Illinois may have had its senior night on Saturday when they upended Iowa 71-59, but it won’t be the last time this season that seniors will be honored at an Illinois basketball game. The No. 10 Illini have two more senior nights ahead of them, with the first coming tonight as they head to Minnesota to take on the Golden Gophers.

“It’s going to be a challenge anyway, but we’re just looking forward to finishing it out, playing good basketball,” senior guard Dee Brown said. “Of course we’re going to need a little help to win a Big Ten championship, but you can only worry about yourself. We’re just going to try to win one on the road.”

If Illinois wins both its remaining games and Ohio State loses one, the Illini could win the Big Ten regular season title. It’s a goal that throughout this season has seemed easily attainable at some points and nearly impossible at others. But while Illinois fell on the road to Iowa, Indiana and Ohio State, and let Penn State steal a win at Assembly Hall, Brown says the team still sees itself as a prime contender in the conference.

“We are the team to beat,” Brown said. “We still believe we’re the best team, we just slipped up and lost some games.”

Key for the Illini in tonight’s game will be the play of Illinois’ lower-profile players. With teams zeroing in on Brown and fellow senior James Augustine, it will be important for players like Rich McBride, Shaun Pruitt, Brian Randle and Jamar Smith to step up and produce on offense.

Augustine said after Saturday’s game that it is that group – players who did not start last season – who have been so important to Illinois remaining a top-10 program.

“For us to even get to this point this year, I think we’ve exceeded a lot of people’s expectations,” Augustine said. “A lot of people thought we’ve lost Deron, we’ve lost Roger, we’ve lost a lot of other guys, that we’d be down this year. Dee was hurt, I’m the only senior left if Dee wasn’t coming back. People thought we weren’t going to be very good.”

Illinois’ players recognize that they’ll need to stay composed in Minnesota’s unfamiliar environment if they want to come away with the win. The Golden Gophers topped Iowa, Indiana and Michigan State in Minneapolis, and are hungry for a bid to the NCAA tournament. But if Illinois works on its rebounding, Brown said, it should be OK.

“We’ve just got to come in with the same mentality on the road that we do at home and continue to rebound,” Brown said. “That’s got to be our thing for these last two games.”

Illinois is almost guaranteed a trip to the NCAA tournament, but will likely get a higher seed if it can pull off a pair of road wins and play well in the Big Ten tournament. While some critics question whether the Illini are a true NCAA title contender, Brown said the team is still confident it will play deep into March.

“This is college basketball,” Brown said. “We feel like we’ve got a legit shot to do some big things, and that’s what we’re going to work towards.”