Game 29: Michigan at Illinois Preview

Michigan heads to Champaign on Friday night (8:00 p.m., FOX) with a chance to secure an outright Big Ten Championship. It’s Morez Johnson’s first game back at Illinois after his transfer to Michigan, and it’s Michigan’s first of three opportunities to secure the outright title.

A year ago, Michigan’s outside shot at a share of the Big Ten title evaporated on the same weekend against the same team.

Illinois trounced the Wolverines, 93-73, to send Dusty May’s first season into a three-game losing streak that felt like the death knell on a promising season. The Wolverines rallied from that low point, raised a banner, and made the Sweet Sixteen, but they also implemented a plan to bring their roster up to the Big Ten standard.

It’s fitting that a year later, they have a chance to prove they did it, on the road, against the team that almost broke them last year — and the team that has beaten them nine straight times.

Michigan hasn’t lost a Big Ten road game this year, and if it can win one more on Friday night, it will get to celebrate in the best way possible: stuffing a Big Ten Championship trophy into the visitors’ locker room at the State Farm Center.