It was nice to see Illinois get back on track by getting a Big Ten home win against a rebuilding team.  However, it wasn’t nice to see Demetri McCamey out of the starting lineup.

He ended up playing more minutes than anyone else, so I guess it isn’t that big of a deal, but I think if we were playing anyone other than Iowa, we would have been in trouble.  Did the new starting lineup improve the defense a bit?  Sure it did.  The Illini guarded better and made things difficult, but they guarded better and made things difficult for Iowa.  I don’t know how much you can read into this since Illinois took on a team pretty much made up of freshman and sophomores that looked like they didn’t know what they were doing. 

While the defense improved, we also saw the offense suffer.  Five minutes into the game, Illinois only had six points.  When McCamey came into the game, the offense picked up, and Illinois went on a run to put the game away.  Also, the defense didn’t suffer too much when McCamey and Richardson came into the game, and that’s why I can’t really tell if the starting of Jordan and Cole worked.

My guess is McCamey will be back in the starting lineup Saturday in Bloomington, so I won’t spend much time thinking about it.  Saturday becomes an important game because once again, Illinois finds themselves in a situation where they have to prove to everyone they can win away from home.  Since Indiana is also a rebuilding team, this is a great opportunity to figure out the road environment.  The Illini have to take advantage of these games not only because of the harder schedule to end the year, but because beating Indiana is fun, and it will tougher to do that in the coming years J.

My Prediction

ILLINOIS 72       INDIANA 68

This game is going to be a lot closer than I want it to be.  Indiana’s problems aren’t on offense.  They’re averaging close to 75 points a game, so they can put the ball in the hoop.  Depending on how Illinois plays defense, this could be another one of those ‘first team to 80 wins’ games.  I like to think that they gained some confidence after the Iowa game, but who knows if that will carry over on the road.

Former Champaign Central star Verdell Jones III is having a solid season, averaging 12.5 points per game, including 20 points in their 74-64 upset over Pittsburgh.  Remember, Pittsburgh handed Syracuse their first loss of the season not too long ago, so you can see the potential of this Indiana team.  Fortunately, they aren’t quite there yet, and Illinois should be able to get only their second win away from Champaign.

It’s now time to update the prediction standings.  As expected, everyone guessed the winner correctly last night.  Illinois won 59-42, so Illinois is +17 on the real score difference.

NAME                                        W                L                RSTD

Tom Young (ILL 85-70)             4                  2                  59

Reillini (ILL 84-70)                      4                  2                  74

jweeks (ILL 80-72)                      4                  2                  78

dave1956 (ILL 76-67)                 3                  2                  64

Jshaw (ILL 82-64)                       3                  2                  66

PeterE (DNP)                               0                  1                  16

*- Real Score Difference Total

Time for you to chime in.  Will Illinois go to 3-0 in the Big Ten, or will they continue to struggle away from home?  If the Illini wanna dance in March, they gotta be ballin’ in January.  Talk to you guys later. 

I-L-L…

* - Stats can be found on IlliniHQ.com