Scott Richey covers college basketball for The News-Gazette. His email is [email protected], and you can follow him on Twitter ( @srrichey ).

After the game of the season on Thursday, the University of Illinois men's basketball team knew Sunday's game against Washington might be different. While the Illini started on a good note, the Huskies came back to tied things up late in the game,

Illinois (11-3, 3-1 Big Ten) managed to hold off Washington (10-5, 1-3) by a score of 81-77 on Sunday in Seattle, but it only just survived a fierce comeback as the surging Huskies simply ran out of clock to work with.