Illini 'O' is golden, but their 'D' keeps foldin'. Is it a fatal flaw?

Don’t know about you, but one thing kept popping to mind Sunday while watching 74,000 replays of Team USA’s Jack Hughes and Zach Werenski going end-to-end for Hughes’ sudden-death goal that beat Canada for Olympic gold:

Who do these guys think they are, Donovan Dent?

OK, so that’s a little bit of a stretch. Hughes and Werenski play hockey, of course. Dent is a UCLA point guard, though the way he raced the length of the court Saturday night to upset No. 10 Illinois 95-94 at the buzzer in overtime, he might want to give Olympic sprinting a try.

Much as Canada’s Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon will regret their flat-footed skating while being beaten to loose pucks on the decisive play, the Illini — from coach Brad Underwood on down — will review Dent’s 4.9-second sprint for a layup and wonder why no one made more of an effort to stop the ball.

“Letting him get all the way to the rim was not in the game plan,” Underwood said afterward.

That’s assuming there was a game plan involving defense at all. The Illini (22-6) blew a 23-point first-half lead against the Bruins (18-9), who were coming off back-to-back blowout losses to Michigan and Michigan State. After going up 33-10 on a Ben Humrichous three nearly 11 minutes into the first half, the Illini gave up a galling 85 points the rest of the way. They made Dent, a senior transfer from New Mexico who finished with 15 assists, look like Lonzo Ball, Darren Collison, Baron Davis and Walt Hazzard all rolled into one — with a dash of Tyus Edney, who went the length of the court in 4.8 seconds to beat Missouri in the 1995 NCAA Tournament.

Much is made of Underwood’s highly efficient offense, which is humming because everybody on the floor willingly moves the ball and can shoot. But the tallest team in college basketball attempted 42 threes against the Bruins — making only 13 — was outscored 38-30 in the paint despite dominating on the offensive glass and lumbered fruitlessly at the defensive end. Will the Illini’s ongoing susceptibility to quick guards be a fatal flaw in the postseason?

“I thought we got very lackadaisical on the defensive side,” Underwood said.

They did. But there also aren’t any Ayo Dosunmu, Dee Brown or Kendall Gill types — all-out burners and defensive game changers on the perimeter — in this crew.

Still, Underwood said, “We’re right there. We’re as good as anybody in the country.”

The Illini’s four Big Ten losses have come by a total of nine points, with three of the games going to overtime and two of them — Nebraska being the other one — decided on baskets made at the buzzer. With a little more luck, a very good record could be even stronger.

There was a good bit of buzz when the NCAA selection committee unveiled its tournament seeding as of Saturday and the Illini were on the 2 line as the seventh overall seed. Ahead of them, in order, were Michigan, Duke, Arizona, Iowa State and Houston.

Anyone who watched Duke beat Michigan 68-63 and Arizona top Houston 73-66 later that day knows those games were beyond-fierce defensive battles, and that any of those four powerhouses would salivate at the chance to tangle with the Illini offense in March. If there’s anything separating those teams and the Illini, it clearly starts with a “D” and ends with a clang off the rim.

Guess who the Illini face next? Michigan in a rare Friday-night game (7 p.m., Fox 32) in Champaign. It’ll be bonkers. The home team’s offense will give it a pretty good shot, one would expect. But offense alone won’t cut it, not against the best of the best.