Dec. 2—Starters
P Name Yr. Ht. PPG Hometown
G Makira Cook Sr. 5-6 13.5 Cincinnati
G Genesis Bryant Sr. 5-6 10.9 Jonesboro, Ga.
G Adalia McKenzie Sr. 5-10 12.6 Brooklyn Park, Minn.
F Brynn Shoup-Hill Sr. 6-3 6.6 Goshen, Ind.
F Kendall Bostic Sr. 6-2 16.0 Kokomo, Ind.
FYI: Bostic in last Wednesday’s 76-53 loss to No. 14 Kentucky in Nashville, Tenn., became the first Illini to make 100 consecutive starts since Karisma Penn started 102 straight games to end her career from 2009-2013. Bostic, who has now started in all 100 games she’s played in at Illinois, also moved into a tie for fourth place with Lynette Robinson on the Illini’s career doubles-doubles list with 38 after a 10-point and 12-rebound performance in the 23-point defeat to the Wildcats.
Off the bench
P Name Yr. Ht. PPG Hometown
G Gretchen Dolan So. 5-11 10.1 Buffalo, N.Y.
G Cori Allen So. 5-10 1.9 Nashville, Tenn.
C Hayven Smith Fr. 6-6 1.4 Frankfort
Starters
P Name Yr. Ht. PPG Hometown
G Jaela Johnson Gr. 5-5 10.7 Louisville, Ky.
G Cory Santoro Sr. 5-5 3.7 Bellevue, Ohio
G Franka Wittenberg Jr. 5-8 7.7 Hildesheim, Germany
F Shariah Gailes So. 6-0 7.8 Brooklyn, Ohio
F Sara Carvajal Caro Sr. 6-3 5.2 Sevilla, Spain
FYI: Johnson, who transferred in from IUPUI after Tiffany Swoffard took over the Canisius women’s basketball program in the offseason with Swoffard previously an assistant coach at Penn State, has been the Golden Griffins’ most consistent player. The graduate student is shooting 40.6 percent from three-point range and is averaging nearly 4 assists per game at 3.8 assists through six games for Canisius, which has its lone win at Saint Francis (Pa.) on Nov. 15, a 48-46 victory.
Off the bench
P Name Yr. Ht. PPG Hometown
F Mariam Sanogo Jr. 6-2 3.8 Paris
F Yasmine Djibril Fr. 6-1 5.3 Montreal
G Mary Copple So. 5-7 3.5 Brighton, Mich.
Details
Site: Koessler Athletic Center (2,196); Buffalo, N.Y.
Streaming: ESPN+ (subscription)
Radio: Mike Koon will have the call on WDWS 1400-AM, WDWS 93.9-FM.
Series: Illinois leads 1-0.
Last meeting: Illinois won 90-58 against Canisius on Nov. 26, 2023, in Champaign.
FYI: Genesis Bryant led five Illini players in double figures in the first-ever meeting between the Illini and Golden Griffins with the then-senior guard finishing with a game-high 21 points. Adalia McKenzie followed up with 15 points, while Kendall Bostic and Camille Hobby had 12 points apiece with Hobby coming off the bench at the time. Gretchen Dolan also supplied 11 points off the bench in the 32-point win, in which Illinois shot 50 percent as a team.
Shauna Green’s return to Buffalo, N.Y., will be among the major pregame subplots. Green, after all, is not only a Canisius alumna, but still holds the women’s basketball program’s all-time scoring record with 2,012 career points after playing for the Golden Griffins from 1998 through 2002. But the Illinois coach isn’t the only one making a homecoming on Monday night. Gretchen Dolan, too, is back in her hometown after the sophomore guard starred at Williamsville South High School in the northeast suburbs of Buffalo. Dolan is off to a good start to her second college year, scoring at least seven points in all seven of the Illini’s games through the first month of the regular season while shooting 41.9 percent from the field overall and averaging 24.3 minutes per game.
Green’s key takeaway from Illinois’ first loss of the season, a 76-53 defeat to Kentucky in a Top 20 matchup that unraveled for the Illini in the second half — particularly in the fourth quarter — was that her veteran team got challenged in a way Illinois really hadn’t to that point in the season.
“It’s back to the drawing board, and we’ll get better from it,” the third-year Illini coach said. “That’s why you play these games. We could have easily scheduled an easy team and got another win, but we needed to be tested. We hadn’t trailed the whole season. For (all but 44 seconds), we’ve led the entire season. So we needed to be put in some adversity and see how we handled it, and at times, we handled it well and at times we didn’t so those are things we can learn from.”
What the Wildcats exposed about Illinois was some of its inconsistencies at the offensive end (shot season-worst 26.7 percent). Inconsistencies that showed up in a 65-53 victory against Marquette on Nov. 10 at State Farm Center. That the Illini were able to get away with shooting only 27.6 percent from the floor in that 12-point win was the result of how well Illinois defended at the other end. But Kentucky is also a far superior team to the Golden Eagles. The Wildcats took advantage of some mismatches with 6-foot-5 center Clara Strack a big part of that. But the length of Dazia Lawrence and Teonni Key also bothered the Illini. “Kendall Bostic played really good defense on Strack (in the first half),” Green said. “(Strack) hits that fadeaway shot at 6-3 and we’re 6-foot on a good day. It’s just really difficult to defend.”
That Shauna Green opted to make this the only true road game of the nonconference season for her Illini might really come down to some sentimentality. The fact is the Golden Griffins are a rebuilding program under a first-year coach and unlikely to challenge Illinois in any serious way (at least they shouldn’t). Green’s Illini could use a shot in the arm after a no-show in the second half against Kentucky. There’s no need to overreact to that loss, but Illinois still has some health concerns with the start of an 18-game Big Ten schedule only a week away. (News-Gazette prediction record: 5-2)
