Coming into Saturday, No. 21 Ohio State had yet to play any of the top four teams in the Big Ten. This conference top to bottom is incredibly tough, but the quartet of Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois have seemingly separated themselves from the rest of the pack as truly elite contenders on the national scale. The Buckeyes got their first taste of one of the B1G’s best on Saturday, heading to Champaign to take on the No. 14 Illinois Fighting Illini.
Despite missing a pair of point guards and being largely undersized, Ohio State was able to upset Illinois 87-81 in what was the team’s biggest win of the season to date.