After Boston College's upset loss to Notre Dame Tuesday night, Illinois now stands alone as the only unbeaten team in the nation. Wisconsin will face off against the Illini Saturday at 1:00 p.m.
As if playing against Illinois at the Kohl Center in their last meeting was not enough of a challenge, this contest will be played in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. at Assembly Hall, the only Big Ten venue at which UW head coach Bo Ryan has not yet won a game in his tenure as head coach for the Badgers.
The numbers say that the Badgers and Illini boast similarly effective defenses (Illinois allows 61.8 points per game, while UW gives up 60.2). The offensive numbers are where the teams differ.
Illinois averages 79.5 PPG, while the Badgers lag ten points behind at 69.7. However, this deviation in stats is the only one significant enough to mention, and with Wisconsin's defensive focus this weekend, this game will be interesting.
\We're going to have to play really good defense. They've got a great three-guard tandem. ... Defense is going to be the key to everything,"" senior guard Sharif Chambliss said.
Despite the realist attitude prevailing after their Wednesday practice, the team believes that Illinois is, in fact, beatable and the Badgers are capable of defeating the Illini at the pinnacle of their perfect season.
""We know they can be beaten, we've got to go down there and play our game. Everybody's got to be clicking on all cylinders and run things smoothly,"" Chambliss said.
This is not so hard to believe, especially after how close the Badgers came to a win a few weeks ago in Madison.
""We had them on the ropes, we were up by eight ... and we let them go on a run and I think we got rattled. And you can't get rattled against the No. 1 team in the country. I feel that we have a chance to go in there and maybe get an upset,"" said a confident sophomore guard Kammron Taylor. ""We're just going to have to block the crowd out and execute for 40 minutes.""
But despite all the hype about Illinois being an intimidating adversary, Ryan maintains that this pressure is not necessarily bad for his squad.
""Pressure is good, we've never looked at pressure as a negative. Stress is unprepared pressure. Pressure's ok, that's not an issue,"" Ryan said. ""Every game could make the difference in what you end up doing at the end of the year, do you think I've got to remind these guys? They've all played in these kinds of environments before, they know the task at hand.\
