Florida Atlantic vs. Illinois Preview; How to Watch, Prediction, Best Bet

Move over NBA In-Season Tournament, it’s time for the Jimmy V Classic in college basketball!

ESPN has a banger of a doubleheader, with the first game featuring the No. 11 ranked FAU Owls traveling to Champagne, Illinois to take on the Fighting Illini

The Owls have gotten back on track with recent wins over Texas A&M, Butler, and Virginia Tech after losing an early game to Bryant. FAU returns most of the squad that made a final-four run last year and is every bit deserving of their No. 11 ranking.

Illinois has been a slight surprise in the early season, registering a 6-1 record behind a very strong offensive attack.

The Fighting Illini are slight underdog tonight, but do they truly have the edge?

Read below for our complete guide to this huge early-season showdown.

How to Watch

The entire Jimmy V Classic can be seen on the ESPN Family of Networks and the ESPN App. Tonight’s game tips off at 6:30 Eastern on ESPN. Dan Schulman and Jay Bilas will have the call, with Angel Gray providing updates from the sidelines.

Florida Atlantic Owls Team Preview

Like I stated above, this FAU team is almost an exact copy of the team that made the Final Four run a year ago.

Returning guards Johnell Davis, Nicholas Boyd, Bryan Greenlee, and Alijah Martin account for nearly 48 points per game, while 7-footer Vladislav Goldin has taken a monster leap in production.

The Owls center is averaging 15 points per game this season after averaging just 10 a year ago.

FAU is an offensive juggernaut shooting over 50% from the field and 38% from 3-point range, but the “slept-on” part of their team is the defense.

The aforementioned Martin, Boyd, and Davis all average around 2 steals per game. Goldin adds just over 2 rejections per game to that mix.

While this team isn’t overly deep, the main 6 contributors are as good as any 6 players in the nation. Head coach Dusty May has the chance to lead this team to a No. 1 seed in a soft AAC conference.

A win tonight would be a good start.

Illinois Fighting Illini Team Preview

While Florida Atlantic offers some elite offensive firepower through a variety of scorers, the Fighting Illini have one of the best scorers in the country.

Terrance Shannon Jr. may be the best shooter college basketball has seen in years. The super-senior guard is shooting an asinine 49% from 3-point range this season, which is comically only 2 points better than his total field goal percentage.

The guard is the focal point of the Illini offense, but the key for them to win this game comes down to the play of forwards Dain Dainja and Marcus Domask.

Both players are averaging just a tick over 9 points per game, and offer a mismatch for an FAU team that loves to play small.

The effectiveness of Dainja and Domask is one of the reasons Illinois has gotten off to a great start. They’ll need to take advantage of their size tonight.

I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on forward Quincy Guerrier. The junior doesn’t offer much of an offensive “bag” but is leading the team in rebounds with 7.7 per game. His presence is important in games like tonight where the Illini face a massive center inside.

How he fares could be a good indicator of how he will play against Purdue big man Zach Edey once Big 10 play starts.

Best bet

It is REALLY difficult for me to pick a side in this game, but I do like a certain player prop.

Florida Atlantic has many options on the offensive end, but guard Alijah Martin has been the “big game” contributor for this team on the young season.

In the ESPN Invitational Tournament earlier this year, Martin took 15 shots against Butler before taking 19 against Texas A&M.

He also played 38/40 minutes in the game against A&M, showing Dusty May wants Martin on the floor as much as possible against top competition.

Martin has shot 18/32 (56%) in the three games since that tournament. The junior is locked in from the field ahead of this one.

Alijah Martin is going to soar over 13.5 total points, and you can feel safe betting on him to score 15 for plus-money.

Prediction

This game is going to be amazing. Both teams come in playing spectacular basketball and I honestly have no idea which of them comes out on top.

I’m going to take the FAU in a thriller, but Illinois could easily get a win if the big men up front have solid games.

FAU survives, 76-73