Illinois barely survived Chattanooga in the first round, not taking the lead until the final minute. But that’s when you want to have the lead and the Illini prevailed 54-53. It was certainly not an impressive performance and I think the Fighting Illini are in trouble here against 5-seed Houston.

Houston made it to the Final Four last season. The Cougars began this year’s tourney run with a dominant 82-68 win over UAB. It’s now eight covers in the last nine games for Kelvin Sampson’s team, who is 30-5 on the year.

Illinois was outrebounded by Chattanooga. That’s a terrible sign. So are the Illini’s offensive numbers from the L4 games, a stretch in which they’ve gone 0-4 against the spread. Three of those games have seen the team score 63 points or less and shoot worse than 40 percent from the field. They made only 3 of 17 three-point attempts against Chattanooga.

Houston averages 76 points per game while giving up an average of just 59.1. They are one of only five teams in the country to rank in the top 20 nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency. This is a championship contender.

Illinois has failed to cover each of the last six times they’ve been off a straight up win. Lay the points.