The weekend in Illinois comes to a close with a 7 p.m. showdown against Southern for the second of three games in what’s effectively a non-MTE, MTE series. Tonight, the main goal is to get off to a better start than Friday, when Illinois lost to Valparaiso by two points. Despite beating Valparaiso, trailing by 10 at halftime isn’t exactly the plan. It seems that this trend against mid-major opponents has been recurring this season. So, we’ll see how things unfold tonight. Keep up with beat writer Scott Richey for all the updates as they happen:

Scott Richey is a journalist who covers college basketball at The News-Gazette. You can reach him via email at srichey@news-gazette.com or follow him on Twitter (@srrichey).