It should be a lively atmosphere at Value City Arena on Tuesday as Ohio State hosts Illinois in Big Ten action. The first whistle blows at 7:00 EST and you can see it on ESPN.
Ohio State is in 2nd place in the conference, Illinois is in 9th place. Illinois is good competition, ranked #64 in the RPI, and Ohio State has a chance to improve upon its 9-5 record against RPI Top 100 teams. The 8th ranked Buckeyes stand at 22-5 overall and are 10-4 in the Big Ten. The Fighting Illini maintain a record of 16-11 including 5-9 in the conference.
We think Ohio State has a huge advantage in this game. Ohio State has a home-court advantage with a home record of 16-1, which is also better than the Illinois 4-7 road record. Also, Illinois has lost five games straight and is struggling.
Digging into season averages, Ohio State comes out ahead in one category, scoring, where the Buckeyes outperform the Fighting Illini, 74 pts/game to 66 pts/game.
Ohio State has already played Illinois this season, back on January 10th, and lost 79-74. The Buckeyes went 2-0 against the Fighting Illini last year, with an average 12 point margin of victory. In four years, the Ohio State record against Illinois is 7-3, including 3-1 at home.
StatSmack! Ohio State is better than Illinois
- We're so much better than you, we get lazy. Ohio State has come back to win after being down at half against Illinois 6 times since 1998.
- Ohio State has a better scoring defense (57.1 allowed per game vs 63.4 allowed per game) than Illinois this season.
- We beat real teams. Ohio State has more wins against the RPI Top 50 than Illinois this season (7 vs 4).
- Even computers respect Ohio State more. We have a better RPI this season than Illinois (RPI: #7 vs #64).
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