GAME NOTES: The 2015 Big Ten Conference Tournament continues from the United Center in Chicago on Thursday, with the first game of the second round pitting the ninth-seeded Michigan Wolverines against the eighth-seeded Illinois Fighting Illini.

The winner will advance to Friday's quarterfinals to battle regular-season champion and No. 1 seed Wisconsin.

Prior to the 2014-15 season starting, Michigan was thought to be one of the top teams in the conference, but things took a turn for the worse when the Wolverines suffered a shocking home loss to NJIT in early December. The Maize and Blue, who have an official record of 11-15 in the Big Ten Tournament and have no titles to their credit, although they did finish first in the inaugural event back in 1998 only to later have it vacated, enter the postseason having lost seven of their last nine games.

Illinois comes into the tournament just one win shy of 20 for the season, and the Illini earned an even split of their 18 league matchups. They have gone into a bit of a tailspin of late, having lost four of their last six games. Illinois is tied with two other teams for the most Big Ten Tournament titles with two, the last coming in 2005, and the team is 10 games over .500 all-time in the event (25-15).

Illinois leads the all-time series with Michigan, 86-79, and the teams split a pair of meetings during the regular season, with each winning on its home court.

Even before leading scorer Caris LeVert (14.9 ppg) was lost to injury, Michigan wasn't an offensive force, and the team finished the regular season averaging just 64.6 ppg. Derrick Walton, Jr. (10.7 ppg, 4.7 rpg) is also out of commission, leaving Zak Irvin (14.0 ppg, 4.5 rpg) as the only active double-digit scorer for the Wolverines, who will look to a host of others to produce on offense, while the team as a whole tightens up on defense, an area it fared fairly well in this season in allowing just 64.0 ppg. UM will need to crash the boards as well, but that is something it failed to do with much success during the regular season, coming in at -3.5 in rebounding differential.

Illinois has done a better job of scoring this season, netting right around 70 ppg, despite shooting just 41.8 percent from the floor. The Illini converted 36.3 percent of their 3-point attempts however, and are close to 80 percent accurate at the foul line. The club has also been effective in goading the opposition into making mistakes, logging 13.1 turnovers per outing, and it permits just 62.8 ppg. Illinois boasts three double-digit scorers in Rayvonte Rice (17.0 ppg, 6.4 rpg), Malcolm Hill (14.2 ppg, 4.8 rpg) and Kendrick Nunn (11.2 ppg).

Michigan is bound to struggle to score in this matchup, leading to what will likely be a solid win for the Illini.