Penn State at Illinois

Illinois has slowly begun building the program back up. The first thing that comes is restoring home dominance, and they certainly have done a good job of that. They have opened the season at 9-0 in Champagne. The Nittany Lions are too dependent on Taylor Battle - their only double-digit scorer. He is on the floor for 36 minutes per game, and the Illini will shut him down. The rest of the supporting cast just isn't good enough to make this one close. The Illini have a tremendous home-court advantage and feed off the energy, and without any answers beyond Battle, it will be a long night for the Nittany's. I'll go with Illinois in this one.