No. 12 seed Illinois continued its run in the Big Ten Tournament with a 68-66 second-round win over No. 5 seed and 20th-ranked Iowa Thursday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Fighting Illini advance to face No. 4 seed and 13th-ranked Purdue in the quarterfinals on Friday (2:30 pm ET/1:30 CT on ESPN). 

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Illinois Postgame Quotes

COACH GROCE OPENING STATEMENT: Obviously, I couldn't be more proud of our guys. As I shared with you yesterday, it's no different in today's game. We went into it certainly with great respect for our opponent. The concept of the fresh start here in season three, and then we wanted to play the right way offensively. Twenty assists today for our ball club, I think speaks to how unselfish that we played. And defensively we just wanted to play ridiculously hard and compete together. And I thought that our guys did a great job of that, and they really embraced those things for a second day. So we have an opportunity to live another day and move our name to the next line on the bracket. And, obviously, we know we have our hands full and certainly have a great deal of respect for Purdue. We will start preparing for them when we get back to the hotel.

Q. For Maverick and Kendrick, as you look at the season and all the ups and downs and things that you have been through, how validating is it to make a strong impression here at the Big Ten Tournament?

MAVERICK MORGAN: I think it's great. We had our ups and downs in the season. Everybody does. But I think stringing a few together here is good for us. Just winning two Big Ten games in a row is great for us and moving to the next in line, like what coach said, is we're trying to do every day until Sunday.

KENDRICK NUNN: We had our ups and downs during the season, but it's best that we play our best basketball toward the end of the season. It's March and March Madness is here. And we're trying to just play our best.

Q. For any or all of you: Coach, you talked about a fresh start in season three. What has that meant? What went behind getting a fresh start and how has that helped you?

JALEN COLEMAN-LANDS: I feel like we have learned a lot and it has brought us a lot closer. With that being said, I feel like now we have a clean slate. We can actually put to use what we learned throughout the season. And everybody being 0-0, we have a clean slate to show people that.

Q. Kendrick, could you just talk through the last play where you deflected the ball on their inbounds pass and the refs ended up reversing to your possession.

KENDRICK NUNN: A guy got open up top, and he threw the ball long, and I kind of deflected it toward this way, but he got the front end of it.

Q. Mav, you joked at practice one day, hey, if you're not getting better you're not doing anything. You said, "I'm sure you work on things as a reporter," to me, and I said we work on things. Are you surprised by how this has come together in the short period of time here in the tournament?

MAVERICK MORGAN: No, not at all. We have worked hard. Even if we didn't get necessarily get the result we wanted as far as our record or how we did in league play, we didn't let that discourage us and didn't stop working hard. We did that every day regardless, and I think it's starting to show now, which is great.

Q. This is probably for Kendrick. The coach just mentioned about how unselfishly you played offensively in sharing the ball with 20 assists. In two games you got 24 three-pointers and many of them have been wide open. Is that the by-product of this sharing the ball and waiting for somebody to get open?

KENDRICK NUNN: I think that's big part of how we share a play, playing the game the right way. We have good players on the floor, and by sharing the ball, you can make other guys better. And that's what we did.

Q. Jalen, you're in your hometown, you get a big win. You break the freshman record for three-pointers. Tell us about your emotions going through this experience in your freshman year.

JALEN COLEMAN-LANDS: It's been great. I feel like I learned a lot from these guys, especially leaders and all of the guys that has made this season special, record or not. I feel like we've persevered through a lot of stuff, which made things for me, my experience, a lot greater than what I expected coming here. So I knew nothing about my record, where I was with that record, but I'm just now hearing about it. But it's good, we're winning most importantly.

Q. Kendrick, can you tell us what happened under the basket with the shot?

KENDRICK NUNN: Shot one up. We both boxed out. That's what two good teams do, just physical box-outs.

Q. Playing Purdue next, one of the better teams in the Big Ten. You guys have already beat them. How does that give you guys confidence knowing that you have taken down a high seed already?

MAVERICK MORGAN: Like we talked about earlier, we got a clean slate. They got a clean slate as well. What we did in Minnesota, beating the team three times, that's really tough. And beating a team even twice is a whole other deal. It's a different game tomorrow. We just have to be better tomorrow.

Q. Coach McCaffery was asked if, from the last time they played you guys, if you were a different team. Given the way you guys have played the last two games, do you feel that you are a different team or is it just everything finally coming together?

COACH GROCE: I think it's an evolution. Our team has really grown throughout the year. And they have been through a lot. And I think that's well document. I think the one thing that we talked about was this being a fresh start. And it's obvious that Jalen has gotten better. It's obvious that Maverick Morgan has improved. It's obvious that Michael Finke is getting better. It's obvious that we're more connected with this current rendition our team that evolved throughout the season. Some of the things that evolved from were a little bit unforeseen or out of our control.

