A funny thing happens when you play a team that doesn’t have anything to lose because it has lost so much already.

Ask No. 4 Michigan on Sunday night; it ran into a Penn State team that was winless in conference play and found itself grinding out baskets and relying on a Herculean effort from Trey Burke at the end of the game just to secure a home victory against a Big Ten bottom feeder.

Illinois, winners of four straight, stares down a similar mental barrier Thursday night at Assembly Hall in its only regular-season tilt against Penn State. The Nittany Lions have not won a game since Dec. 29 and are still winless in the Big Ten.

But Illinois head coach John Groce insists Penn State is playing some of its best basketball of the year — after consecutive losses to Iowa and Michigan by a combined score of 10 points — and that his team will not overlook its opponent.

“Obviously, they’ve been through a lot of adversity,” Groce said. “They’re getting better and, obviously, they’re choosing to get better. So I think that speaks for the mental toughness on their team. We’ll be challenged.”

No amount of mental toughness is making up for some of Penn State’s deficiencies that are evident in statistics. Out of the 347 Division I basketball teams in the NCAA, the Nittany Lions rank 308th in the nation in points per game, 338th in assists per game and 333rd in field goal percentage.

The lone bright spots for Penn State are two guards that shoulder the load in almost every facet — D.J. Newbill and Jermaine Marshall. Newbill tallies 16 points, 5.7 rebounds and four assists per game, while Marshall averages 14.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.4 assists. Both guards score a majority of their points slashing to the rim, which Groce sees as an area his team needs to improve on defense.

“They get to the free-throw line a lot,” Groce said. “That’s one of the areas we have to clean up. Even from the other night, I thought we fouled too much (at Northwestern). They put you in that predicament with how hard they drive the basketball, especially those two guards.”

Upon further analysis of the game film of Penn State against Michigan, Brandon Paul saw that Michigan was hurt in its transition defense — and its mindset.

“A little bit of it was that Michigan maybe went into that game looking past them a little bit,” Paul said. “Penn State showed they’re a force to be reckoned with. They played well. I think they had like 19 points in transition against them, so that’s something we want to slow down as well.”

Groce reiterated that his team’s defense, which has improved steadily in the last month, has been the best that he’s seen all year and that he wants it to still improve. Now, Groce wants to coach guys that “when they get scored on, they get ticked off.”

Tracy Abrams, who graded out as an “A” on defense in Illinois’ last game against Northwestern, said that he and his teammates are starting to adopt that frame of mind.

“We know we have to guard better in order for us to win,” Abrams said. “That’s what we’ve been doing and we have to keep it up.”

Thomas can be reached at [email protected] and @ThomasBruch.