NCAA Basketball: Houston rises, Duke, Arizona, UConn and Baylor fall in latest top-25 power rankings

15. Illinois Fighting Illini - 20-7 (11-5 Big Ten)

Illinois is responsible for one of the best offensives in all of NCAA Basketball, scoring 85+ points in each of the last six games. But the question with them has never been about offense but rather defense, especially late. Against Penn State earlier in the week, the Illini were up by over 20 points in the second half in what was surely going to end up being a blowout.

Instead, Illinois found a way to lose a game while being up by seven points in the last minute. The disastrous final portion of the game created a 90-89 road loss. It ruined an awesome scoring game from Terrence Shannon Jr., going for 35 points and 11 rebounds. Marcus Domask was the only other double-digit scorer with 15 points and six rebounds.

The defense wasn’t much better at home against Iowa, allowing 85 points once again. But the offense was good enough to make it not matter, getting a 95-85 bounce-back win. After making a couple of key mistakes in the loss to Penn State, Coleman Hawkins came up huge on Saturday, scoring 30 points on 9/11 shooting from the field and an additional 9/11 from the FT line. Justin Harmon was perfect from the field off the bench, chipping in with 12 points.

Illinois remains at home on Wednesday, taking on a Minnesota squad that should be desperate for a win to have any at-large hopes going forward. After that is a big road battle at Wisconsin, with a win potentially locking up the Illini for the 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament.