4. Can the Illini extinguish a hot Rutgers team?
If you would have asked if Illinois wins the second Rutgers game of the season back in December, I would have said yes without hesitation.
I believe we will win the game on Wednesday, but a big question I have is can the Illinois basketball team stop a hot Rutgers program?
I will first start off with the Illini. We aren’t playing the best basketball right now despite having a solid record. Illinois looked terrible in the second half against Northwestern on Sunday. We also looked bad in the second half against Purdue in the game before. Our form is not good right now.
Illinois is heading into a game against a Rutgers team that has put themselves in a solid position for the NCAA tournament. The Scarlet Knights were once 11-8 overall and 5-4 in the Big Ten. After a solid month of basketball, the team now sits with a 15-9 record and is 9-5 in the Big Ten.
The recent winning by Rutgers includes three-straight wins over top 20 programs. They took down No. 13 Michigan State, No. 16 Ohio State, and then went on the road and took down No. 14 Wisconsin.
Why has Rutgers been so good lately? Simple, they have been shooting the ball much better. The Scarlet Knights have hit over 50% of their shots in the last three games. Before this three-game stretch, Rutgers was only hitting 42.3% of their shots for the season, which ranked No. 242 in the nation.
Rutgers is on fire right now and Illinois hasn’t been playing their best basketball. Can we extinguish a hot Rutgers program? That is something I am going to be keeping an eye on.