![\"Northwestern\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Northwestern_university.png\")
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<\/p>\n
Next Game:<\/p>\n
at Northwestern<\/p>\n
1\/14\/2026 | 7:30 pm CT<\/p>\n
\n BTN
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\n Busey Bank Illini Sports Network
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\n Jan. 14 (Wed) \/ 7:30 pm CT
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<\/p>\n
\n at\u00a0Northwestern
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History <\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n IOWA CITY, Iowa \u2013 No. 16 Illinois outlasted a late-game surge by No. 19 Iowa, to close out a 75-69 Big Ten road win in a Top-20 matchup on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.<\/p>\n Illinois (13-3, 4-1 B1G) never trailed in the contest and built a 17-point lead at the 11-minute mark of the second half before a furious comeback effort by the host Hawkeyes (12-3, 2-3) cut the advantage to as close as four points, four times in the final two minutes. \u00a0<\/p>\n Three Illini scored in double-figures, led by a game-high 19 points (16 in the second half) from freshman Keaton Wagler<\/a>. Senior Kylan Boswell<\/a> and junior Andrej Stojakovic<\/a> each added 17 points, while freshman David Mirkovic<\/a> posted team highs with 12 rebounds and five assists in the win.<\/p>\n The victory runs the Fighting Illini’s season-long win streak to five straight since the team’s Dec. 22 Braggin’ Rights victory over Mizzou, and gives the Orange and Blue their first 3-0 road start to Big Ten play since the 2021-22 season. \u00a0<\/p>\n The Illini knocked down 10 3-pointers in the game \u2013 four from Wagler, two from Zvonimir Ivisic<\/a>, and one each from Boswell, Mirkovic, Stojakovic and Tomislav Ivisic<\/a> \u2013 and outrebounded Iowa by a 38-31 margin.<\/p>\n Leading 47-38 with 14:30 to play, Illinois mounted an 11-3 run which included both of Zvonimir Ivisic’s<\/a> key 3-pointers and was capped by Boswell’s triple at the 11:25 mark that gave the Orange and Blue a 58-41 advantage.<\/p>\n Iowa answered with seven straight points to pull back within 10, 58-48, with just under 10 minutes to play, but Wagler and Boswell held the Iowa comeback at bay. Wagler scored 11 of his 17 over the final 9 minutes, and Boswell six of his 17 in the last 3 minutes to close out the win.<\/p>\n Next up, Illinois travels to Evanston for a Big Ten road matchup at Northwestern. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. CT on BTN, Wednesday night from Welsh-Ryan Arena.<\/p>\n HIGHLIGHTS<\/p>\n PRESS CONFERENCE<\/p>\n Coming soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n POSTGAME NOTES<\/p>\n Player\u00a0Notes<\/p>\n
Team Notes<\/p>\n
\n\tKeaton Wagler<\/a> scored a game-high 19 points, 16 in the second half, with five rebounds and four assists.
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\n\t\t13th double-digit scoring game of the season.
\n\t\tTeam-most fifth game as the Illini’s leading scorer
\n\t\tEighth straight game with 10+ points, averaging 17.9 ppg\u00a0during that stretch
\n\t\tWent 4-for-7 from 3-point range, his fourth game of the season with at least four triples and one short of his career high vs. Missouri (12\/22\/25).
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\n\t\t\tHit at least one 3-pointer in 15 of the first 16 games of his collegiate career, the most games with a triple on the team this season.
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\n\tKylan Boswell<\/a> tallied 17 points with four rebounds, three assists, and three steals. \u00a0
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\n\t\t11th double-digit scoring game of the season and the 35th of his Illinois career in 50 games.
\n\t\tThree steals marks a season high and is tied for the most in a game by an Illini player this season.
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\n\tAndrej Stojakovic<\/a> scored 17 points with five rebounds and two steals. \u00a0
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\n\t\t10th game of the season scoring in double-digits (three straight).\u00a0
\n\t\tThird game of the season with multiple steals.
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\n\tDavid Mirkovic<\/a> pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds (three offensive) with seven points and five assists.
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\n\t\tSixth game of the season with 10+ boards.
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\n\t\t\tThree consecutive games with at least three offensive rebounds.
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\n\t\tFive assists tied a career-high mark set vs. UTRGV (11\/24\/25) and matched vs. Missouri (12\/22\/25).
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\n\t
\n\tZvonimir Ivisic<\/a> scored all eight of the Illini’s bench points including a pair of key, second-half 3-pointers.
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\n\t\tKnocked down two 3-pointers to move into a tie for the national lead among 7-footers with seven games with multiple triples this season.
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<\/p>\n
\n\tStarters: Kylan Boswell<\/a>, Tomislav Ivisic<\/a>, David Mirkovic<\/a>, Andrej Stojakovic<\/a>, and Keaton Wagler<\/a>.
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\n\t\t11th straight game with this lineup (9-2)
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\n\tIllinois has won five straight games, the team’s longest win streak of the season.
\n\tIllinois has recorded four Quad 1 wins this season, tied for the seventh-most in the nation.
\n\tThe Illini are 5-2 away from home this season
\n\tIllinois is 3-0 in road games in Big Ten play for the first time since 2021-22.
\n\tIllinois outrebounded Iowa, 38-31.
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\n\t\tIllinois has outrebounded 14 of 16 opponents this season with a 12-2 record in those contests.
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\n\tThe Illini knocked down 10 3-pointers and improved to 9-2 in 11 games this season with at least 10 3-pointers.
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\n\t\tIllinois 11 games with 10+ 3-pointers are the most in the Big Ten this season.
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\n\tIllinois improves to 95-77 all-time vs. Iowa and 25-57 in road games vs. the Hawkeyes.
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\n\t\tHead coach Brad Underwood<\/a> is 10-6 vs. Iowa and has led the Illini to five straight wins in the series and 10 of the last 11.
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\n\tThe #16 Illini are:
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\n\t\t665-270 (.711) all-time when ranked inside the AP Top 25, including a 163-150 (.521) on the road.
\n\t\t114-111 (.507) all-time in ranked-vs.-ranked matchups, including a 19-51 (.271) mark on the road. \u00a0
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\n\t85th Big Ten win since 2019-20, one behind Purdue for the most in the league over the last seven seasons.
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\n\t\tIllinois has won a Big Ten-best 37 road games in league play over the last seven seasons.
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Next Game: at Northwestern 1\/14\/2026 | 7:30 pm CT
BTN
Busey Bank…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-233169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}