IOWA HAWKEYES VS. ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI: TV INFO, RADIO, STREAMING, POINT SPREAD, GAME PREVIEW

It's all been prelude to this: The return of Iowa-Illinois, Friday night from Champaign.  Tip at 8 p.m. God's time on FS1, with Kevin Kugler and Steven Bardo on the call.

In the beginning, the Big Ten was supposed to be contested between these two teams and Wisconsin.  It's difficult, then, to see Illinois' season-to-date as anything other than disappointing.  The Illini lost to Baylor and Missouri in the non-conference campaign, hardly an embarrassment given that both of those teams are currently looking at top 12 seeding in the NCAA Tournament.  Conference losses at Rutgers and Ohio State, and at home to Maryland, have been by a combined 12 points.  Again, there's really not a bad loss on the schedule so far.

Except that this was supposed to be the Illinois team that resurrected Illini basketball, that vanquished the Marylands and Rutgerses of the world and reestablished Illinois among the national elite.  There are no moral victories for teams in that echelon, and so it's probably fair to say that Illinois -- like Iowa -- has underperformed slightly to date.

If Illinois has disappointed, it hasn't been on their two best players.  The idea of Ayo Dosunmu (6'5", 200, 21.7 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 4.9 apg) as an in-conference counterweight to Luka Garza's player of the year run was always a bit farfetched -- Dosunmu didn't have the numbers or impact of Garza last year, and had a smaller role for Illinois than Garza for Iowa -- but that production is legitimate All-American material.  He leads Illinois in scoring and assists, and ranks second in rebounding.  His minutes and usage rates are among the 100 best in the nation, and his vastly improved three-point shooting -- 38.5%, up from 29% a year ago -- eliminates the one obvious Achilles heel in his game.  He's a true problem.

Illinois also presents the most obvious threat to Garza's dominance that the Hawkeyes will face all year: Seven-foot, 285-pound sophomore Kofi Cockburn.  Say what you will about guys like Drew Timme, Trevon Williams and Liam Robbins, but none of them have the sheer power of Cockburn.  Illinois' big man is averaging a double-double (17.4 ppg, 10.3 rpg) with 1.5 blocked shots per game added in.  He's also shooting an absurd 70% rate from the field, and is eighth nationally in effective field goal rate despite never attempting a three-point shot.  Iowa held Cockburn to just 18 points combined in two games last season.  If they can keep him below 18 Friday night, it's a win.

Where Illinois has struggled is, frankly, just about everywhere else.  It's not that their players aren't talented, mind you.  Senior guard Da'Monte Williams (6'3", 215) leads the nation in three-point shooting, knocking down an absurd 61% from behind the arc.  Do-it-all combo guard Trent Frazier (6'2", 175, 8.7/2.9/2.9) shoots 39% from three on his own, and keeps the trains running on time while Dosunmu and Cockburn do their thing.  A pair of freshmen guards, Adam Miller (6'3", 180, 9.6/2.4) and Andre Curbelo (6'1", 175, 8.6/3.1/4.4) have made significant contributions.  It's just that it's all guards.  At 6'5", Dosunmu has effectively had to play power forward most of the year to make room for all these guards.  Aside from Cockburn, Illinois' only real post presence is Giorgi Bezhanishvili (6'9", 245), who gets less than 16 minutes a game, averages a mere 6 points and 3 boards, and has been effectively relegated to Cockburn Support.  Freshman Coleman Hawkins (6'10", 215), has the height but none of the strength or production to effectively contribute.  As a result, just 50 of the 200 available minutes in the average game are being played by someone taller than 6'7", which seems less than ideal against the nation's best center and Iowa's cadre of forwards.

There is also the obvious fact that these two teams don't like each other; like a good heavyweight fight, there's plenty of bad blood.  This game is going to be chippy, and if it's refereed closely, the first Big in foul trouble might decide the whole game.  Garza is drawing 6.9 fouls per 40 minutes; Cockburn gets 7.1.  Someone is going to get the upper hand there, and neither team has an understudy in the post capable of hanging with the other.

Iowa is eight days removed from the loss to Indiana, eight days to live with that defeat and prepare for Friday night.  We don't know whether Fran McCaffery will have C.J. Fredrick available (Fran basically refused to comment this week), or whether the loss galvanized this squad to press forward.  But if Iowa is going to stay in the hunt for a conference title, Friday night's game is about as crucial as they will face, and unquestionably the most consequential game of the season so far.  One of these teams will step forward into legitimate contention.  This is an elimination game, and you have to believe that both teams will treat it as such.