Big Ten Basketball will be played on Tuesday in Columbus, as the Fighting Illini of Illinois take on the Ohio State Buckeyes. Illinois is 15-5 on the season. The Fighting Illini are third in the Big Ten standings. Illinois is coming off a home win over Indiana on Saturday. They are 7-3 at home this season.
For Ohio State, it has been a struggle. The Buckeyes are 13-7 on the season, and are losers of back to back games. The most recent loss for Ohio State came on the road at Northwestern. The Wildcats beat the Buckeyes by 25 points in that game. Ohio State is 5-5 in their last 10 games overall.
Illinois is -3 pm the road in this game. The total is at 150.
Fighting Illini Basketball
For Brad Underwood’s Fighting Illini, it has been a challenging season with their top scorer Terrence Shannon in and out of the lineup. The saving grace has been Marcus Domask, the transfer from Southern Illinois. He is scoring more than 15 points per game, and ripping down 4.8 rebounds per game.
The Illini are 31st in the nation, scoring more than 82 points per game. The Illini have been awesome on the glass as well, with more than 43 rebounds per game. The Orange and Blue have conference losses to Purdue, Maryland and Northwestern, with non conference defeats against Marquette and Tennessee.
Illinois will host Nebraska on February 4th. After that, the Illini go to Michigan State for a February 10th affair against the Spartans.
Buckeyes Need Life
Ohio State is looking for some life to be injected into the program. Their 3-6 Big Ten start has them on the outside looking in when it comes to NCAA Tournament appearance. There is still a month left, and a home win over Illinois would go a long way. The Buckeyes were not competitive; scoring just 58 points in their recent loss at Northwestern.
Bruce Thornton leads three Buckeyes scoring in double digits per game. Jamison Battle and Roddy Gayle are the other two. They are scoring 16.1, 13.8 and 13.8 points per game respectively. The Buckeyes as a team are scoring 75.2 points per game. Ohio State is one of the top free throw shooting teams in the league; making more than 75%.
Ohio State is at Iowa next, and then they will come back home and host Indiana and Maryland, in a pair of winnable games.
Road Illini beat Home Buckeyes
The Fighting Illini are on the road, a challenging place in the Big Ten. The Illini know they need to win this game on the road to keep pace with the top of the league. Ohio State’s struggles have been pretty strong this season. We expect Illinois to go on the road and find a way to win this game. Road wins are not easy, but the Orange and Blue get the job done. Our final bet for Tuesday is Illinois -3 over Ohio State.
