Illinois basketball finally has our first Big Ten Tournament opponent, and it is the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Ohio State looked dominating against Iowa on Thursday night. They soundly beat the Hawkeyes, and now the Illini get to play one of the hottest teams in the conference.
How will Illinois look, though? We beat Ohio State the first time around, but this is a different Buckeyes program.
Here are five huge questions for the Illinois basketball team against Ohio State
1. Will it be the Terrence Shannon Jr. & Marcus Domask show?
Illinois currently has two of the best players to come through the program in the past decade on the team right now. I would put Terrence Shannon Jr. and Marcus Domask up against any of the players over the past 10 seasons, and they would be in the top five without a doubt.
These two rarely slow down too. Shannon is incredible at getting points no matter what it takes, and Domask is someone who you wouldn’t expect to be aggressive, but he is incredibly physical.
So, on Friday afternoon, I am going to see if these two can lead Illinois to great heights. Will it be the Shannon and Domask show against Ohio State?
What I love about this duo is that, while Illinois is unstoppable when they both are clicking, they pick each other up when one is having a bad game.
In the last game against Iowa, Domask had a rough 36 minutes, putting up 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting from the field. Shannon picked up the slack, dropping 25 points on 10-of-19 shooting.
These two also dominated Ohio State in the lone matchup this season. Illinois won 87-75, and Shannon and Domask contributed 46 of the 87 points, which is 52.9% of the points coming from two players.
Illinois needs Shannon and Domask to lead the way. If these two are clicking, there is no stopping the Orange and Blue.