Illinois continues to roll toward the Big Ten Basketball Tournament, delivering a 91-83 win over Wisconsin Saturday afternoon.

Facing the Badgers in Madison, the Illini received a spirited effort from Wisconsin. Brad Underwood’s squad held a slim 39-37 lead at halftime, and it took a monster effort from Marcus Domask down the stretch to secure the win.

At the end of the game, Domask led all scorers with 31 points to go with 8 rebounds and 3 assists while shooting 4-for-6 from 3-point range. Terrence Shannon Jr. also contributed 23 points in the win.

Wisconsin’s leading scorer was Tyler Wahl with 20 points on 9-for-14 shooting. Max Klesmit (16), Chucky Hepburn (15) and AJ Storr (13) also scored in double figures but it was not enough with Wisconsin shooting 37.5% from 3-point range to Illinois’ 56.3%.

Implications for Illinois

With the win, Illinois continues to solidify its spot as the No. 2 seed in the B1G, leading Northwestern by a 1.5 games pending a Saturday evening game for the Wildcats. The Illini also guaranteed a double bye in the B1G Tournament after getting past Wisconsin.

In fact, Illinois still has a shot to capture (or share) the regular-season league title. The Illini are currently 1.5 games behind B1G-leading Purdue with the Boilermakers set for a Saturday night showdown in West Lafayette.

Michigan State is hungry and needs a bounce back, and the Spartans would love to upset the Boilermakers to solidify a spot in the NCAA Tournament. And, even with a win, Purdue would not clinch the outright title Saturday night.

Purdue and Illinois will go head-to-head Tuesday night in a matchup with major implications. A win by the Boilermakers in that game will likely give the program back-to-back outright titles, but a win by Illinois would keep the pressure on heading into the regular-season finales. Tuesday’s game will come in Champaign where the Illini are 15-2 this season.

Either way, Illinois is sitting pretty after a 3rd straight win with current projections for a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament per Joe Lunardi. Fans can track all the odds and trends for tournament season via Tradition’s Ohio online sportsbooks.

Implications for Wisconsin

This season has been a tale of two halves for the Badgers.

After a dominant win over Michigan State on Jan. 26, Wisconsin was 8-1 in the B1G and looking like the best team of Greg Gard’s tenure. Unfortunately, things took a nose dive as the calendar turned to February.

The Badgers have gone just 2-9 since Feb. 1, including some disastrous losses to Michigan and Rutgers in that stretch. As a result, Wisconsin went from looking like a contender in that stretch to standing on the cusp of losing a double bye in the B1G Tournament.

Wisconsin is currently tied with Nebraska in the B1G standings and the two programs split the season series. That puts a lot of pressure on the Badgers to finish the season strong with matchups against Rutgers and Purdue still to come. By contrast, the Huskers get games against Rutgers and Michigan, two of the worst teams in the conference this season.