With Indiana’s upset victory of No. 9 Michigan State, Illinois has clinched the Big Ten regular season title outright.

While the Illini nation might have preferred to have captured the title at home Thursday against Purdue, owning a championship with still two games to play is a testament to the type of season Illinois has had.

The Illini now own back-to-back championships, with the clincher this year coming with less stress than last year’s. In 2004, Illinois had to sweat out consecutive road victories, while this year the deal was sealed as Indiana topped Michigan State 78-74 in overtime on a weekend the Illini didn’t even practice, let alone compete.

“In our kid’s hearts, I know they really wanted to win it on the court to put an exclamation point on it,” Weber said. “But I guess we’ve done that over the course of 14 Big Ten games to put ourselves in this position.”

This is the third time in Illinois history that a team has won back-to-back outright titles, the other two coming in 1942-1943 and 1951-1952. Weber became the first coach in the history of the Big Ten to win back-to-back outright championships in his first two years of tenure.

After clinching the Big Ten title, the focus will immediately be turned towards the Illini trying to finish the regular season undefeated. Two games remain, against Purdue and Ohio State, and the team sits at 28-0, 14-0 in conference.

The chance to go undefeated will loom over the squad’s head, but Weber attests to not veering from the method that has brought the team to this point.

“Our focus the entire season has been breaking the schedule down to a week at a time, or a block of games at a time,” Weber said. “Now we’re down to one week and two games left before the postseason. Our goal is to have a good performance on Thursday and make it a memorable Senior Day, and then hopefully go to Ohio State with a chance to do something that has only happened a couple of times in the history of the Big Ten.”