After 25 straight wins, Illinois is mowing down opponents through a simple formula – have one of your “Player of the Year” candidate guards step up at the right time and return whatever blows your familiar opponent has cooked up for you.

Bruce Weber says that because of the familiarity in the conference, Illinois just going after wins and style points hardly matter. Blowouts are too hard to find around this time in February, so a low scoring 70-59 victory against Wisconsin is music to his ears.

Illinois was given its first real test of the game when energetic guard Dee Brown collected three early fouls. While the game’s leading scorer Luther Head, who finished with 26 points, carried the team on the scoring end, the Illinois bench knew it needed Brown to return fire. At the end of the first half, the Illini led by one point, an ideal situation for the Badgers.

Illinois’ defense meanwhile was taking the game out of Wisconsin’s stud-forward Mike Wilkinson. While Wilkinson finished 100 percent from the field, he only managed to put up four shots and tally eight points.

It was an Illinois native that was hurting his state’s school. Lockport-native Alando Tucker was proving that he was as tough a match up as the Illini had seen all year. Tucker finished the game with 24 points and eight rebounds.

“I felt that if we didn’t get going at the start of the second half, that we were playing into their hands,” Weber said. “That’s why I kind of hesitated taking Dee out.”

Weber once again looked like a fortune teller, as Brown would make the difference down the stretch. Having him on the court sparked a 10-0 run, which was the deficit that Wisconsin could not make up. The run was led by Deron Williams, who hit two straight three-pointers.

“Whenever we were able to find the answers, they responded with an answer and a half,” Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan said.

Illinois’ most complete answers came in the form of Brown’s long-range bombs with the shot clock dwindling.

“These guys got me the ball in good position,” Brown said about his teammates. “I just set my feet and took a couple of shots.”

Those couple of shots were sweet for Brown, who refers to Wisconsin as “not his favorite team in the league.”

After the game, once again, the squad was bombarded with questions of perfection, which were in turn shrugged off, and any question as to whom the players thought was the best team in America was shadowed back in copycat form; in an underdog role, the team knows the only way to keep shutting up the talking heads on television is to keep the streak alive.

“People have got to fear us when it comes time to play us,” Brown said, as a seasoned veteran waiting for his next challenge.