell, one of Illinois’ most dangerous offensive weapons, spent much of the night in foul trouble and finished with just six points. For most teams, that’s a red flag. For Illinois, it was a footnote. The Illini still dropped 91 points and won by 43 because this offense doesn’t depend on any single player to function.

I believe this is what the analytics guys call an “Ethical Hooper”

Whose game does Keaton Wagler remind you of?pic.twitter.com/jeg7H3tm5B

— Carson Bounds (@CarsonBounds) December 23, 2025

Freshman revelation Keaton Wagler led the way with 22 points, continuing a breakout stretch that feels less surprising by the game. Wagler didn’t force shots or hunt numbers – he simply punished every defensive mistake Missouri made. Switch too slow? Bucket. Help too early? Bucket. Lose track of him for half a second? You guessed it: bucket.

Andrej Stojakovic added 16 points after briefly exiting because of an ankle injury, which sent a ripple of concern through the building. He returned looking unfazed, calmly slicing up the defense with efficient scoring and a monster slam as the exclamation point. Missouri couldn’t decide whether to run him off the line or sit back – Illinois was happy with either option.

Andrej Stojaković with the finish! 💥 @IlliniMBB pic.twitter.com/AovIHdOcj3

— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) December 23, 2025

The frontcourt made things even more unfair. Tomislav Ivisic scored 14 points in just 21 minutes, knocking down three threes on four made field goals and turning Missouri’s interior defense into a geometry problem it couldn’t solve. His shooting dragged bigs away from the basket and opened driving lanes everywhere else. His brother, Zvonimir Ivisic, chipped in eight points and stretched the floor so far that the Tigers’ defensive structure simply collapsed. When bigs can score at the rim and pull defenders 25 feet away, defensive game plans tend to disintegrate quickly.

Ben Humrichous rounded out the scoring with nine points and three made threes, providing the steady perimeter punch that turns advantages into avalanches. Every extra pass created a better look, and Illinois rarely needed a second advantage to score.

By the final buzzer, Mizzou’s defense looked exhausted in every sense of the word. The Illini didn’t beat the Tigers with complexity or cleverness. It beat them with spacing, trust and an endless supply of capable scorers.

Illinois’ offense may appear untethered. It won’t satisfy purists searching for constant motion or laminated play sheets, but the final numbers don’t care – and Missouri certainly didn’t. When a team ranks as the second-most-efficient offensive club in college basketball and wins by 43 points, the system is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.