So I think it's very important you play the cards that you're dealt to the best of your ability. I thought that the guys -- and Matt is exactly right. I thought I didn't just keep grinding, keep working. We talk about not ever having excuses, not complaining, not taking shortcuts. And I think some guys are starting to merge as well in the leadership area, our older guys.

I thought Hill today -- obviously, Hill has six points and five turns. We all know that is not typical of him. But he never let it affect his defensive effort. And then he made the lone second-half field goal he made was a big one, late in the game. And he stepped up and made that.

I think some guys are getting a little bit mentally tougher. So we haven't arrived by any means. We still have a long ways to go. But we have gotten a lot better in a lot of areas. And I'm happy -- and sometimes the game doesn't honor that with a win, you know. Like, I thought we played our tails off the last 20 minutes in State College, but we didn't win the game.

But we played our tails off here the next 80, and the outcome went in our favor. So more than anything, I'm happy for those guys, because I think it gives them some validation for all of their efforts and their ability to persevere.

Q. John, your first year, you got in the NCAA Tournament in that game in Miami and had the disputed call at the end, and they came up with the rule. Sometimes we call it "The Illinois Rule." Is this the first game where you have benefited by it at the end of the game? Can you recall another example?

COACH GROCE: It's a great question. Since then? I don't know. I don't want to answer it incorrectly. Obviously, with the new rule in place, the Illinois Rule, you know, we were able to get possession of the ball there, and that was a big play for us late.

Q. Coach, you guys played great defense. You were communicating extremely well. And when you did that, it seemed like you got to the spot before Uthoff or any of the other players got there. When you guys were chasing them, it was a difficult situation. What made the difference? What is going on there?

COACH GROCE: Be a little bit more specific with your question there. "Chasing him," are you meaning defensively?

Q. Yes, sir.

COACH GROCE: Obviously those two guys are terrific players. I appreciate the compliment. But the stat sheet shows that Jok and Uthoff did a pretty good job. They were difficult to defend. They were too difficult to defend in game one. They were difficult to defend today, the second time that we played. And we have great respect for those guys. They are two, certainly, of the better players in our league and in the country. They're hard to guard. Obviously, they're a good team for a reason.

I thought that we did a better job defending screening actions in the second half than we did the first half. The first half, I thought they were a little bit more effective, and we addressed that a little bit at halftime, and I thought our guys had a little more focus and concentration, they were alert and they communicated very well in those situations.

Q. What did the fresh start in season three mean to you? What did you want that to be? And I guess, with two wins, has it been that?

COACH GROCE: The biggest thing -- and I'm going to repeat it again. Sometimes I think we can overcomplicate things. And I wanted to really simplify it for these guys. All we have talked about, literally -- I'm not just telling you this at the press conference -- is to play the right way on offense and to play ridiculously hard and compete, because that's what we do at Illinois. You have an "I" on your chest, you compete. If it says "Illinois" on your chest, you compete. We talked a lot about that. And that's all we locked in on.

Then the third thing would be respect for every opponent that we play. And our goal every day in the tournament is to just try to be better than the team we're playing that day and find a way to get our name to the next line on the bracket. And that's all we have talked about. And that's really, I think, what the fresh start has meant to our guys.

And we have stayed positive through all of this. We have. And I always tell them, there's a positive dog and a negative dog inside of each of us. And the one that comes out is the one that you feed the most. And our guys have chosen to feed the positive dog. And because of that, I think they have been able to persevere. And like I said earlier, I'm glad for them, more than anyone that they have been able to do that and get validation here with some good play here the last couple of days.

Q. Maybe at the risk of overstating things I will ask this. Just since Monday, it's been a lot of unexpected things happening with Illinois sports. You guys are two runs here and the football hiring, just -- Can you kind of describe what the week has been like for the program?

COACH GROCE: It's been exhilarating. It's exciting. It's fun. I mean, obviously it's great for the university. It's great for our community. We have a great community. And we're all in this together. We are. Like text messages I get from the other coaches, you know. We try to do the same and follow them. We're very, very proud of Illinois. We're excited about where we're going. All of us are striving for excellence. It's what we want. And, you know, we support each other. I saw Mike Small here today. He didn't have to do that. So we support each other. When things are going well for Illinois, it's all of us. We're all in it together. I always talk about it taking a village. And obviously we're very proud of where we work and how we do our business. And this week has been an exciting week. It's been a great week. As Josh said, it was an historic week. It has been, you know. Obviously, we're trying to do our part here at the Big Ten Tournament, and I'm proud of the guys.