URBANA/ATWOOD — The Illineks won their second straight Central Illinois Turkey Tournament championship, and their third in four years, on Saturday with a 50-43 win over Atwood-Hammond. The team ended the tourney 4-0.

Junior Dan Lilly scored 96 points in the four games for a 22.8 scoring average. Lilly was named the tournament MVP, and senior Alan Kessler was named to the all-tournament team.

Uni co-hosted the tournament with Atwood-Hammond. The Illineks played their first three games at Kenney Gym, while the championship game was hosted by Atwood.

After pulling out a nail-biter in the season and tournament opener — a 49-48 comeback against Shiloh on Nov. 24 — Uni rolled in a Game 2 victory the next night against conference foe Buckley Christ Lutheran. Four players scored in double digits as Uni won 80-21.

Even though it was a tournament contest, the BCL game will count as an East Central Illinois Conference win for Uni.

Lilly was one of three Illineks to score 12 points against the Crusaders, and he added six assists. Kessler and sophomore Will Fernandez also netted a dozen points each, adding five and eight rebounds, respectively. Junior Nile Hamer pulled down 16 of the team’s 46 rebounds to go with his 11 points.

On Friday in Game 3, the tournament co-hosts jumped out to an early lead over Bement, building a 19-11 advantage by the end of the first quarter and taking a 35-21 lead into halftime. The Illineks didn’t give up any ground in the second half, winning 56-41.

Lilly once again led the team in scoring, this time with 23 points; he added eight rebounds and three steals. No other Illinek had more than six points, five rebounds, or two assists.

On Saturday, Uni traveled away from Kenney Gym to play 3-0 Atwood-Hammond on the Rajahs' home court, but it was the Illineks who remained undefeated. Lilly scored 30 of the team’s 50 points to lead Uni to the championship win.

It was the third time in four games in which Lilly had scored at least half of the team’s points. Lilly added four steals, four treys, and hit all 10 of his free throws — all game highs.

Uni jumped to an early lead in the first half, leading 18-12 after the first quarter and 35-16 at the half. Although the Rajahs closed to within 10 points by the end of the third quarter and came within five points of the lead, the Illineks were able to close out the victory.

Last year Uni won all four games in the tournament en route to the championship. The defense of both this year’s and last year’s squads dominated their respective tournaments, holding opponents to 38 points per game.

This year, however, the scoring average for the Illineks dropped from 74 points per game to 59 points per game. Last year’s Illineks finished the season 21-7.

In junior varsity action at the tournament, Uni's JV defeated the Shiloh JV 38-23 on Tuesday to improve to 1-1 on the season.

In the 2007 Turkey Tourney, Uni defeated BCL 69-17 and Bement 73-59. Uni beat Atwood-Hammond 59-42 last year in the Hayden’s Classic.

The Illineks will return to the court Tuesday night at LeRoy. The next home game is against Fisher on Friday.