Champaign – Come Wednesday, March Madness will have officially begun for Illinois basketball as it begins the postseason with a first-round matchup against Northwestern in the Big Ten Tournament.

The Illini’s record goes from a historically bad 11-20 to 0-0 for all intents and purposes, something Illinois head coach Brad Underwood and company are welcoming with open arms.

“Exciting time. Everybody is 0-0 and it’s during a four-and-a-half-month grind of 20 games dating back to December,” Underwood said. “You look back to every team in this conference and they’ve had ups and downs, momentum swings and things happen. All that gets put to bed and you go with a different sense of excitement.”

Illinois is heading into the postseason with little momentum after losing five of its lasts six games. The series of losses come after Illinois won five of six games, including wins over Maryland, Michigan State and Ohio State.

What’s attributed to this poor stretch of games from the Illini?

“Our opponent’s been good. We catch an Indiana team that’s been playing great. I think some of its matchups. I think (Sunday), Penn State’s a team that doesn’t excite me too much in terms of having to face them and Indiana is that same thing,” Underwood said. “You start looking at things like in the first time in my history I open in zone and I did that based on matchups. We’ve had problems with guys like (Lamar) Stevens and (Joshua) Reeves so that’s been a part of the last few games in trying to neutralize those type of guys.

"And we’ve turned it over a little bit more. We’ve had a great run of a turnover rate of nine, 10 times a game. Sunday was uncharacteristic with 18. I think it has to do with matchups as much as anything.”

Making sure the 18 turnovers remain an outlier isn’t Illinois’ only issue it needs to clean up before the Big Ten Tournament. The team has hit a rough patch on the defensive side of the ball, giving up an average of roughly 80 points per game in its last five contests. The Illini’s defensive rating in the last five games has been well above 100, which includes a horrific 133 rating in their loss on Senior Night to Indiana.

With that said, Illinois was much better defensively when it put up its best defensive efficiency rating of the season in the first half against Penn State. Part of that was due to the Illini opening the game in a 3-2 zone, but the effort and communication was also there. In the second half, however, the defense fell apart, specifically in transition. The Nittany Lions put up 21 points on the fast break, part of which came after Illini turnovers.

Transition defense was a reoccurring talking point at media availability on Monday.

“I was talking to coach (Underwood) earlier and we were talking about getting back in transition earlier,” guard Ayo Dosunmu said. “We played a great half defensively in the first half (against Penn State) and we gave up way too many transition points. You know, just getting back, talking and taking defenders.”

The Illini are also going need the Trent Frazier that emerged as the program’s offensive dynamo last season and at certain stretches this season. Frazier, to his credit, took on more of a facilitator role this year with the emergence of Dosunmu, but he’s disappeared at times with his scoring output.

In his last five games, Frazier is averaging under 10 points. Sunday, Frazier only managed two points and only took two shots in the game. Frazier’s defense has dropped recently as well in regard to his on-ball pressure. Underwood isn’t worried, however, with this recently poor scoring stretch from Frazier because of what else he brings to the game.

“It’s still about good floor game and doing the other things. Offense can be fleeting at times and I think he’s playing exceptionally well,” Underwood said. “I think it was just a tough game for him.”

But let’s not pretend Illinois is the only Big Ten team that wants to make improvements before it lands in Chicago. And when each one walks into the Madhouse on Madison, the beauty that is college basketball in March will have begun.

“This is what it’s about. This is why we lift weights. This is why we train. This is why you get in the gym and spend all those hours, so you can enjoy these moments,” Underwood said. “It’s what makes March Madness basketball special.