Men's Basketball Breakdown: Iowa vs. Illinois
Breaking down Sunday's game between Iowa and Illinois.
Game facts
Time and place — 6 p.m. (CDT), State Farm Center, Champaign, Ill.
TV — BTN (Kevin Kugler, play-by-play; Shon Morris, analyst; Olivia Dekker, reporter)
Radio — Hawkeye Radio Network
Records — Iowa 20-10 (11-8), Illinois 20-10 (12-7)
Rankings — Iowa is No. 18 in the Associated Press and USA Today coaches polls. Illinois is No. 22 in the USA Today poll and No. 23 in the AP poll.
Series — Illinois leads, 85-76.
Earlier this season — Iowa won, 72-65, on Feb. 2 in Iowa City
The lineups
Iowa — Joe Wieskamp (F, 6-6, Soph., 14.3 ppg.), Luka Garza (C, 6-11, Jr., 23.7 ppg.), Joe Toussaint (G, 6-0, Fr., 6.2 ppg.), Connor McCaffery (G, 6-5, Soph., 6.1 ppg.), CJ Fredrick (G, 6-3, Fr., 10.5 ppg.)
Illinois — Kofi Cockburn (C, 7-0, Fr., 13.4 ppg.), Ayo Dosunmu (G, 6-5, Soph., 16.6 ppg.), Trent Frazier (G, 6-2, Jr., 9.1 ppg.), Da'Monte Williams (G, 6-3, Jr., 2.6 ppg.), Andres Feliz (G, 6-2, Sr., 10.9 ppg.)
What to watch
The once-bitter rivalry got a little spice with all of the post-game words in the handshake line back in early February.
This game has a lot more on the line — the winner gets the final double-bye in the Big Ten tournament.
“I think any time you can have an opportunity to rest your guys and be fresh later in the tournament, it’s obviously something we all want,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said on his Friday teleconference. “Needless to say, it always is, but this year probably more than ever it’s been particularly grueling in terms of quality of teams, the physicality of games. You can only imagine the tournament is going to be the same way.”
The Hawkeyes are coming off a 77-68 home loss to Purdue, but they have only lost back-to-back games all season.
Iowa rallied in the first matchup between these two teams. The Hawkeyes were able to contain Dosunmu, holding him to 11 points, five under his average.
"With him, everybody tries to do the same thing," McCaffery said. "He’s so good in space. He’s always been particularly good at going right, but he’s improved going left. He’s finishing going either way, which makes him even more difficult in space. So you just try to limit the space he has the best you can."
The Hawkeyes will need more offense from Wieskamp and Fredrick, who were stymied by Purdue's defense.
"It’s pretty much going to be up to them, because they both have the green light," McCaffery said. "We keep encouraging them. You can run stuff for them, but we do that for them every game. They’re being closely guarded, they’re unselfish guys, so they move it rather than take what they might consider a bad shot. I just continue to encourage them to be aggressive, and I trust them to make good decisions."
