Illinois @ Penn St. preview

Last Meeting ( Mar 10, 2019 ) Illinois 56, Penn St. 72

No. 9 Penn State will aim for a ninth consecutive victory and try to stay close in the race for the Big Ten regular season crown when it hosts Illinois on Tuesday. The Nittany Lions kept alive their longest winning streak since joining the Big Ten in 1993 when they rolled to a 77-61 win over Northwestern on Saturday.

"We've been talking about moments since the beginning of the season and this is another moment for us," Penn State coach Patrick Chambers told reporters after his team pulled within two victories of matching its record for Big Ten wins in a season. "You can celebrate after the season. Right now, we're trying to do something special. Something Penn State's never done before." The Nittany Lions are one game behind first-place Maryland in the conference standings and they own the tiebreaker against the Terrapins by virtue of a win in the lone encounter between the front-runners. The Fighting Illini sit two games behind Penn State, but they've dropped four straight following a seven-game winning streak. Each of the first three losses during the slide were decided by single digits before Illinois fell 72-57 at Rutgers on Saturday.

TIME: 6:30 p.m. ET. TV: Fox Sports 1

ABOUT ILLINOIS (16-9, 8-6 Big Ten): Saturday's loss came with leading scorer Ayo Dosunmu (15.8 points per game) sidelined with a knee ailment, and his absence was felt for a squad that shot 31.1 percent from the floor. "Without our alpha, we competed, but you can't shoot 26 percent on the road (in the second half) and win," coach Brad Underwood told the media. "Give the Rutgers defense a lot of credit for that. They deserve that." Sophomore Alan Griffin ended a string of six straight single-digit scoring efforts by recording 14 in the loss, although he was just 3-of-11 from the floor.

ABOUT PENN STATE (20-5, 10-4): Senior forward Lamar Stevens scored 23 points against Northwestern to boost his team-leading mark to 17.7, while sophomore guard Myles Dread chipped in a season-high 16 and stood out on the other end of the floor. "I'm going to start with his defense," Chambers told reporters of Dread. "Having him in there, we're bigger, we're stronger. Our defense has gotten even better with Myles right now." Sophomore guard Myreon Jones, who ranks second to Stevens with 14.1 points per contest, missed his third straight game Saturday due to an illness.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Illini freshman C Kofi Cockburn notched his 10th double-double Saturday with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

2. Stevens is 35 points shy of matching Jesse Arnelle (2,138) for second on the school's all-time scoring list.

3. Penn State won each of the last six meetings.

PREDICTION: Penn State 75, Illinois 66