Rahimi Harrison

They're thinking more, can we make it to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four?

So it's always interesting to see who shows up.

And that's what I'm interested with this Illinois team.

But they got a lot of new kids.

Keaton Wagler and David Mirkowitz, two of the best freshmen Illinois has ever had, but they've never played in the postseason.

So you just kind of want to see them be aggressive, confident, and assertive early.

But I tell you what, they're getting a really good Wisconsin team that's been playing really, really good basketball and is really great offensively.

So it's going to be a test of Illinois' defense, which is the weak point of this team.

Well, Illinois has a huge advantage in the front court in this matchup.

Wisconsin is not that strong in the front court, and their best player, Nolan Winter, is out for this game.

He's averaging about 13.8 rebounds.

So they have a huge advantage.

They need to take advantage of that in the front court.

But Austin Rapson playing really well for them, a good stretch big man.

But Wisconsin's backcourt duo is the best in the Big Ten.

Nick Boyd and John Blackwell, they put up, I think it was 45, 50 points against Illinois in that one.

Illinois had a 12-point lead, guys, with eight minutes left in regulation, and they just could not get any stops against Boyd and Blackwell.

But the difference you hope today is Kylan Boswell was out that game with a broken hand, and Andrei Staryakovich was out that game with an injury as well.

which has struggled to stop good guards.

Wisconsin got a scare yesterday from Washington as Washington had 20 offensive rebounds.