PREVIEW: Illinois at Minnesota

[January 24, 2015]  Two lower-division Big Ten Conference foes squareoff Saturday when Illinois visits Minnesota. The Golden Gophers have lost six of their seven conference contests after carrying aneight-game win streak into Big Ten play. The Fighting Illini, meanwhile, arebeat up and will play without two of their top four leading scorers in guards RayvonteRice (broken hand) and Aaron Cosby (torn retina).

Illinois, though, is at least coming into the contest with some momentum, having defeated visiting Purdue 66-57 on Wednesday.A night earlier, the Gophers dropped a 52-49 decision at Nebraska, shooting aseason-low 30.8 percent from the field and making only 9-of-19 free-throwattempts. “We've lost ourfair share of close ones,” Minnesota coach Richard Pitino said afterward. “That'sthe best we've executed, and I thought we got open looks. The reality of thesituation is when you miss 10 free throws on the road in one- or two-possessiongames, you're not going to win.”

TV: 2:15 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network.

ABOUT ILLINOIS (13-7, 3-4 Big Ten): Malcolm Hill(13.8 points) and Kendrick Nunn (10.6) are the Illini’s leading (healthy) scorers,but freshman Leron Black stepped up in a big way against Purdue with 15 pointsand a career-high 13 rebounds for his first double-double. Outside of Rice,Nnanna Egwu (7.3 points) is the team’s leading rebounder at 5.5 per game and iscoming off a five-block performance Wednesday in which he became theprogram’s all-time leader in swats. Illinois went 21-of-24 at the free-throwline against Purdue and increased its Big Ten-leading accuracy rate to 79.3percent.

ABOUT MINNESOTA (12-8, 1-6): The Gophers pickedup their lone Big Ten win last Saturday, beating visiting Rutgers 89-80, butthey’ve at least been close with five of their six conference losses coming by five points or fewer. Minnesota leads the conference in steals(11 per game) and ranks second in assists (17.5) but owns the league’ssecond-worst rebounding margin at minus-1.5. Individually, six Gophers areaveraging at least 8.9 points, led by Andre Hollins (13.8), Carlos Morris(12.8) and Maurice Walker (12.0).

TIP-INS

1. Illinois leads the series 119-64 and has won threestraight, and 26 of the last 30 meetings dating to 1999.

2. Minnesota freshman G Nate Mason leads the BigTen with 2.4 steals per game.

3. Former Gophers’ C Randy Breuer, the program’sthird all-time leading scorer, will have his jersey retired at halftimeSaturday.

PREDICTION: Illinois 71, Minnesota 69

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