Illinois men’s basketball (10-3, 1-1) kicks off the new year on the road on Saturday night, taking on Penn State (9-4, 0-2) in the City of Brotherly Love. The Illini are coming off two dominant wins to close out the nonconference portion of their schedule: a 43-point blowout of Missouri and a 35-point obliteration of Southern. Now, Illinois gets into the bulk of Big Ten play after splitting its first two conference games in early December.
“One game at a time, one day at a time,” said Illini head coach Brad Underwood. “It’s handle your day-to-day assignment, the next game, the next play. You can’t ever get too up, you can’t get too down. The next one hits you in the face, and you’ve got to continue to be very, very good every night because the coaching’s terrific.”
Welcome to The Palestra
Nicknamed the “Cathedral of College Basketball,” The Palestra is not Penn State’s home arena. Instead, the hardwood in the 99-year-old building is usually graced by the Ivy League’s Penn Quakers, who call Philadelphia home. It’s unfamiliar territory for Illinois, but one that provides excitement for basketball junkies.
“Obviously, very excited personally to be in The Palestra, a place that I’ve never been or coached a game,” Underwood said. “I love old field houses. I love history. Just the uniqueness of what some of these old buildings have and the history, I have great appreciation for.”
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The Palestra only seats 8,700, so the atmosphere is a lot more intimate and has the ability to get electric in a different way than high-major college or NBA arenas can. With the smaller arena for fans comes a more stripped-back experience for the teams as well, but it’s all a part of the building’s charm. At the end of the day, the playing field is the same, just with different trimmings than a typical game day at State Farm Center or a highly produced game at the United Center or Madison Square Garden.
“We get kind of get spoiled sometimes with coaches’ locker rooms and having space – and these places you don’t have some of those amenities,” Underwood said. “You get NBA arenas, and we’re spread out and, now you’re in a place that’s going to not have some of those things. … The court’s still the same length, and rims are the same height. You’re going to go in, and you’re going to play. … They can set us outside for all I care.”
Nittany Lions to watch
First up on the scouting report for Underwood is Penn State’s backcourt, led by freshman guard Kayden Mingo and redshirt junior guard Freddie Dilione V.
“They got great guards,” Underwood said. “Dilione and Mingo, they play in a tremendous amount of ball screens.”
Mingo is the main driver of Penn State’s offense, averaging team highs in both points (14.8) and assists (4.5). He has also been a pesky defender in his first year of college ball, racking up a team-high 31 steals in 13 games. Mingo’s weakness thus far has been his 3-point shooting. He is shooting just 23.3% from deep on just over three attempts per game. However, inside the arc, he has been very effective, converting on 59.1% of his shots. The key for Illinois defensively will be to keep the young gun from finding easy driving lanes and force him instead to settle for outside shots.
Dilione has come off the bench for the bulk of the season, but he is Penn State’s second leading scorer behind Mingo, putting up 14.5 points per game. Although he is a more capable 3-point shooter at 36%, Penn State has three other significantly more deadly threats from beyond the arc. Freshman guard Melih Tunca (41.9%), redshirt sophomore guard Eli Rice (48.7%) and sophomore guard Dominick Stewart (41.3%) are all shooting at a very high clip from three. The Nittany Lions are young, but they have multiple pieces that have the ability to get hot if the Illini let them, whether that is inside or outside.
“They have a tendency to want to live downhill with Mingo and Dilione and in the paint and driving, creating,” Underwood said. “Yet, they make 14 threes (in their last game).”
Additionally, Penn State has size that can rival Illinois. Every player on the roster is 6-foot-5 or taller with the exception of Mingo. In the frontcourt, the Nittany Lions’ main rotation pieces, freshman forward Ivan Jurić and junior forward Saša Ciani, stand at 7-foot and 6-foot-10, respectively. They also have another 7-foot freshman, forward Justin Houser, who has only played five games but is a viable insurance policy, size-wise. That front line should be a good matchup with the 7-foot-plus Illini junior centers Tomislav and Zvonimir Ivišić.
Penn State: A historically tricky opponent for Illinois
Despite the Nittany Lions usually being a bottom-of-the-barrel Big Ten basketball team, they have posed a challenge for Underwood over his tenure in the orange and blue. Underwood is 5-7 against Penn State at Illinois.
Illinois showed Penn State the door when it visited Champaign last season, taking the visitors down by 39 points. Just the season before, however, the then-No. 12 Illini were upset on the Nittany Lions’ home turf following a late-game collapse. Penn State has won its last two home games against Illinois, but it remains to be seen if it can continue that home luck in Philadelphia.
No matter what, Underwood wants his team to be prepared. The Big Ten season is a grind, and starting off 2026 on the right note will do a lot to shore up confidence in his team’s ability to be more consistent.
“You got to have some toughness, some grit — we talked a lot about that — to go on the road and win,” Underwood said.
