Buckeye Game

Ohio State will likely see a lot of Orange tomorrow at the Assembly Hall in Champaign, IL. Bruce Weber has had his players off limits to the media since the loss at Michigan, and must have something up his sleeve to take on the Buckeyes, who many say is a final four team. My suggestion is to be ready to use several big guys to defend Oden if Pruitt gets in foul trouble. After all, the Illini are blessed with some large bodies with Carlwell at 6'11", Arnold at 6'8" and Jackson at 6'8" available off the bench. Including starter Shaun Pruitt, the Illini have 1015 pounds of Centers on their roster, basically four guys with an average weight of 253 pounds! And a total of 20 fouls to give at that position alone.

Despite the Illini having played two horrible games on the road recently, at Xavier and at Michigan, they rarely lose at home. And a win over the Buckeyes would be a highlight of their year, whether they make the NCAAs or not. Lately, their lackluster play has put the post season in doubt. But as a good friend of mine reminds me, the formula for the Big 10 is to win your home games and win half of your away games, and you end up with a solid year. Well, this is a home game for the Illini, so they should win.

Not a lot of interesting pre-game coverage on the web yet, but not sure why. Maybe the media is so convinced Illinois is not competitive due to their losses this year.

The game will be televised on ESPN tomorrow at 1pm Central.