INDIANAPOLIS – Through much of the second half of the season, Illinois senior Jenna Smith has downplayed the struggle she faced with hamstring and knee ailments.

A game like Thursday's – in which she had 23 points and 19 rebounds in a 59-53 victory against Indiana – makes a person wonder what she might accomplish if she was fully healthy.

Smith's superb play was the catalyst in the Illini victory, her rebounds a Big Ten tournament single-game record. With 23 points, she moved within 16 of breaking Ashley Berggren's UI career scoring record. All of this while continuing to spend more time with Illini trainer Paul Schmidt than anyone else on the team.

"I do treatment two or three times a day, and if I start struggling or my leg starts hurting, I'll tell my teammates, 'Please help me a little more,' " Smith said. "But you just have to push through it for your teammates. This is the Big Ten tournament. It's single elimination. You have to push through all the pain that you're feeling."

Smith said Thursday wasn't a bad day – at least until the end of the game.

"We had a long timeout at the end and a couple of my teammates had to help me up," she said. "They call me Grandma. I felt a little old at the end, but I wasn't in a lot of pain today."

Smith broke the record held by Penn State's Amanda Brown, who cleared 18 rebounds in a 2007 game against Illinois. Smith, a freshman, played in that game.

Smith also had four of Illinois' nine blocks. She helped the Illini limit Indiana to 27 percent shooting.

"I don't think they've lost in the first round in quite a while, so it was definitely a win-or-go-home attitude (from the UI seniors)," UI freshman Karisma Penn said. "It just carried over to the whole team. Jenna was amazing out there. She probably got half our rebounds."

Simpson's the spark. Had the game gone into overtime, Lacey Simpson might have put up the program's first quadruple-double.

Simpson did it all, collecting 12 points, eight steals, seven rebounds, six assists and two blocks. Throughout her career, Simpson has shined in the Big Ten tournament, using the motivation of the do-or-die nature of the event.

"You win, you play another game; that's my motivation right there," Simpson said. "I'm very confident. I don't know what happens to me when it comes to this tournament, but I'm just ready to go. I've been ready to go since that horn hit at the Northwestern game (Sunday). Tonight I'm going to eat my Wheaties and go to sleep and get ready for tomorrow."

Simpson's eight steals were the second most in a Big Ten tourney game. She needs two to break Allison Curtin's single-season school record of 102, and she also is two behind Kim Wilburn (358) for second place on the Big Ten's career steals chart. Only Stacey Thomas of Michigan, who had 372, stands above.

Elam's season complete. Indiana junior Hope Elam, a Champaign Central product, likely saw her season end with the Hoosiers' defeat.

Elam, who came off the bench for the second straight game, had four points (2 for 6) and five rebounds in 21 minutes. It came on the heels of a stellar Sunday performance in which she had 16 points in 16 minutes. The past week, Elam indicated, was her season in a microcosm.

"Overall, I think I was a roller coaster, to be perfectly honest," Elam said softly in a hushed Indiana locker room. "I need to be more consistent next year and help this team out."

Elam said she's likely to spend more time on the perimeter next season, so she'll hone her offseason focus on that part of her game.

"I'm definitely going to be in the gym working on ball handling and being able to be a threat at the guard spot," she said.

Elam averaged 9.9 points, third on the team, while shooting 36.8 percent. She made 29 percent of her three-point shots and averaged 4.7 rebounds.

Former Illini resigns. Former Illini Cindy Stein has resigned after 12 seasons as the Missouri head coach.

Stein made the announcement Monday, and it will be effective at season's end. Her Tigers are 11-17, 1-14 in the Big 12.

Stein was working on the final year of her contract, and she said rival coaches were using that uncertainty against the program in recruiting.

"The speculation was becoming too public," Stein said. "It was causing a problem."

Stein is 184-176 in 12 seasons. She led three teams to the NCAA tournament, but Missouri has won 12 conference games in the past four seasons.

A 1984 UI graduate, Stein's associate head coach at Missouri is her former Illini teammate, Lynnette Robinson.

Short shots. Illinois improved to 3-0 under Jolette Law in first-round tournament games, all coming as a No. 9 seed. ... Thursday's attendance for the three-game session was 5,438. ... Smith needs 11 rebounds Friday to break the tournament's career record. Smith has 73 in her four years; Purdue's Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton had 83 from 2005 to '09. ... The UI's Ultimate Basketball Challenge, the annual battle between the school's wheelchair hoops team and its men's and women's squads, is 6 p.m. April 14 at Huff Hall.