The Illini men’s basketball team may already be nine games into the Big Ten season, but senior forward Bill Cole said a lot of growing up happened between last Thursday’s loss at Indiana and Tuesday’s home victory against Penn State.

“I can’t really put a finger on what it is, but I think something might have clicked over the week,” Cole said Tuesday. “And I think everyone’s attitude is just right where it needs to be.”

Now midway through the conference season, Illinois (15-7, 5-4 Big Ten) has nine games left against Big Ten foes, starting Saturday at Northwestern (13-8, 3-7).

Five of those matchups will happen on the road, where the Illini have lost three of their four Big Ten road tilts. But Cole said he expects whatever corner the Illini turned during the week to help Saturday.

“I think we’ll show that we’re over our away woes,” Cole said. “We realize how good we are at home. For some reason, we just don’t seem to have the same swagger … on the road. But I think we’ve just got to keep pushing it and it will come.

“Saturday’s a great test for us. I don’t get why we don’t just play like that on the road. We’d be ranked a lot higher.”

Cole didn’t know whether the revelation came in practice or through the losses, but he credited the Illinois coaching staff with a week of intense practices that had the team playing hard.

The effort paid off Tuesday, as Illinois downed Penn State at the Assembly Hall behind a 22-point performance from senior forward Mike Davis. But the Illini will have to take the show on the road Saturday against Northwestern.

“When you lose, everybody has answers, everybody has excuses,” Illinois head coach Bruce Weber said Tuesday. “We’ve just got to worry about ourselves and do what we’re supposed to. It’s one game at a time. We got the first one, now we’ve got another one on Saturday.”

Their last time out, the Wildcats threatened to upset No. 1 Ohio State, overcoming a 13-point deficit early in the second half before eventually falling 58-57. Northwestern was without the services of leading scorer John Shurna in that contest, as the junior forward sat out with a concussion suffered against Minnesota on Jan. 26.

Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody said Shurna was evaluated Saturday morning and seems to have improved, but the results still weren’t clear.

“I’m certainly not an expert at this, but you hope he continues to improve,” Carmody said. “I think with a concussion, people really aren’t too certain about that. So we just have to wait and see where it goes.”

The Glen Ellyn, Ill.native leads the Wildcats’ offensive attack, averaging 19 points to go along with 4.7 rebounds. Senior guard Michael Thompson comes in second, averaging 14.2 points. Thompson led the way for Northwestern against the Buckeyes, grabbing 16 points and eight assists.

While the Illini made quick work of Shurna and the Wildcats in an 88-63 win at the Assembly Hall on Jan. 6, Cole isn’t expecting more of the same this time around.

“We know they’re a good team, and they’ve been kind of resting Shurna in preparation for our game,” Cole said. “He didn’t play great the first game, so I know he’s going to come out looking to exert himself, and we’re going to have to a good job of stopping him.”

But that’s easier said than done, as Northwestern runs plenty of sets for its big man.

“Basically you just try not to let him catch the ball, you have to try and push him out,” Cole said. “And then you can’t let him get offensive rebounds.”

The Illini were last able to string together consecutive wins around the beginning of the year, defeating Iowa on the road and Northwestern and Wisconsin at home. The team knows the importance of putting together another winning streak to keep hopes of an NCAA Tournament bid alive.

“A lot the NCAA Tournament talks about is your last 10 games of the season and that’s where we’re at right now,” Cole said. “We kind of talked about it each start, a new, fresh beginning. We kind of messed up a little bit, we had some highs and lows the first part, and now we’re trying to kind of be more consistent.”