Meyers Leonard atones for tardiness as Illinois dumps Loyola in opener

• Reprints

Updated: December 13, 2011 9:10AM

CHAMPAIGN — You can’t tell the Illini without a scorecard.

And you can’t draw any iron-clad conclusions from an 67-49 opening victory Friday night over Loyola and its first-year coach, Porter Moser.

But it was good to see 7-1 sophomore Meyers Leonard, who probably needs to be ­Illinois’ best player, lead the way with 15 points and six blocked shots, but only two rebounds. Brandon Paul (14 points) and Tyler Griffey (10) also had productive games.

And freshman point guard Tracy Abrams picked up the rebounding slack by grabbing a team-high seven rebounds, five on offense.

“The thing I’m most happy about is how hard we played,’’ said coach Bruce Weber, who pulled Leonard from the starting lineup when he was late for shoot-around. “Meyers was a force inside. He really reacted in a very mature positive way. He’s been so good for 10 days, I hated to not start him. But if I allow him to do that, what happens next week if four guys show up late?’’

Leonard shrugged off not starting.

“It was more of a motivator, and I feel like I responded well,’’ Leonard said. “I don’t have a problem with coming off the bench. It’s nice to start, but it’s all about who’s on the floor during crunch time.’’

It was also encouraging that Abrams looked, all things considered, ready to shoulder a load. In his college debut, he had eight points, seven rebounds and looked poised enough, a good first response to his skeptics.

“Tracy was very good; he really pushed the ball. He gives us great energy,’’ said Weber, who’ll need to lean on Abrams because of senior transfer Sam Maniscalco’s dicey ankle.

As well as Illinois did some things, the Ramblers did a nice job of hanging around. They were only down 38-34 with less than 12 minutes to go. Senior forward Walt Gibler led the Loyola attack, with 15 of his 19 points in the second half.

“Walt’s good at getting angles, and he got some angles in the second half,’’ Moser said. “I was proud of our guys. They battled for about 30 minutes, but [Illinois’] pressure just wore us out. Our guys were gassed.’’

Illinois not only showed ­intensity. Weber kept his promise to go deep into his bench while he sorts out his rotation.

Freshman center Nnanna Egwu, who started along with Abrams, did some good things, as did freshman forward Mike Shaw, as nine Illini played at least 14 minutes.