Northwestern hasn't won at Illinois since January -- two months before Chris Collins became the Wildcats' head coach. Collins has led Northwestern to the first three NCAA Tournament appearances in school annals, yet he hasn't been able to lead the Wildcats to a victory in Champaign.
They've lost their eight visits by an average of But could Sunday's Big Ten game between the Wildcats , conference and the 17th-ranked Illini , be Collins' breakthrough? The first bit of evidence: When Illinois and Northwestern met Dec. Nick Martinelli scored most of his game-high 27 points after halftime as the Wildcats kept going to him and the Illini kept letting him go one-on-one.
The second bit of evidence: The Illini enter this contest dealing with their first two-game losing streak since they closed out the season with losses in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments.
More concerning, they have dropped their last two home games by 10 points to Southern California and 21 to Maryland. But here's the first contrary bit of evidence: Illinois didn't have freshman point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, its leading scorer Illinois announced Saturday that starting center Tomislav Ivisic will not play Sunday because of what Underwood said is mononucleosis. The 7-foot-1 Ivisic, who like Jakucionis, missed the loss to Maryland, leads the team with an 8.
When either Jakucionis or Ivisic is not on the court, Illinois doesn't have its most productive offensive option: running a high ball screen that either leads to a Jakucionis drive and kick or an Ivisic pick-and-pop for a 3-pointer.
