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Men's Basketball Breakdown: Iowa vs. Illinois

No. 18 Hawkeyes return home to face No. 19 Illini
Men's Basketball Breakdown: Iowa vs. Illinois
Men's Basketball Breakdown: Iowa vs. Illinois

Breaking down Sunday's game between Iowa and Illinois.

Game facts

Time and place — 12:01 p.m. (CST), Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa City

TV — FS1 (Wayne Randazzo, play-by-play; Nick Bahe, analyst)

Radio — Hawkeye Radio Network

Records — Iowa 15-6 (6-4 Big Ten), Illinois 16-5 (8-2)

Rankings — Iowa is No. 18 and Illinois is No. 19 in the Associated Press and USA Today coaches polls.

Series — Illinois leads, 85-75. Iowa has won the last four games in the series.

Lineups

Iowa — Joe Wieskamp (F, 6-6, Soph., 15 ppg.), Luka Garza (C, 6-11, Jr., 23 ppg.), Joe Toussaint (G, 6-0, Fr., 7.2 ppg.), CJ Fredrick (G, 6-3, Fr., 11.3 ppg.), Connor McCaffery (G, 6-5, Soph., 6.2 ppg.)

Illinois — Giorgi Bezhanishvili (F, 6-9, Soph., 8.3 ppg.), Kofi Cockburn (C, 7-0, Fr., 14.4 ppg.), Ayo Dosunmu (G, 6-5, Soph., 16 ppg.), Trent Frazier (G, 6-2, Jr., 9.9 ppg.), Da'Monte Williams (G, 6-3, Jr., 2.2 ppg.)

Fast facts

• Iowa's last four wins against the Illini have come on four different courts — Champaign and Iowa City in the regular season, New York and Chicago in the Big Ten Tournament.

• Illinois has won seven consecutive games, the longest active streak in the Big Ten.

• This is the fifth game in a seven-game stretch in which the Hawkeyes have played a ranked team.

What to watch

The Hawkeyes are back home after having their five-game winning streak snapped, and they'll need to knock off the Big Ten leaders to stay in the conference race.

Garza gets another battle against a great Big Ten big man, and he'll have to stay out of the foul trouble he ran into against Maryland in Thursday's 82-72 loss.

The other good battle will be between Wieskamp and Dosunmu, two players who have been difficult matchups for defenses all season.

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John Bohnenkamp
JOHN BOHNENKAMP

I was with The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa) for 28 years, the last 19-plus as sports editor. I've covered Iowa basketball for the last 27 years, Iowa football for the last six seasons. I'm a 17-time APSE top-10 winner, with seven United States Basketball Writers Association writing awards and one Football Writers Association of America award (game story, 1st place, 2017).

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