CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) – Illinois men’s basketball ended its three-game losing streak with a win against Iowa on Tuesday.

The Illini won 81-61. Tomislav Ivisic scored 22 points but defensive changes may have had an even bigger role in the ‘get right’ performance for Illinois.

Brad Underwood’s staff opted to make adjustments to the team’s ball-screen defense.

Underwood says it’s a change they’ve wanted to make for almost a month. However, little time in between games and limited players available in practice, likely most importantly Tomislav Ivisic, made it hard to work on the new style of guarding.

“It was needed,” he said of the change. “I’m very impressed with them, just simply of their ability to grasp that… Just felt like we needed to give these guys a little shot of something different. It wasn’t perfect, it won’t, but it was a nice subtle change that helped us tonight.”

He says they’ll work to get Morez Johnson Jr. up to speed with the new-look when he returns to practice.

The players seemed to be pleased with the change. Junior guard Kylan Boswell was even an advocate for it after Illinois lost to Duke in historic fashion.

“We were talking to our coaching staff for sure,” Boswell said after Tuesday’s win. “Trying to just implement something just make it a little easier for us. Then we implemented a lot more gap help. So like those pin downs and stuff, those guys are just in the gaps, give a stunt or something just give us time to get back in front that’s the main focus.”

In short, the change has the Illinois big man, which is almost always Ivisic for now, drop back to help on the ball defender after the player he is guarding sets a screen. The goal is to provide brief help, without switching, to allow the guard to get back in front of his man.

“I just felt it had to happen,” Underwood said of making the change when they did. “It just felt like ‘Okay, let’s see what we can handle with the change.’ … We needed to see the change to get [the players] thinking about other things.”

The small tweak passed with flying colors as Illinois held Iowa to 62 points. It was the best defensive outcome for the Illini since holding Penn State to 52 on Jan. 8.