After four straight losses, and six in the past seven games, head coach Jolette Law looked to Icebox to heat up the Illini.

Law brought in a motivational speaker from Icebox International to talk with her team Monday. The Illini hope to apply what they learned from the speaker in their home game against No. 19 Ohio State on Thursday.

The team is ready to begin its second round of Big Ten matchups, where it hopes for better results than the first time around. The speaker from Icebox has worked with big names such as Michael Jordan and Lebron James, and sophomore center Jenna Smith said he definitely changed the team’s outlook. The team was given advice on how to focus when it comes down to the wire and how to stick together and relax during the game.

“It brought us closer together – people shedding tears, people telling how they feel, people getting stuff off their chest,” Smith said. “It just made us really think about how to play together. One of the biggest things we talked about in the meeting was to believe in each other – to believe in this program, to believe in this team and believe in everything we are trying to do. I believe there is still a lot of positivity and hope in us.”

Illinois should be very familiar with Ohio State, as they faced them on Jan. 17 and suffered a 43-42 loss in the final seconds in Columbus, Ohio. The Illini led most of the game, but the Buckeyes’ Maria Moeller made a three-pointer with 14.5 seconds remaining and Illinois was unable to get a final shot off.

Smith, though, believes the team was on its game except for a few minutes in the second half.

“I thought that game was actually one of our best games,” Smith said. “We went on a three or four minute spread where nothing was going our way. They were hitting shots, we didn’t execute on offense, and we weren’t hitting shots.”

The Buckeyes are led by freshman center Jantel Lavender and senior guard Marscilla Packer. Lavender is averaging 17 points a game and leads the Big Ten in rebounding with 10.2 boards per game. Packer is averaging 14.7 points a game and has made 53 three-pointers on the season to lead the conference.

Junior forward Chelsea Gordon said the team was able to successfully contain Lavender and Packer last game.

“Overall we were pretty happy with how we played with them,” Gordon said. “But I think that we are going to have to put some more points up on the board and maintain our defensive intensity and communicate throughout the game.”

The Illini are receiving extra help from assistant coach Patrick Klein this week, an Ohio State alumnus and a former graduate assistant on its basketball staff the last two seasons. Klein has informed the players of the instant offensive approach of Buckeyes’ head coach Jim Foster and the tendencies of their players. However, he said it is all going to be up to each individual player to play a full 40 minutes.

Gordon said she thinks the team can finish the season on a 9-0 run and believes the losing streak is mostly due to a lack of mental toughness.

“I think the losing streak just has to do with us not doing the little things throughout the whole game,” Gordon said. “We’ll go on spurts. Sometimes in the second half we’ll get a little spot where we don’t do exactly what we’ve been doing so therefore the other team will go on a run.”

In order to go on a 9-0 run and make the NCAA tournament, the Illini are going to have to first figure out a way to beat the only ranked team in the Big Ten Conference.