Ohio State at Illinois on ESPN

The Illini start the Big 10 season tomorrow, with a game against OSU. This is a much better chance to beat OSU than the past couple of seasons, even though they will be tough this time as well. Butler is a talented guard, and the Buckeyes freshman center, Kosta Koufos, is a top scorer already in the conference. Word is out that Randle is questionable for the game, and that Alexander, Brock and Davis are likely to get increased minutes instead. Ohio State plays a zone defense and has had good luck with it thus far. The weakness of Ohio State in their losses has been troubles on the offensive end in the second half (sound familiar Illini fans?).

For the Illini, we need some energy for the entire game, and need someone besides Meacham to step up the scoring and shooting. I would like to see Mike Davis or Rodney Alexander take over and be one of the leading scorers for the game. Wisconsin actually had one of their freshman forwards (Jon Leuer) score a career high 25 points tonight in their win, so it can happen.

Gametime is 5pm Pacific, 7pm Central.