How to Watch No. 14 Illinois vs. No. 13 Tennessee: TV, Tip-off Time, More

Illinois basketball still stands a far cry from must-win territory, but there is some urgency suddenly pressing down on the Illini (6-2). After losses to (admittedly very good) UConn and Alabama squads, plus a win over Texas Tech that is losing its shine by the day, Illinois has very little to hang its hat on in terms of postseason credentials.

March remains a long way off, but Saturday's matchup against Tennessee in Nashville (7 p.m. CT, ESPN), realistically, will be one of the Illini's final chances to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee ahead of the Big Ten season. And given the clear divide between the conference's haves and have-nots, plus the fact that Illinois plays Purdue, Michigan and Michigan State – the haves, for those scoring at home – only once each during the regular season, this weekend's opportunity against the Volunteers takes on a bit more heft.

Here's more information on Saturday's non-conference matchup in Nashville:

How to watch Illinois Fighting Illini vs. Tennessee Volunteers

Who: Illinois Fighting Illini (6-2) vs. Tennessee (7-2)
What: Neutral-site non-conference matchup
When: Saturday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. CT
Where: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, Tennessee
TV/streaming: ESPN
Radio/audio: Busey Bank Illini Sports Network (Champaign: WDWS 93.9 FM or 1400 AM; Chicago: WLS 890 AM); Fighting Illini Productions; Varsity Network App
Last week: The Illini didn't so much struggle as sleepwalk through a win over UT Rio Grande Valley, then got a wake-up call against UConn in New York, falling 74-61. Tennessee is coming off back-to-back losses – the first time that has happened since last January, when the Vols were edged by a combined seven points by No. 1 Auburn and No. 12 Kentucky. Last week, they lost by the same combined total – but this time to unranked Kansas and Syracuse.
Series history: Illinois is 1-4 against Tennessee all time, and last season it lost a heartbreaker in Champaign to the No. 1-ranked Vols when Jordan Gainey went coast to coast to score the winning basket in the final seconds and secure UT a 66-64 win.

What to know about Tennessee

Tennessee hasn't lost three games in a row since 2023-24, when the Volunteers were put through the wringer by No. 2 Purdue and No. 1 Kansas in Honolulu, Hawaii, and No. 16 North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Three straight defeats is an almost unthinkable scenario for a Rick Barnes-coached team, and one imagines Barnes himself feels exactly the same way. He will have his Vols ready for the Illini.

And the reality is, Tennessee may not need any extra motivation from its head coach. At least one metric favors the Vols in this matchup, and their defensive discipline and physicality figure to be a problem for an Illinois team that has thus far handled neither of them well on the occasions it has encountered them. Getting a few more perimeter jumpers to go down would be a boon for the Illini, though counting on that isn't any kind of a solution. For a deeper dive into the matchup (and the Volunteers specifically), check out our Illinois on SI First Look at Tennessee.