Michigan at Illinois Preview: Yet Another Must Win Game, This Time We Mean It

Comfort and relaxation is a foreign concept for Illini fans these days, as every opportunity for Bruce Weber's team to take themselves squarely out of bubble talk has been met with a loss, the most recent of which undid the progress made by winning at Minnesota.

Tonight, the Illini must take the court against the Michigan Wolverines, who at the beginning of the season seemed like a train wreck headed straight for the conference basement, lately have come alive in conference play, winning five of their last six games, all against the lower half of the league.

Nevertheless, the Illini, if they can play to their abilities, should beat Michigan. It is a home game after all, and while that didn't seem to matter much against Purdue, over the course of the season the Illini have played much better in the Assembly Hall than on the road.  Another plus for the Illini? Jujuan Johnson doesn't have a twin brother suiting up in Maize and Blue tonight.

What I am concerned most with is the defense of the Illini, which had not really been a problem all season until the second half meltdown against Purdue. Especially at the perimeter with any combination of Brandon Paul, D.J. Richardson and Bill Cole, the Illini have been very disruptive to other teams' offenses. Against a dominant big man like Johnson, this did not translate into a very well defended game, but against Michigan which basically runs four guards and an only somewhat productive forward, this should be an advantage for the Illini

Michigan will take a lot of threes, and probably make many of them. but the Illinois guards have the athleticism and length to push Michigan out past the perimeter and make them try and beat them with their feet, or underneath, something they haven't been known to do.

This is a game where I would start and play Meyers Leonard for long periods of time. His strength on rebounds and skills on offense will be great against the smaller Wolverines, but his relative poor defensive play will not be as easily exploited.

In spite of losing by so much this weekend, the offense, at least with Mike Davis, Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson was great. They attacked the basket and tried to create offense by driving the lane and either finishing with a layup, drawing the foul, or kicking out to an open shooter. Too often unfortunately, the open shooter missed, a foul wasn't called or Jujuan Johnson rejected it. These things happen, I suppose, but scoring over 70 points and still losing by ten, does not indicate to me a problem with the offense.

If the offense runs as well as it did, and the Illini don't give up over fifty points in a half, I predict the Illini to win, if for no other reason than losing tonight would just be too predictable.