Kicking off their week on the East Coast, the Illini are set to take on Rutgers (11-11, 4-7 Big Ten), which has lost three of its past four and may again be without the services of freshman guard Dylan Harper (ankle sprain).

Illinois and Rutgers meet on Wednesday night! Our College Basketball odds series has our Illinois-Rutgers prediction, odds, and pick.

Scott Richey covers college basketball for The News-Gazette. His email is srichey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter ( @srrichey ).

Piscataway, New Jersey; Wednesday, 8:30 p.m. EST BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Fighting Illini -8; over/under is 157.5 BOTTOM LINE: Rutgers takes on No. 23 Illinois after Jamichael Davis scored 20 points in Rutgers' 66-63 loss to the Michigan Wolverines.

Illinois rode a healthy rotation to a second-half comeback win over visiting Ohio State on Sunday, and the Fighting Illini finally may have reached the other side of a challenging stretch. Though they dropped five spots in the Associated Press Top 25 poll,

Illinois men’s basketball travels east to take on Rutgers on Wednesday in a matchup which will feature about as much elite pro basketball talent as any game in college hoops this season. Most NBA draft projections have two Scarlet Knights players and one Illini guard being selected in the top ten

Rutgers opponents are shooting 34.1 percent from three-point range – the highest rate allowed by any squad in the Big Ten. Illinois hasn't been able to knock down shots from beyond the arc with any level of consistency this season – and especially of late (five straight games below 28.