Some thoughts on the Illinois-Northwestern game today. I hate playing favorites on the road but I have some reasons for doing so today. Northwestern is going to be very thin today you have Reggie Hearn with an ankle injurie not 100%, center Alex Olah not 100% and Jared Swopshire out for the season with a knee injury. Motivation shouldn't be a factor as Northwestern put a 68-54 beat down on them on 1-17 so revenge goes to the Illinois side. Home court always a big factor but not so much here as traveling teams can make up as much as 50% of the crowd at Northwestern and that will be the case today. If this game goes much to the bench Northwestern will be having to play some players without much league experience. Illinois is playing some pretty good basketball with a win over Indiana 74-72 on Feb 7th and Northwestern starting to slide looking for the NIT. I hate to play favorites but this looks like a good spot for Illinois so I'm laying the 3 1/2 in this spot.
Spot on, 2boo. NW was playing 4 bench players for the entire 2h.