Women’s basketball will be looking for a win to improve their NCAA Tournament resume on Thursday night when they travel to Purdue.

The Illini, who have beaten formerly ranked opponents UCLA and Louisiana Tech, are looking for another victory against a top-25 caliber team that would give them a stronger case for a tournament berth.

“We need another big win against a big team,” said sophomore forward Audrey Tabon. “This one would be huge, especially on their floor. We haven’t won there in years, and we feel this is our best opportunity.”

The Illini could not have hoped for a better time to be visiting West Lafayette, Ind.

Purdue has been struggling, dropping four of their last six games, after starting the season on a high note at 10-4.

The Boilermakers, who were ranked No. 24 in the ESPN/USA Today Coach’s Poll last week, fell out of the ranks after a 71-58 loss to Michigan State last Wednesday. In their most recent outing last Sunday, Purdue squeaked by Northwestern 68-65. Purdue is currently 12-8 overall and 5-4 in the Big Ten.

“I’ve read some of (Purdue Head) Coach (Kristy) Curry’s quotes and she is not very happy with the way the team has been playing,” said head coach Theresa Grentz. “We just want to go in there and take care of our business.”

For the Illini there has been no tougher place to play in the Big Ten than Mackey Arena. The Illini have dropped 19 straight to the Boilermakers in West Lafayette and are 3-20 there overall.

“That means we’re due,” Grentz said. “We are not worried about the past. We will leave that to God’s mercy and keep it within His providence.”

In order for that providence to be on the Illini’s side, Grentz said the team needs to be more consistent.

“We need to play a solid 40-minute game,” Grentz said. “We need to realize we are on their floor, factor that in and we need to be able to find a way to score points on their court.”

After the loss to No. 3 Ohio State Sunday, the Illini know what needs to be done to win tonight.

“First of all we have to put the last game behind us,” Tabon said. “We need to start fresh. We have been really focused on the task at hand and we have been working as hard as we can for this game.”

The Illini were happy with their defensive intensity against the Buckeyes and hope to carry that into tonight’s game.

“I liked the way we played defense against Ohio State, we need to come out with that type of intensity,” Grentz said. “I liked our effort against Ohio State as well, we need to come out with that same kind of effort.”

Offensively, the game plan for the Illini is to score in transition. They feel they can take advantage of their athleticism to get fast break points against the Boilermakers.

“We just want to do the same kinds of things we always do,” Tabon said. “We want to run and make them play our style of game. The key to that is playing good defense as well, we want to carry that over from the Ohio State game.”

When the two teams last met, then No. 5 Purdue defeated Illinois 65-49. The Boilers lead the all-time series 36-14.