When the Illinois volleyball team faces off against Northwestern on Wednesday, it will be a battle of teams going in opposite directions.

The Illini (18-5, 10-2 Big Ten) have won seven consecutive matches, while the Wildcats (14-9, 4-8) have lost seven of their last eight.

In a scheduling quirk, the Illini will face the Wildcats in Evanston, Illinois, on Wednesday and then again at Huff Hall on Saturday. With the addition of Rutgers and Maryland to the Big Ten, teams still play 20 conference matches. With the additional teams, however, some teams can gain an advantage because not everyone plays each other the same amount.

“I don’t necessarily like the schedule, but I don’t have a better solution,” head coach Kevin Hambly said. “I haven’t come across a coach that likes it.”

The plan with the new schedule is that teams will all play each other the same number of times over a four-year cycle. The Illini have seemingly benefitted from the schedule by only playing No. 12 Purdue and No. 6 Penn State once each this season.

“If we were to go one year and out of it, there should be an asterisk next to the team that wins the Big Ten, even if we were to win it,” Hambly said. “You should have to play every team twice. That’s impossible, I know, but it’s hard to go through this thing and feel like there’s a true champion.”

The Wildcats are the lone Big Ten team the Illini have yet to face. Northwestern has been up and down this season, with quality wins over then-No. 18 Minnesota and against Michigan on the road, but the Wildcats have struggled as of late.

Northwestern is led by senior middle blocker Katie Dutchman, who is second in the conference in hitting percentage at .409.

“She just knows how to get up and hit to space,” middle blocker Anna Dorn said of Dutchman. “One way we can control that is to just serve tough, then they hopefully can’t get to her.”

The Wildcats will be faced with a size disadvantage at the net. Dutchman is just 6-foot in the middle and the Wildcats’ two main outside hitters, Symone Abbott and Monica McGreal, are 6-foot-1 and 5-foot-11, respectively. Those two will be squaring off against 6-foot-6 Liz McMahon.

“We’ve done pretty well at stopping them. If we use it right, it can be an advantage,” McMahon said. “But they’re also really smart and really aggressive.”

With the two teams playing twice in a span of four days, Hambly is taking the whole week as one giant match.

“I think it will be much more interesting than playing now and playing way later,” Hambly said. “But I don’t love it either way.”

Stephen can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @steve_bourbon.