It appeared to be a must win game for Ohio State to have a chance of making the NCAA Tournament with the difficult stretch of games coming up. Instead, Illinois played as though they were the team on the bubble pulling out a seven point victory in Value City Arena.
The first half was tightly contested until about 6 minutes left when the Illini went on a short run to build a 27-18 lead with less than four minutes to play. The Buckeyes fought back and went into the halftime break down just 30-27.