We like the Illinois Fighting Illini to defeat the Xavier Musketeers on Friday at 9:45pm ET for a number of reasons. Here are some of the more important ones:

Illinois is very good at this time of the year and we think that this is a good matchup for them.

The Fighting Illini are 4-1 straight up and versus the spread over their L5 games this season.

They are also 10-2 over their L12 games played in March, over the years.

Xavier is very bad as an underdog. It's lost 19 of its L20 games when coming in not expected to win.

The Mustketeers average just 30.2 rebounds a game -- Illinois averages 39.6. That's a mistmatch.

Take Illinois

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