The Michigan Wolverines and Illinois Fighting Illini are playing live on the Big Ten college basketball on Tuesday and the matchup from the Crisler Center starts up at 3 pm ET and has U of M coming in after the football team introduced Jim Harbaugh and this matchup is on ESPN2 and streaming online from the WatchESPN website as the team hosts Illinois.
Michigan comes in after a win against Coppin State and they will next play against Purdue on the schedule. The team is unranked now after going 7-5 to start the season and they are 6-3 at home coming into this matchup has the Big Ten schedule gets started. The Wolverines come in scoring 67 points per game and they have won just one of the past four games. The team has lost four of the last five after winning two in a row and while one of those losses was against number three Arizona, the team has not looked good.
Michigan lost games to NJIT, Eastern Michigan and SMU along with Arizona in that streak and they really need to bounce back if they are going to be ranked again. Michigan has a tough stretch late in the season with MSU, Ohio State and then Maryland, but they should be in much better position buy the time those games roll around. The matchup with Wisconsin is going to be a tough one and the Badgers are looking like the best team in the conference this season.
Illinois comes into the game playing well and they are currently 10-3 on the season, but 0-1 on the road. The team comes in after a win against Kennesaw State and they will next be on the road against Ohio State. The Illini have won three games in a row and four of the last six and they have the chance to keep things going as the conference schedule picks up and it starts off tough for Illinois.
The team has Michigan and Ohio State on the road before matchups with Maryland and Nebraska and then the team has Northwestern and Indiana. Illinois is ranked 25th in the nation with 79 points per game and they are allowing 62 points per game on defense this year. The Big Ten has a number of solid teams this season and it should be a tough battle in 2014-15 for the conference title.
Michigan has lost a number of experienced players and they are hoping to get things going once the conference schedule picks up. Nik Stauskas is in the NBA and so is Trey Burke and now the next level of players have to step up. Jim Harbaugh is in town and that surely will give everyone a boost and some enthusiasm at this game.
Check here for the Michigan Wolverines and Illinois Fighting Illini live coverage.
