Illinois coach Bruce Weber has taken a path to tonight's game in Champaign similar to that of Penn State's Ed DeChellis. Both spent time as assistant coaches in the Big Ten and created their own success as head coaches at mid-major schools.

Weber coached at Southern Illinois for five years and DeChellis spent seven years at the helm of East Tennessee State.

The two face off tonight as heads of their own Big Ten programs, but the state they inherited them in couldn't be more different.

DeChellis landed with a school coming off of consecutive 7-21 seasons that had lost its top two scorers and was replacing a coach who had resigned because of it. Weber, however, was taking over a perennially strong program coming off of a 25-7 season, which made the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and for a coach that left for the even greener pastures of Kansas.

In terms of talent, the Nittany Lions (8-6, 2-1 Big Ten) have nothing on the Fighting Illini (11-4, 2-2).

"Obviously, they're a very good team," DeChellis said. "I'm anxious to see how we come out on the road again."

Freshmen Ben Luber and Marlon Smith got a good glimpse at the defensive challenges that await them in conference play when they took on Michigan State's guards, but tonight will be an entirely different level.

The Illini feature one of the best guard tandems in the conference in sophomores Dee Brown and Deron Williams. And while Brown -- one of the most electric players in the conference last season -- is the bigger name of the two, Williams has managed to overshadow his counterpart with better numbers in the first half of the season.

In last Wednesday's loss in East Lansing, the Spartans' top guards had no problem cracking the Lions' defense with outside shots as Chris Hill scored 17 points, including 5-for-7 from behind the arc, and Sheldon Brown scored 13.

DeChellis made it clear that the effort on defense would have to improve for tonight's game.

"We're a team that needs to play great defense," DeChellis said. "I just don't see us as a team that's going to score 70 or 80 points a night, so we've got to keep the score in the 60s and low 70s for us to win games."

On offense, DeChellis said he would follow the blueprint that Purdue and Northwestern used to down the Illini -- attack them inside, be aggressive and draw fouls.

"Their opponents have shot a lot of free throws," DeChellis said of Illinois. "They've really fouled a lot, so it's important that we make them guard and hopefully we can get stuff at the free throw line."