It's a rivalry! It's kind of a rivalry! It's one school that claims to be Chicago's Big Ten team playing a home game in front of less supporters than the road team! It's Northwestern-Illinois!

Northwestern plays a bunch of murderous opponents, and Illinois is arguably the least murderous. Hence, this is important, as is the whole "beating your only in-state opponent at home" thing. Northwestern hosting Illinois at Welsh-Ryan is always mighty poppin' due to the festive atmosphere of a 50-50 crowd, and this game should be no different, as it figures to be crucial. Football has gone poorly the past two years, and last year's basketball split was not exactly satisfying. So it would be pretty nice for the basketball Wildcats to show up and beat their orange loving downstate opponents tonight.

I'll be at the game, but for those of us on the internets, the game thread is here. Obviously.